1. PHARMACY
BUSINESS
INSIGHT
EDITION 5 | JUNE 2015
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
THE
ENTREPRENEURIAL
APPROACH
JUSTIN BERNHAUT
CASE STUDY:
JACK N’ JILL KIDSHOW TO BUILD AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL
CULTURE
ALEX BONGERS
ADAM FERRIER
2. PBIEDITION 5 | JUNE 2015
PHARMACY BUSINESS INSIGHT
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
Pharmacy Business Insight is a bi-monthly
publication that features commentary from
key opinion leaders from pharmacy and
beyond. The views expressed in Pharmacy
Business Insight belong to the authors
who contribute them. The information in
this publication is of a general nature only
and is not intended to be a substitute for
professional advice.
Sponsored by Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd. (ABN
5008422348) of 38–42 Wharf Road,
WEST RYDE NSW 2114.
PFIZER
FOREWORD
Welcome to Edition 5 of Pfizer’s Pharmacy
Business Insight (PBI), which has changed
noticeably since our February edition.
This slimmed-down, eight-page version
will be published every two months
in response to the fast-paced flow of
information that pharmacists need to
process amid ever-increasing
time pressures.
While PBI’s format has changed, its focus
will not. It will continue to provide useful
information on the current and future
challenges impacting the long-term
sustainability of pharmacy.
From the first four editions’ theme of
‘The Cycle of Change’, we move to
explore ‘The Entrepreneurial Approach’
and how your pharmacy can continue
to adapt and innovate within an
evolving and challenging landscape.
We will share learnings, tools and
examples of best practice that may
assist pharmacists in supporting
their patients:
• Leading consumer behaviour
commentator and psychologist
Adam Ferrier delves into the
psychology of success on page 4
and how you can drive behavioural
change – within yourself, your team,
and your customers.
• Pharmacy of The Year 2015
category winner Alex Bongers
shares his thoughts on page 6
about how pharmacy can adopt
this entrepreneurial approach to
better meet customers’ needs and
support improved community health
outcomes.
• A case study from Jack N’ Jill Kids
brings an entrepreneurial approach
to life. Co-Founder and Director
Justin Bernhaut draws on the
lessons both he and his father learnt
in pharmacy, which helped him
develop an innovative offering.
Roy Morgan’s Image of Profession
Survey 2014 in April showed that
pharmacists continue to be among the
most trusted professions in Australia –
at 92%, the highest level of public trust
since 2003. This presents a significant
opportunity for you to find where
you can deliver the most value and
patient care, and so structure a more
sustainable pharmacy model.
Why does this matter to your pharmacy?
Consider how up-to-date the training of your pharmacists on these
specialised areas may be.
• Are you providing the best clinical care you can to these patients, to
ensure they return to your pharmacy for ongoing support?
• Are you providing services to these patients or running early-
detection or counselling programs to assist pre-diagnosed or just-
diagnosed patients?
Maintaining up-to-date training and services in pharmacy will help you
improve community health outcomes and strengthen pharmacy’s role as
an important hub of patient care.
THE
TOP 5
Therapeutic category growth areas (dispensary)
in community pharmacy*
1 IMMUNOSUPPRESSANTS
2 ANTI-NEOPLASTIC AGENTS
3 ANALGESICS
4 ANTITHROMBOTIC AGENTS
5 ANTI-ANAEMIC PREPARATIONS
* Data and analysis provided by NostraData®.
| 32 | FOREWORD PBI JUNE
EXPERT
CONTRIBUTORS
ADAM FERRIER
CSO/Partner at
cummins&partners. Adam is
Australia’s leading consumer
psychologist and author of
The Advertising Effect: How To
Change Behaviour.
ALEX BONGERS
Team Leader Pharmacist,
Priceline Pharmacy Bourke
Street Mall. Alex is also a
Teaching Associate at Monash
University, Consultant at The
Med Man, and is currently
completing a Diploma of
Business (Entrepreneurship)
at BSchool.
