“Business is nothing more than relationships. It’s the secret.”
– Lee Corso – American Sports Broadcaster
Relationships are everything. This is true whether you are referring to one’s personal life, your veterinary clinic team, or your clients. And it’s no different when it comes to relief veterinarians.
Relief vets are not just warm bodies with veterinary degrees who babysit the practice. They are business to business service providers who work to support your practice through a maternity/paternity leave, vacation, continuing education, illness, associate quest, or increase in service demand. Building strong relationships with several relief practitioners before you need them will increase your chances of filling those shifts when necessary.
Here are some tips on meeting and building lasting business relationships with relief practitioners.
Post a job on Relief Rover, even if you don’t have specific dates. This is a great way to feature your practice and let relief vets know why they should want to form a relationship with your business. Think of it like a dating site. Relief Rover’s simple to use template gives you an opportunity to describe your amazing team, diagnostics toys, welcoming culture, and even feature a video walk-through of your practice.
Interview relief vets, once again, even if you don’t have specific dates. It will be well worth the time. Ideally, invite them to take a tour of your practice and meet your team. If this isn’t possible due to schedules, COVID protocols, or geography then arrange a video interview. You can learn so much about each other via a video call and there are many platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, FaceTime, etc.) that make this simple to accomplish. If you can’t do a video call, phone is better than nothing.
Maintain these relationships once they are in place. Ideas for strengthening your bond with relief professionals include inviting them to team parties, offering employee discounts for product purchases for their own pets, giving end of year gift card bonuses, or giving them a heads up on local CE opportunities that they may not hear about any other way.
With the supply of relief vets being way less than the demand for their services, relief professionals have choice about where we work. And just as you put effort into bonding pet parents to your practice knowing they have many options for veterinary care, building and maintaining relationships with multiple relief veterinarians will be well worth the effort. So don’t wait. Reach out and meet a relief vet today!
