How many of you are so busy doing your day to day job that you are blissfully unaware of your bottom line? What do you clear after all your costs on a daily basis ? What should you charge per hour if you were asked to carry out some work for somebody else? We are so down trodden by stories of pharmacists working for nothing and working for dispenser rates that we sometimes forget our worth.
I was sailing at the weekend with a project manager who works on many different projects and he said he charges £250 and hour ! That is great I said and when I challenged him , he detailed all his costs and justified his fee. It is about time that pharmacists did the same. Look at the cost of running your pharmacy and the cost of your staff and of providing a quality service. When you are preparing bids for work or to advise a GP surgery or CCG make sure you do not sell yourself short. I think many pharmacists would be shocked at how much their running cost are. Have you produced a robust business plan with solid projections and a budget. Start with your last years figures and produce a detailed SWOT analysis to help you focus, develop robust projections and then feed these into your business plan for 2014. Make time to sit down monthly and review your business plan and progress, feed in your actual figures, review and amend as necessary. If you are slipping behind then take time to find out why ? Ask you staff, carry out a customer questionnaire and action your findings. If what you are doing is not working then change it. Standing still is not an option. There are many willing providers willing to take on your customers. Set yourself “SMART ” objectives and if you achieve them easily then make them harder….drive up your bottom line.