Vet Marketing with Paul Green

Welcome to the very first edition of the VETT method podcast, where we bring team training concepts to independent veterinary practice owners who want to grow revenues through a high performance team.

SUMMARY

Sanjay (00:34):

The title of the podcast is a “Vet Marketing with Paul Green”, and we’re going to show people how to do that in just seven minutes, if you’re Paul our time starts now. So question number one Paul, who is your ideal client? My ideal client, or a vet’s ideal client a vet’s ideal client,

Paul (00:58):

The ideal clients. The easy answer is to say anyone that’s got an animal, but what would cause she really wants is someone who has an animal is prepared to pay good money for good veterinary care is someone who respects the vet and respects all of the staff and respects the practice and that that’s going to be a certain demographic of people. And I think one of the mistakes that vets make is just opening the doors and saying anyone with an animal come in and I’m excluding, you know, obviously whatever legal duties you have to look after sick animals, the very best clients you want are those who join your health plan. They get their pets insured and they, they do what you tell them to do. And, and for me that’s an attitude or thing and you’ve got to target those kinds of clients.

Sanjay (01:40):

Absolutely. And that leads us nicely on to question number two, what’s the break, what’s the biggest problem vet clients face and how would you help them solve it? 

Paul  (01:51):

I think the biggest problem is that the clients have is that they don’t know what they don’t know. So I’d worked with on and off with that for 10 years. But I’m not a vet, I’m the marketing guy and, but only know, I know perhaps, if that’s the normal member of the public, the normal pet owner and that’s the vets and the nurses and the practice managers, I’m slightly quite often find myself confused. I’m thinking what is going on. When the vets start talking to me about veterinary, about clinical issues and the problem is that, the cause your entire world is veterinary. You read the magazines, you read the blogs, you go to conferences when you can, you know, everything is, is, is bad for the average pet owner. Having a contact with the vet is it’s a once or twice a year thing for something routine. 

When an animal is injured or ill, it’s not every day, they don’t understand the concepts. They don’t know that they should be worming their dog or cat, every single, whatever. You know, they simply don’t have that knowledge and they don’t know that they have that knowledge. So I think the biggest pain point for the client is actually enter your world is actually really scary. You know, vets, practices smell weird now too. You know, that smell, you know, why it had that smell. You probably don’t even notice it anymore. You’re comfortable there. This is your place to everyone else. Vets are weird places. And so I think, I think as a practice owner you’ve got to do everything in your ability to make your clients feel warm and feel comfortable. As well as their pets, of course, you know, most practices are more focused on the animals and they are on the humans, but you’ve got to remember that the humans are the ones that pay the bills. So I think the more comfortable and warm you can make, you can make your practice and the environment and just the way that you talk to them, the better.

Sanjay (03:42):

Fantastic. I think you’ve already answered question number three, which was what typical seven times when people experience with that problem. But I think you’ve kind of covered that. That was very good. Thank you, Paul. So with three minutes and 50 seconds left question number four, what are the common mistakes people make when trying to solve the problem that you just described? You know, the thing that they thought were going to work, but we’re never going to work.

Paul (04:09):

I think if we, if we look at the problem is being, how do you market your practice? I think the most common mistake by most facts is the same thing again, is to think like a vet and not as a pet owner. And, you know, you might get a new 10,000 pound piece of technology and you think, Oh, this is amazing. I can do lap space or I can do this, or I can do that. And so you go off and you do a marketing campaign. That’s, aimed at talking about that piece of kit and what you can do with it. And all of these clinical benefits. And ultimately the best kind of marketing comes down to the lowest possible level, which is we love animals. We’re really warm and friendly people. You can trust us.

Those are the basic marketing messages for any veterinary practice. And vet remarketing is actually really easy. You know, the digital channels that you’ve got available today, especially Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp now is becoming a a month in channel, you know, messenger, the automation levels that you can use getting your website, right? This it’s so easy. Consumer marketing is easier than it’s ever been before, but most of us don’t get it right, because they’re too focused on clinical stuff. And actually you’ve got to focus on being warm on being friendly. In fact, I’m going to make a quick book recommendation on now, the clock is running, but this is the best book you could. Any vet could read on on, on marketing it’s called, “They ask you answer by Marcus Sheridan”.  I won’t go into what it’s about, cause I could talk about it for hours, but it is an amazing book. And when you, when you read it as a practice owner and you and, and you realize it’s about answering people’s questions and talking to people at their level, which isn’t about talking down to them, it’s about you coming down and talking to them at their level. And it’s a revolution of content across your website and across your social media channels. And there will be five UK that implement this book. You could have everyone reading it, but only five will implement it and they will, they will literally wipe out their competitors.

Sanjay (06:04):

I think you’re absolutely right. You know, as soon as we think of something clinical, that’s what we do. As soon as you mentioned marketing, we shut down and it’s implementation. That’s the hard thing. Thank you for that, Paul. And question number five, what is one valuable free action that someone listening to this can implement that will help, that would help them solve that problem? What’s your top tip?

Paul (06:30):

Top tip is to do three times more marketing activity than you’re doing now. So, if right now you’re doing one post a day on social media, do three. You know, if you’re doing Instagram two, three times a week, do it six, nine times a week. Especially with social media, it’s so disposable, the more action you take and the more you implement, literally the return comes back to you faster and because you’re doing consumer marketing, the returns really fast.

Sanjay (06:58):

Brilliant. So that is just to start, you know, start doing, do more and do more of it. Fantastic. And the last question, what’s the one question I should’ve asked you, Paul that would give our audience great value? 

Paul (07:15):

What’s the one question you should have asked me is what do you do if you haven’t got time to do marketing? And the answer is you use the acronym D O now in your world, Sanjay DOA is when unfortunately some things brought in and it didn’t make it and it’s dead on arrival, but actually I want to rename DOA to delegate outsource, automate that is the, the mantra for how to get more marketing done. So if you personally don’t enjoy it, I know I’m out of time, delegate it to a member of your team or outsource it. There’s some great veterinary marketing agencies out there. People like Susie Samuel’s and various other people. And if you can automate it, we talked about Instagram and all of those kinds of things. There are tools like hootsuite, public, and all sorts of other tools that you can automate those actions for you.

Sanjay (08:02):

Wow. That’s fantastic. So if we learn nothing else, DOI, delegate, outsource, and automate. Fantastic. Wow. Thanks, Paul. Those were some really fascinating insights. And I just want to thank you for joining me today on my first ever podcast. Thanks, Paul. It’s a pleasure.