Moving to Professional Selling

Professional Selling
By putting the words professional and selling together in the title we are setting up two challenging questions at the start - Do professionals sell and is there a way to sell professionally? This presentation seeks to address these questions and show how to integrate the selling of services and products into a professional practice.

It used to be thought perhaps that by entering a profession it would automatically bring status, public respect and the custom of their clients. The prospective professional may have started the journey with a vocational calling or declaration of belief that this was the right path to take but to qualify he or she would certainly have had to successfully complete several years of study and training to become a veterinarian, lawyer, or any other professional. This may have been further confirmed by the oaths that would often be taken in order to enter and serve in the profession. Even though the professionals of the past did not view selling and marketing as part of their job it has always been true that in order to survive and hopefully prosper they must have been able to secure enough business with clients to make a living.

A Shift from Curative towards Preventative Treatment
Major changes have affected the veterinary profession in the last 10-15 years with new technology, advances in medicine and clinical techniques but perhaps most importantly a major shift has taken place from curative towards preventative treatments for pets. These changes have created many more services and products for pet owners to buy and for a veterinary practice to be viable it must increasingly be able to effectively sell these products and services to clients in return for their money. The challenge for many veterinarians and their teams is how to be both a professional and to be comfortable in selling to clients. [...]