Alan Robinson's lecture took place in the business theatre at the London Vet Show.

Competition could be the best thing to happen to your practice

"What happens when competition sets up over the road?" This was the question Alan Robinson from VetDynamics asked in the opening lecture in the Business Theatre at the London Vet Show.

Most of the delegates in the room were either worried about, or were experiencing this problem, and were eager to know how to handle it.

The competition usually comes from four different sources: New branches set up by existing practices, the sale of an existing practice to a corporate, practice staff setting up in competition, and new start ups.

As well as corporates moving into more and more areas, there are also increasing numbers of low-cost providers moving into the market -  both of which are seen as a threat by existing practices.

Any practice moving into the market has to achieve three main things:

1. Attract new potential clients
2. Convert these potential clients into actual clients
3. Retain these new clients

The new entrants into the market have to be aggressive in their approach and tend to go in with cheap offers on services such as vaccinations and neuterings. These promotions are usually well marketed and do appeal to a certain sector of the market. The corporates choose highly visible sites and have the backup of a large publicity machine.

So what does the independent practice do when faced with these challenges?

Alan said that the challenges come much more from within the practice than outside it. Most practices are too busy to spend time with their clients, so rather than needing more clients, they actually need to build better relationships.

Rather than fear competition, Alan suggests that it could be the best thing that has ever happened to your practice, because it acts as a wake up call for practice improvement.

Finding a competitor setting-up down the road means that an existing practice should look carefully at and improve the management and systems they have in place. This involves having good leadership, marketing, communication, accounting and financial systems in place and making sure that they are working properly.

The real threat is ourselves. Alan's message was, "Stop competing with others and start competing with yourself." He also pointed out that if a practice does get all of these processes in place, it can lose 15 per cent of its clients and still be more successful than it had been before the improvements.

So if competition moves into your area they may well be doing you a favour by making you up your game and become a really successful practice.