Best Practice #7

Mike Mix in Oceanside has put together an email marketing campaign, including standard templates for various service offerings.

The idea behind our email newsletter is to keep our name in front of clients. The same can be accomplished with prospecting for new clients. As you are aware, it takes multiple touches via numerous venues to get a new client. Email templates are one way to reach out and touch a potential client.

Drug Free Work Week

The CAMPA Special Projects Coordinator, Jolene Benner, has been in contact with each of you via email requesting information for the upcoming October National Drug Free Work Week event. This project is the first step in a long journey to raise the awareness of who we are and what we do. In order to make the most of this event this year, she needs information from you on or before August 17th.

In order to maximize the publicity, Jolene will need your input as early as possible. The strategy is to work with each of you to get publicity each week that will be incorporated into the specific publicity for your area. Jolene can coordinate this information, if she gets it ahead of time!

Also, DO NOT FORGET to send her the names of the companies/organizations you would particularly like her to target for this upcoming program. This is such a unique opportunity to generate new business by leveraging this nationally sponsored Department of Labor event as a "door-opener" for AccuDiagnostics.

The more you collaborate with Jolene on this project, the more she can help you open doors for new business contacts. If you have questions, please feel free to contact her via email at jbenner@blackstonehathway.com or call her at 661-579-9400 (M-F 7 a.m. - 5 p.m. excluding from 2 p.m. - 3 p.m.).

Best Practice #6

Oceanside and Sacramento have implemented a Lead and Sales Tracking System that allows follow-up and historical data tracking.

Managing salespeople adds a level of complexity to your operation. Having a good sales lead management system is critical. Of course, once you have one, you have to use it….easier said than done.

Best Practice #5

Both Sacramento and Oceanside have hired new salespeople. These folks come from a variety of backgrounds, including experience in the pharmaceutical industry. These salespeople will be paid on commission.

There are three types of selling in our business - hunting, networking and presenting. Franchisees are best at networking and presenting. Hunting is the most time consuming and easiest to ignore. A good salesperson can supplement the sales process and put more sales leads into motion than franchisees can do on their own.

If you have not thought about adding a salesperson…give it some thought and talk to those that are doing it.

Best Practice #4

Bill has purchased a new Scion vehicle and applied extensive graphics on the vehicle highlighting paternity testing (“Who’s Your Daddy?”) to the back of his new company vehicle.
The dollars spent on this type of marketing are cost effective and can have a profound impact on driving business your way. Generally this type of marketing is cumulative in nature and will build over time. Well done, Bill.

Best Practice #3

Bill Baumgartner has developed some nice marketing aids, including the capability to scan new business card information directly into Outlook’s Contact Manager.

Time is a precious commodity. Developing a database of clients can be time-consuming routine work. It should be delegated and/or streamlined with the use of technology, as described above, to allow you the time for marketing.

Best Practice #2

Bill Baumgartner has developed a nice DOT tri-fold brochure that includes their contact info, location, and program offerings. This is used to solicit new clients or as a general handout piece.
There are a lot of these types of things that have been developed and it would be nice to share these. If you have any collateral pieces that you have developed that are working for you, please forward them to nthelin@blackstonehathaway.com . She will post them on FranConnect or in this blog.

Best Practice #1

Rancho Cucamonga is the first AccuDiagnostics location to offer DNA testing for dog breeding. This service can determine the parenting breeds for unknown mixed breed dogs (such as those obtained at an animal rescue shelter) or confirm the breed for owners wishing to verify a known breed. This program includes brochures with the Rancho AccuDiagnostics address on the reverse, as well as a new slogan—“Who’s Your Doggy?”

Properly handled and marketed, this could produce a nice revenue stream. As with any new product or service, it takes time. Be sure if you decide to implement this or any other new product/service that you have the commitment and time to properly promotes these services.

Field Visit Yields Best Practices

John Lipp, Operations Director, made visits to the SCA locations last month. He discovered great insights into how different locations have developed and implemented procedures that are both improving their operations and making internal processes more efficient. The next series of blog postings will share some of those ‘best practices’ with the Western Region.

The intent of sharing these ideas is to allow you to pick and choose those that are appropriate for your operation. If you have questions, please give the location a call and discuss it with them.
The first post will occur tomorrow.

CAMPA Regional Meeting

The next regional meeting is on September 26th in Sacramento, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. This is a one day meeting.

You should plan on getting your plane tickets as soon as possible to lock in the summer sale rates.

