Idea No. 1 Explore New Market Niches: Consider adding a physical therapy/rehab center. How about adding acupuncture and massage?
Idea No. 2 Find an Unmet Need in your Industry and Fill it: What do your clients routinely wish for? Maybe it’s not even about veterinary medicine, but a product or service that helps them better care for their horses. Ask them, and then find a way to make it happen.
Idea No. 3 Build a Better Mousetrap: Whether a better way to perform an old procedure, a redesign of a piece of equipment or a new profit center, the process of invention will energize you, grow the industry and build your business.
Idea No. 4 Improve Efficiency: Use all the new tools available to improve your efficiency—from tablets to enterprise software, there’s something out there that will help you squeeze more productivity out of your day and give you a little more free time.
Idea No. 5 Align Your Products and Services with Popular Values and Trends: Go green (seriously), contribute to horse rescues or racing re-homing projects. Become evangelical about your cause.
Idea No. 6 Make Use of Clubs and Associations: You’ve heard it before, but make 2012 the year you join the local dressage club, volunteer at the hunter/jumper shows or go to meetings of the local chamber of commerce. You never know where new business will come from, but showing your face (and not just your Facebook) is still vitally important to business growth.
Idea No. 7 Practice Co-operative Competition: Partner with at least one—if not two or more—practices to offer vacation relief, referral services or even idea-sharing. Got a tough case? Call an informal dinner with your competitors to pick their brains.
