I don't have time to talk now

I was on the phone with a Pfizer rep the other day and she said to me, “Remember when we used to come home and the answering machine light was on?  That was it!  That was the only thing we had to deal with!” 

Boy, did she take me back.  There I was, 1996, opening the door to my apartment, just praying that that little red light was on…that meant I was remembered and loved…didn’t matter by whom.  It’s hard to believe, but 1996 was 17 years ago and a LOT has changed.

We’re busier, right?  It’s not just me, is it?  I work from home a lot, frequently on the weekends.  I send emails to business counterparts and they reply…in minutes!  Since when did everybody pick up a Sunday shift?

My colleague Brenda Tassava took a snap shot of a dry erase board at one of her practices.  Four out of the six surgeries listed were to be ‘texted’ their pet’s status update.  Now in addition to everything else we do, we have to track ‘preferred method of communication’? 

It still blows my mind that people are keeping in touch with their veterinary practices using Twitter.  One of my hospitals installed a ‘live chat’ button on their website page.  Can you imagine?  When I worked at the front desk, it was EVERYTHING I could do to keep up with the phones, now I have a live chat to work too?!  Someone hand me my nerve pills!  I asked the young maniac, the pert twenty-something at the desk, why she pushed for the feature and she happily chirped, “Oh I’m addicted to my phone.  I don’t want to call people…I don't have time for that.  I want answers now.”

I don’t think that’s what Alexander Graham Bell had in mind, Sweetie, but I suppose you have a point.  We are talking in a whole different way…and in a whole different language.

Who reads ads any more?  We don’t read ads.  When’s the last time you opened a phone book and thought to your self,  “Hmmmm, now there’s a nice quarter page layout on a plumber.  I think that’s my man!”  We don’t do that.  We get on the old Facebook page and we holler out into cyberspace, “Hey, my five hundred friends…who knows of a plumber I can trust”.  I could drive you past the same billboard for a week and you’d be hard pressed to pass a test on it’s content, but if I ‘friend’ request you on Facebook, I’m willing to bet you pick up that puppy in less than an hour.

The good news is, provided we strip away the antiquated work systems that we have in place to handle communication (“Mary Ann, you sit up front and answer the phones, Jessie and I will be in the back waiting for the pets to come in”), this way of interacting is not only manageable, it plays directly into the hands of the small business owner.  Online communication provides an extraordinarily intimate and personalized way of reaching our clients and if it’s one thing that small veterinary professionals have in spades, it’s an interest in caring.  Right?  I mean, let’s get honest here.  We GIVE the stuff away because we care so much.  When big business sends us entreaties to ‘like us’, we smell a sales pitch.  Done right, the same entreaty from our veterinarian is a welcome invitation to know someone better that we’re already in love with! 

Social Media and the communication tools of the 21^st Century have the ability to give your practice unheard-of visibility and exposure.  Get busy talking.  I’ll be interested in reading up on your progress…on my phone (!)

California Social

It was during a VHMA conference in San Antonio...I was sitting next to Brenda Tassava, author of Social Media for Veterinary Professionals and we were listening to a lecturer asking the group for a show of hands:  "How many of you have Facebook pages for your business?"  A smattering of arms rose into the air ahead of me.  I thought to raise my own, but I thought, 'what for? Yes, I have a Facebook page for my practice, but I don't know what I'm doing with it.'  And by the lack of enthusiasm with which the attendees ahead of me were holding their arms up, I could tell they weren't much better off.  That's when I turned to Brenda and asked her, 'you have a Facebook page for your practice?'

Brenda gave me a quizzical look, "Of course I have a page for my practice. I wrote the book, Social Media for Veterinary Professionals didn't I?  You think I made that junk up?"

Well, then we should put together a class where we teach people how to do that"

Brenda shook her head and looked up at the ceiling.  "Bash, that's what I do.  That's what I do all the time.  Where have you been?"  She grabbed an arm of her eyewear and wiggled them a bit.  "See, purple glasses. I do these kinds of lectures all the time.  I'm the very definition of a Social Media Maven."

Yeah, but we should put on a real class.  Not one of those ones where people sit around and listen to you talk.  We want them to learn."

"Are you outta your cotton pickin..."

"Shhhhhh", Debbie Hill (two seats over) hissed.

"Are you outta your mind?", Brenda began again, this time softer but all the more angry.  “I pack houses, Buster Brown and don't you forget it.”

"I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about a class where people have hands on experience.  We should teach them all the big applications, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, blogging.  Provide them with computers to play with.  Walk them through the process in real time. Make the class accessible to the most computer unfriendly veterinarian around. 

“Call me when you put it together, Einstein, but remember,” she added turning back to the lecturer and clearly ending the discussion, "I'm booked through April of next year."

Well, I'm here to let you know that this 'Einstein' did put it together.  And we got Brenda to help us all right.  Even added the inimitable Brie Messier and Phillip Barnes to the mix. We put sell out classes together at Pace University in New York City, the award winning Northstar Veterinary in Robbinsville, NJ and the gargantuan Oradell Animal Hospital in Paramus. Later we rebooted our tour for the gregarious and fun-loving Hodges’ at Valley Central in Allentown, Pa and the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association at their annual region-wide veterinary symposium, the Keystone Conference.  At each location, you could see that we had achieved our goal.  All around the room, the 'lights' were going on in people's heads.  We had given them the information they needed to really understand what they were doing with Social Media marketing.

Now we're headed out West to Los Angeles and San Diego.  We've added Pinterest to the list of important applications that you'll learn and jazzed up our instructor roster with the addition of Vincent Gimenez, a teacher whose experience in technology is outmatched only by his willingness to help his students.  But probably best of all is this:  because we are partnering with our good friends, the PVMA, and because of educator's expertise int he area, California attendees will receive SIX Continuing Education credits from the California Board of Veterinary Medicine.  That's SIX continuing education credits, breakfast, lunch, a midday snack and a full day of education for the price of just one ticket!  How can you beat that?

Brenda...never one to be undone, has an idea.  "I know how you can beat that."

"Oh yeah", says I.  "How?"

"Well if you are a current VetStreet subscriber OR if you would like to be a VetStreet subscriber, you could contact your VetStreet Rep for the promo--"

"Hey!  That's supposed to be confidential!"

Brenda smiles and looks up at the ceiling..."well, I'm just saying..."

"Never mind about that.  Here's the link to the ticket page, folks.  And never mind what she said about the VetStreet people.  Forget that she said anything about that." 

See you in Los Angeles and San Diego ;)