JUSTIN BERNHAUT
Co-Founder and Director of
Jack N’ Jill Kids, which he
manages with partner Rachel.
The business was founded
from Justin’s background
in pharmacy and the lack
of options in children’s oral
hygiene, which led to the
development of an innovative
product range that filled
an unmet need.
ing
recently
your
3. AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL
APPROACH
As a psychologist, there is one genre of book
I really dislike – and that’s ‘self-help’. It’s kind
of like those ‘get rich quick’ spruikers – if
you’re the kind of person who’s going to be
rich, the last thing you’ll attend is a get-rich-
quick program. The same with self-help, and
with businesses I see a similar thing.
Many business coaches write books or
give seminars that say to their flock, “Just
do this, just do that, and you’ll develop an
entrepreneurial attitude”. However, they have
no real understanding of how hard it is to
change the habits of a lifetime.
For those of you who were at APP and saw
my talk (wow, I had no idea how loudly
a pharmacist audience can heckle!), you
would have seen that behavioural change
is a function of two primary variables:
motivation and ease. The more motivated
you are to do something and the easier it
is to do it, then the more likelihood that
behaviour change will occur.
So let’s say you wanted to develop a more
entrepreneurial approach to your pharmacy
business. How would you do that? Well I’m
going to leave the motivation side of this
equation alone – who doesn’t want to be
more motivated?
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS
Some of you may be aware of the Big Five
Personality Factors – the main variables
psychologists use to understand someone’s
personality. They are:
• Introversion–Extroversion
• Neuroticism–Stability
• Agreeableness
• Openness to change
• Conscientiousness.
Guess which of these five personality
variables are most often associated
closely with success? The first is easy, it’s
conscientiousness. That is, if you don’t
work hard and stay dedicated to the task,
you won’t succeed. The second, however,
is a little more interesting – it’s openness
to change.
Successful people are not only open to new
ideas and new concepts, but they get a bit of
a thrill each time they learn something new.
Adopting successful behaviours depends on their ease and your
own motivation, says Adam Ferrier, but specific personality factors
and actions can assure success.
THREE ACTIONS OF SUCCESS
So what actions can we take that are ‘easy’ and trigger our desire to learn new
ways of doing business, and get great health outcomes for our customers? Here
are three that I’d love you to consider implementing:
TALK TO THE PERSON NEXT DOOR: go next door to whichever
businesses surround your pharmacy – a Pancake Parlour, a Foot Locker,
or a dentist – it doesn’t matter. Just strike up a conversation with them
about their business. Ask them what they do to improve things in their
business; which are the good days, and the bad? What tricks have
they used to engage their customers – which have worked and which
haven’t? Years can go by without residential neighbours talking to each
other and I’m sure it’s the same with small businesses – yet they could
end up being your greatest ally.
BUILD AN ALLY: think about all the support services at your doorstep,
to which you could refer people for better health outcomes. For
example, if a customer needs to lose weight, let them know of a 10%
discount rate you can give him for the Foot Locker next door. You’ll be
helping your customers.
PEOPLE WATCH: if actions 1 and 2 were too much, here’s something
even easier. Just watch your customers. Mystery shop. Take off your white
coat and step out from behind the counter and walk around your shop
with them. Imagine what they are buying and why? What was the last
night’s sleep like for the parents coming in for children’s cough medicine
– it must have been hell, up all night? What else can you offer them or
their child to help with their predicament? Filling the script is the most
mechanical part of the job – understanding the person who needs the
script and why is where you can further assist your patients.
STILL READING?
If you’re still reading, you’re interested
enough to do this, can I make one final
suggestion? Do it right now.
Go next door and have a chat, or follow
your customers and try and understand
their motivations. Behaviour change is
also like trying to solve a murder – if
investigations happen straight away, the
more chances the murder will get solved;
the longer you leave it, the less likelihood
that you’ll find the culprit.
Do it now.
I would never suggest what I don’t practise
myself. The building in which my business is
located is a brilliant source of referrals, and
we refer others to them too. Proximity is a
wonderful motivator to make things happen.
“BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE IS A FUNCTION
OF TWO PRIMARY VARIABLES
– MOTIVATION AND EASE.”
1
2
3
| 54 | THE ENTREPRENEURIAL APPROACH PBI JUNE
4. THE GOOD OLD DAYS
I grew up with pharmacies in the 1980s
when there was a strong sense of dynamism
in the industry. It was undergoing massive
changes that saw the introduction
of computerised dispensing and the
beginning of the refined marketing group.
Individual pharmacies had different
personalities and provided unique
healthcare and retail experiences, even if
they were paid-up banner group members.
This personality was underpinned by the
head pharmacist/owner.
There was a clear understanding that
you were engaging with a human being,
whether that be the pharmacist or one of
the family-like staff members who were
also fixtures of ‘the shop’. There was a time
when we didn’t think of turnover in terms of
square footage or retail-savvy shop fittings.
The real asset was the pharmacist.
Pharmacies were a reliable source for
advice, medicines and an eclectic mix of
retail offerings.
THINGS MY FATHER TAUGHT ME
Throughout his career in pharmacy, my father
was known to his customers as ‘Adam’.
Whether Mrs Goldberg was enquiring about
mixing her blood pressure medication with a
Bloody Mary, or seeking help with inserting
film into her late husband’s Hasselblad, only
Adam had the answer.
Very early on, it struck me just how
dependent a community can become on
their local pharmacist. The cold reality set
in after graduating from pharmacy college
myself – with all the latest knowledge and
an eagerness to disseminate it, I was often
overlooked in favour of ‘Adam’s’ wisdom.
Fair enough, too – he’d been a fixture in
that community for decades already.
My father had all the standard pharmacy
offerings and, probably because he took a
personal interest, chose to stock a variety
of commodities ranging from professional
cameras and electronic games to French
fragrances. He even took to importing
some of these goods himself. His personal
interests helped define his business.
Price is important, but for many people it’s
down the list. If price is the only incentive
you have for your customers, you will
struggle to be sustainable. Offer something
unique – yourself.
DO AS YOU WANT DONE
Developing Jack N’ Jill Toothpaste has
been guided by the many ideas touched on
here. I spent many years becoming highly
accomplished at things that others were also
good at. Often I could perform these tasks in
a superior way – but this didn’t guarantee any
more success than others.
Jack N’ Jill was born out viewing the world
through a different lens. Instead of only
looking at the marketplace and trying to out-
perform someone, my wife and I created the
product and brand that we wanted to buy for
our own children. We had a simple approach
that assumed that if we wanted to buy it,
other parents would too.
To satisfy our criteria, Jack N’ Jill needed to
address some issues:
1. Complete safety for a toddler/child
to ingest. The product needed to be
efficacious and have components with a
known safety profile.
2. Taste – we put the formulation rulebook
aside and re-engineered the idea of what
toothpaste should comprise. Understanding
the challenges that parents face when
brushing a young child’s teeth dictated the
need for a product that would taste ‘yum’.
Many years will pass before a child will truly
understand the value of good oral hygiene
– if it tastes good, they won’t care what the
purpose of brushing is. We felt that by making
it fun, children are likely to develop a positive
association with brushing from an early age,
which will last a lifetime.
3. Branding – teeth cleaning is such a
fundamental part of our daily routine that we
wanted to align it with a traditional theme.
The Jack and Jill nursery rhyme creates this in
an ideal way. There is also a warm familiarity
without requiring another Marvel™ or
Nickelodeon™ licensed image/character.
4. Packaging – it needed to be serious yet
playful, environmentally friendly and appealing
to adults as well as children. It also needed to
stand out in a retail environment – we wanted
it to bear little or no resemblance to other
products in this category. We have applied
these design principles throughout our range.
FROM NURSERY RHYME TO
GLOBAL BUSINESS
After four years, our products are
available in more than 30 countries and
business is growing rapidly. Our approach
has allowed the brand to capture the
zeitgeist of modern parenting.
