2010 Cardinal Health RBC - an actual pharmacy BUSINESS conference!
This year at the 2010 Cardinal Health Retail Business Conference (RBC), attendees were challenged to elevate their pharmacies to new heights through the tools and programs offered by Cardinal Health, vendors, events, and CE programs.
The theme - Elevate - was not only appropriate since the conference was held in Denver, CO, but because Cardinal upped its game this year, offering wider variety of CE courses. Unlike the usual clinical programs that many pharmacy conferences offer, Cardinal brought in subject matter experts to teach Pharmacy Owners how to make more money, keep more of what they make, and ultimately how to run their business better. This year it was a true Retail Business Conference.
Cardinal loaded up the schedule with classes focusing on how to increase front end sales, plans for business succession and exit planning, and strategies for pharmacies to attract their most desirable customers, just to name a few. On the big stage, attendees took away killer customer service, finance, employee culture and tax strategies...specifically for independent pharmacy!
- Sandy Botkin, Tax Strategies for Business Professionals - who ever thought a CPA and former legal specialist for the IRS could be funny? Sandy humorously enlightened pharmacy owners with the many legal methods for keeping more of what they make. Check out the special tip Sandy shared with the PDS team for all conference attendees.
- Keith J. Cunningham - Playing To Win - Reading the Financial Scorecard and The 6 Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make - taught pharmacy professionals how to simplify and utilize financials, what make up the scorecard of any business. Keith’s approach equipped pharmacy owners and pharmacists with critical skills and tools to analyze, invest and take their pharmacy to the next level of success.
- Roxanne Emmerich - Thank God It’s Monday! 7 Proven Techniques to Double Your Sales! - As a business owner, it is key to create an environment that people want to work in every day. You could have the best prices, but what it comes down to is 4 walls branding. Think of every day at the pharmacy as a big show that your customers want to see...starring your pharmacy staff!
- T. Scott Gross - The Positively Outrageous Service Prescription - There are 60,000+ pharmacies in America that all essentially sell the exact same products. What’s going to differentiate your store? Scott showed us how pharmacies can be competitive by creating an extraordinary customer experience, which in turn creates positive word-of-mouth advertising...and more business!
The PDS team was also well represented as we hosted three CE courses:
- Dan Benamoz (CEO)- The Remarkable Genius of Dumb Marketing and Why It's So Great - A Shortcut to Extraordinary Profits Using "4 Walls" and Neighborhood Marketing
- Mat Silverstein (Chief R&D Officer) & Samantha Timmermann (Manager, Marketing and Social Media) - Brand Management vs. Brand Damagement
- Patti Mara (Pharmacy Business Coach) - Applying the New Rules for Business Success
We particularly enjoyed this year’s RBC conference as it had the feeling of a large PDS Conference and what we do 365 days a year for hundreds of pharmacy owners - pharmacy business development coaching. One attendee summed up the pharmacy business conference perfectly - “the new variety of CE programs at RBC made us aware of the things they didn’t teach us in pharmacy school.”
Simply put, pharmacy owners need better business skills…and if they don't acquire these skills in today's age, they are going to be in trouble. They cannot afford to have this disadvantage and expect to survive and thrive. Now that a larger group of pharmacy owners have been exposed to pharmacy business development classes and seems interested in continuing their business education, we are looking forward to welcoming a larger number of attendees at the PDS Independent Business Development Conference in February 2011 and equip them with the tools they need TODAY to be successful in business.
Cardinal put on a great show this year to help its customers stay on the cutting edge of pharmacy development. We hope they plan to bring the same level of talent to Las Vegas in 2011.
If you went to this year’s RBC conference - what did you think of the new CE offerings?
If you attended a different wholesaler conference - what did their CE schedule look like?
