CE DAYTIME SESSIONS
language”, client satisfaction and compliance will increase. While it may seem obvious that effective communication within a team is important, it is not always clear how to start it. This session will cover: • The value of communication training and how it drives revenue; • Understanding the 4 main personality types you work with – the Brain, Voice, Sharp Eye and Heart; • Teaching your team to actively listen. TOOLS FOR INTENTIONAL COMMUNICATION Kim Garling, CVPM 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM | Room 203 A Not all communication is made equal. While it may seem obvious that effective communication within a team is important, it’s not always clear how to grow it. Teams need to utilize the right systems and strategies to communicate with purpose. This session will cover: • The cost of poor communication and why teams need to start communicating “on purpose”; • Strategies to close the communication gaps within your team; • Tools you can start using tomorrow for better collaboration within the team. HANDLE CONFLICT AND REDUCE STRESS IN YOUR PRACTICE Kim Garling, CVPM 4:30 PM - 5:20 PM | Room 203 A Conflict. It is something that many people spend their lives trying to avoid. Within a practice, it disrupts the flow of work, reduces productivity, and reduces team morale. When given the right strategies, team members can learn to resolve issues in a positive and productive manner. While it may seem obvious that effective communication within a team is important, it’s not always clear how to keep it. This session will cover: • The negative impact conflict has on practice success; • The art of making a Quality Request; • Effective conflict management techniques leaders can use. SUCCESS BEGINS AND ENDS WITH THE SUPPORT TEAM: CROSS TRAINING FOR COLLECTIVE SUCCESS Ernie Ward, DVM, CVFT 2:00 PM - 2:50 PM | Room 203 B Our success with veterinary patients and clients relies on the efforts of the entire team, including customer service reps (CSRs), receptionists, assistants, kennel staff, and anyone without a string of initials behind their name (DVM, RVT/CVT/LVT, MBA, etc.). The fact is that veterinary technicians and or veterinarians can’t do what they need to do, practice veterinary medicine, without a solid support team behind them. So why isn’t there more love and appreciation for these crucial colleagues without the degrees and titles? Dr. Ernie Ward believes team cross training is instrumental in building veterinary teams that respect each other and achieve greatness. This is a wide-ranging conversation ultimately designed to help you create a more caring, educational, and nurturing workplace through targeted training systems. If you’re struggling with conflict between coworkers, decreased staff morale, inefficient operations, or losing enthusiasm for work, this session will offer insights and ideas to catalyze your clinic’s transformation! Sponsor: TRAIN YOUR SUPPORT STAFF TO TALK ABOUT PET FOOD PRODUCTS WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE A SALESPERSON Ernie Ward, DVM, CVFT 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM | Room 203 B A nutritious diet and healthy body condition is the foundation of good health for our pet patients. So why do so few veterinary clinic staff discuss pet food and products with their clients? Perhaps they fear being viewed as “salesy” or inadvertently offending a pet parent? It’s time we learn how to talk about pet products and supplies without sounding like a salesperson using narrative nutritional history. The fact is that many veterinary team members struggle to educate and convince clients to begin or sustain a weight loss program for their pets. Team members often lack communication training or educational tools to effectively implement change within their clinics. Veterinary clinics often have few standardized medical or communication protocols, increasing the likelihood for inconsistent patient care and incomplete client service. Veterinary teams need to present a consistent, pet-specific approach to effectively treat pet obesity and overcome these clinical challenges. In this informative and interactive session, Dr. Ernie Ward, founder of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP) (www.petobesityprevention.org) shares his narrative nutritional history-taking technique to help veterinary teams have
more impactful conversations about pet food and products in a more natural, collaborative, storytelling manner. Sponsor: 5-STAR REVIEWS! HOW TO ETHICALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY ASK FOR POSITIVE ONLINE REVIEWS Ernie Ward, DVM, CVFT 4:30 PM - 5:20 PM | Room 203 B Many pet parents choose their veterinarian based on online reviews. Too many 1-star evaluations can slow your clinic growth, while a multitude of 4- or 5-stars can boost your bottom line. The reality is that asking clients for positive online reviews on Google or Yelp can be challenging both professionally and ethically. But there’s a way... This session covers Dr. Ward’s unique and proven method for encouraging more positive online reviews from veterinary clients. Sponsor: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 101: THE THREE NUMBERS THAT REALLY MATTER Tera Eddleman, CVA 8:00 AM - 8:50 AM | Room 203 B Owning a veterinary practice is so much more than just practicing medicine. One of the most important things you can do as a practice owner is having a solid understanding of your practice’s financial health. In order to really comprehend your practice’s financial health, you need to be able to read and understand financials and know exactly what those financials are telling you. Identifying the main financial reports, learning what each report measures, and knowing how to use them as tools, will enable you to financially manage your practice. You can’t manage what you can’t measure! Your practice’s financials tell a story, you simply have to understand the language, so you can see the big picture of what’s happened, what is happening, and what will happen to your practice. Your profit and loss tells you how you are making profits, the cash flow statement tells you how much of those profits you are keeping in cash, and the balance sheet tells you what you are doing with the cash you get to keep. The bottom line is, when