The meeting will cover HR issues, sales strategies, operational issues and possibly some additional training.

List Compilation Project Starts

As discussed in our Brainstorming Conference Call on July 2nd, we will undertake a project to compile a list of all of the clients served by AccuDiagnostics franchisees nationally.

Nicole Thelin will be coordinating this project. The following email will be sent in the next few weeks to all franchisees with a follow up call to ask for their client list. When Nicole calls you, please be prepared to provide this list to her.

I expect that is project will take six months to get to the 90% level but we will keep at it. After the initial list is compiled, Nicole will follow up with a bi-monthly call to gather updates to the list. Again, you should be prepared to provide an update to her.

Blog Schedule Change

As of Monday, July 13th, the CAMPA Today blog will only be updated on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This change reflects opinions gathered from several franchisees who believe that a MWF schedule is more convenient, effective, and easier to use than the previous MTTF schedule.

Partnering on Grants

Jolene Benner, our Special Projects Coordinator who is working on grants for drug testing, has found the perfect non-profit partner. She has provided some basic information about our new “partner”.

The following is a portion of a statement from the manager of the program:

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Success Through Awareness & Resistance (STAR) Unit provides drug, gang, and violence prevention education to students throughout Los Angeles County. It is a collaborative effort between the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, educators, students, parents, and the community to offer an educational program in the classroom to prevent or reduce the use of “gateway” drugs (alcohol, tobacco and marijuana) and violence among our students. The deputies assigned to the STAR Unit work with 246 schools in 36 school districts, teaching over 52,000 students on a monthly basis. The STAR Unit receives funding from three major sources: contract cities and schools, grants, and Asset Forfeiture. It is vital to the STAR Unit to provide excellent customer service and client satisfaction to our cities and schools in order to continue our programs, keep deputies in the classrooms, and maintain our involvement in bringing the schools and communities together.”

Everyone knows the economical problems are causing a lack of funding in most school districts in California. Because of that lack of funding, the STAR program has been pulled from the Lancaster/Palmdale area and the head of the program was thrilled to have a chance to partner with us because of that fact.

Also, Jolene first approached the Lancaster School District because they had announced budget cuts. Having been a librarian at one time, she knew the funding for new materials for the school libraries would be pulled. The head of the district in Lancaster acknowledged that fact However, when she presented the idea of partnering with the District Librarian to provide books for the schools with the theme of drug/alcohol prevention, they said no. They knew that layoffs for teachers were on the horizon so they felt it would be inappropriate to attempt funding of any kind for the libraries under those circumstances.

However, the head of the STAR program was very enthusiastic about incorporating books to be given to the schools through their program. So the grant money, if awarded, would have a certain percentage going to the STAR program, a certain percentage going to the purchase of books for the district and a certain percentage going to Accu to hold an Open House event for the community.

Jolene is in the process of working out all the details and starting the actual writing of the proposal template. All the Accu locations are in an area where a STAR (or similar) program works with the schools. Because of this, a type of template will work for each location.

This is a slow process, but when done correctly, can result in a grant award which would be beneficial to schools, children and Accu locations. Jolene will keep everyone posted on the progress.

SEO Team Stays a Head of Curve

The AccuDiagnostics SEO Team is constantly researching and studying the latest search techniques because the world of SEO is constantly changing. What worked a week ago does not necessary work today and definitely will not be current next week.

Bing is the new up and coming search engine from Microsoft, and they are quickly gaining recognition and popularity. Google is estimated to lose some customer loyalties because of Bing, and Bing has already outpaced Yahoo! So this means it is important for our business listings to be correct.

You can start by using Bing (http://www.bing.com/) and searching for yourself.

See if your business has a listing, and if the information Bing has gathered is correct. This information includes your website, etc.

Then you can manually add your business listing here, whether it is correct or not. You will be prompted to create an account.

https://ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx

Lancaster - Best Practices

During a recent visit to the Lancaster location, John Lipp identified several best practices. Gloria Alcivar, the Lancaster location Lab Tech, has developed some excellent documentation and procedures including:

1. DrugPak documentation on using DrugPak with DOT customers
2. Pulling “randoms”
3. Operating a consortium
4. Making a copy of the actual urine dip stick for documenting historical accuracy
5. Keeping a Lab Log of all specimens sent to a lab for conformation testing

To learn more about these and other procedures, give Gloria a call. She will be glad to share with you the “what’s and why’s” of these best practices.