you read your practice’s financial statements holistically, you will be able to make smarter financial, investment and managerial decisions for your practice. USING YOUR FINANCIAL STATEMENTS TO MAKE OPERATIONAL DECISIONS Tera Eddleman, CVA; Kirk Eddleman, MHA 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM | Room 203 B As a veterinarian you wouldn’t treat a patient before diagnosing what’s wrong with it. Just like a patient’s vitals and lab work tell the story of their health and ailments, a practice’s financial statements tell the story of its financial health and ailments as well. Too many practice owners look at their financial statements only once or twice a year. Often without truly understanding what the numbers mean. Yet, they make important decisions every day that affect the practice’s financial health. While profits alone don’t necessarily mean a healthy practice, low or lack of profits absolutely indicate a problem. Your decisions regarding pricing, compensation, along with purchasing habits, facility costs, marketing and other overhead, in that order, all play significant factors in your practice’s financial health. In this presentation we will discuss the importance of having accurate financial data and how to use that information to improve your decisions about operations. WHAT IS YOUR PRACTICE’S VALUE? UNDERSTANDING VALUATION METHODOLOGY USED IN VETERINARY PRACTICES Tera Eddleman, CVA 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM | Room 203 B Valuations are highly subjective, especially valuations of closely held businesses with limited marketability, such as veterinary practices. Valuation is indeed an art, not an exact science, but there are several methods and approaches you need to understand when considering the value of your practice. The purpose of a valuation is critical and drives the calculations and considerations for the entire valuation. Depending on the purpose, the same practice can have several different values. Understanding how practices are valued can help you create
more value for your practice when you are ready to sell. In this presentation, we will dissect the most popular methodology for veterinary practices, the income approach and capitalization of earnings method. We will discuss how to calculate normalized profits with common adjustments along with examining risk factors and the capitalization rate or “multiple” as you most commonly hear it called. We will also do a quick exercise comparing the values of two similar practices to illustrate areas that highly effect value. Understanding how your practice will be valued and managing your practice for value right now will definitely pay off in the future! PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR ADDING VALUE TO YOUR PRACTICE Tera Eddleman, CVA; Kirk Eddleman, MHA 11:30 AM - 12:20 PM | Room 203 B In this talk, we will be discussing the benefits of making sound operational decisions based on building practice value. A practice’s value is based upon many factors but profitability and risks are the two main concerns potential buyers consider. Whether you are just starting out or planning to sell in the next year, building practice value should drive influence your decisions. An owner’s decisions about compensation (especially their own) equipment purchases, hiring practices, staff hiring and development, software, renting vs. owning, etc., will significantly impact the value of the practice. Regardless of your succession strategy, building practice value must always remain a key factor in all decisions. Even if you are not planning to sell soon, you cannot predict the future. If something happens and you are unable to work, the value you have built in the practice will determine if and how much the practice will be worth. $ERVICE MATTERS Kim Garling, CVPM 8:00 AM - 8:50 AM | Room 203 A Do you want to deliver good customer service or great customer service? Delivering great customer service requires businesses to employ the CANI strategy of striving for constant and never- ending improvement. This session will cover: • The fact that 86% of customers would pay more for better service, and why we need to create an extraordinary customer experience; • A Step-by-Step guide on how to evaluate your practice, team, and service level to finds areas that need improvement; • Strategies your team can use to make service more memorable. CLIENT EDUCATION AND WHY WE NEED TO STOP TALKING Kim Garling, CVPM 9:00 AM - 9:50 AM | Room 203 A Are you teaching your clients in the way they learn best? Often, veterinary staff rely on the verbal component of communication to educate clients. The challenge with this is that in general, people are not great listeners. After 24 hours, most only retain about 25% of what they have heard. Research has found that 65% of the general population are visual learners, meaning they need to see information in order to retain it. If we want to improve client compliance, we must learn to educate clients in a way that they understand and is most effective for them. This session will cover: • Using effective client education strategies to increase compliance; • Say this, not that – how to reframe recommendations in ways that make sense to clients; • Measuring compliance levels and setting goals. THE ART OF SERVICE RECOVERY Kim Garling, CVPM 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM | Room 203 A In a perfect world, clients would always be kind and respectful, and if our staff were faced with a challenge they would know exactly how to respond. If Covid has taught us anything, it is that the world is not perfect. Mistakes are made, unkind words are spoken, and sometimes clients are dissatisfied with the service provided. The Art of Service Recovery is not only empowering your team to effectively handle complaints, but also encompasses the process of tracking incidents and resolutions. Everyone learns through this process and mistakes aren’t repeated. It is possible to turn a bad experience into a positive one, and an unhappy client into a loyal one. This session will cover: • How to turn unhappy clients into loyal fans; • 5 steps for successful service recovery; • Ways to empower employees with tools to make bad situations better.
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