Doing business was never easy and in
many ways it has become increasingly
more difficult. But opportunity is not
directly proportional to this – I believe it is
independent for the most part. Don’t strive to
be as good as the ‘best’ out there. Strive to
let your personality define the fabric of your
business, and the way you engage with your
community. It’s all you’ve got.
EMBRACING
ENTREPRENEURIALISM
New entrepreneurial
ideas for innovating
business can be
a dime a dozen –
how do you know
what will work in
your community
pharmacy? Asking
your community is
the logical place
to start, says
Alex Bongers.
The main thing I have learnt from working
across different pharmacy settings is not
to take anything for granted. A pharmacist
plays a different role in a hospital compared
to a community pharmacy, and both are
completely different to a pharmacist’s
experience in the South Pacific, or probably
anywhere else. Why? Because our practice
depends on the needs of our community and
our willingness to meet them.
Since managing pharmacies and working at
university, I have been exposed to countless
entrepreneurial ideas for innovating in
health and pharmacy practice from other
young pharmacists and pharmacy students.
I love this creativity but there is little doubt
about our limited success in bringing these
innovations to reality.
We should continue sharing these ideas, but
we should also consider an extra layer to
ensure implementation.
LISTEN TO YOUR
MARKET
The first question to ask
of every idea is about its
relevance to your market.
How many customers want a
particular service offering in
their local pharmacy? Please
make sure this question isn’t
about what we can (or want to)
do – implementing a successful
service is not about us, it’s
about our customers.
I recently spoke to some
young community pharmacists
who wanted to introduce HIV
rapid tests. Great service,
great idea, professionally
rewarding – fantastic, right?
Not necessarily. If someone
needs this service, would they
feel comfortable coming in to
a pharmacy for it? What about
services relating to eczema,
hay fever and travel health?
These conditions are our bread
and butter, customers expect
our expertise in this area
and there are no innovative
pharmacy services to
address the shortfall in
their management.
ALEX BONGERS
2013 - 2015
Team Leader Pharmacist,
Priceline Pharmacy Bourke Street Mall,
Australia’s largest pharmacy
2015
Winner of ‘Excellence in Business Management’,
QCPP Pharmacy of the Year
2012
Pharmacy Advisor,
Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development, Fiji
2011
Intern Pharmacist,
Royal Melbourne Hospital
In my last pharmacy we had a
three-hour flu vaccination clinic. It
sold out the same morning it was
announced in an email to our loyalty
card members. Its success had little
to do with what we did or wanted
to do, it was the market telling us
they wanted this service. So we had
picked the right service, but we had
also identified the demand – that is,
we needed more clinic sessions so
people with different schedules
could attend.
The next year we employed our own
nurse practitioner and had three
five-hour clinics a week for eight
weeks. We also vaccinated hundreds
of local workers in their workplaces,
responding to our customers’ needs.
FOUR STEPS TO
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
For a new service in your pharmacy
ΠAsk 10 customers, 10 local health
professionals, a local government
member and their staff about
the largest health problems in
your location.
Take the top three, support them
with any available data, then find a
solution to the problem within your
professional scope of practice.
Ž Pitch these three ideas to a friend
who doesn’t work in health and ask if
they would value these services.
If they would, you might be onto
an unmet patient need.
For existing pharmacy services:
Evaluate the services you
provide – how frequently they
are marketed/accessed, if they
address a community problem,
and if they make your pharmacy
sustainable. If you have services
that are not needed, reconsider
continuing them.
A mentor once asked of one of my
ideas, “What do you win? How much
do you win by? And does anyone
care?” In pharmacy, ‘anyone’ is our
customers and when they win, we
win. Considering this and your market
will ensure success in implementing
change in your pharmacy.
| 76 | POTY/QCPP WINNER CASE STUDY: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESS APPROACH
JACK
N’ JILL
KIDS
A children’s toothpaste range may sound like
a nursery rhyme but developing it wasn’t just
child’s play for second-generation pharmacist
Justin Bernhaut and his wife. Lessons from his
father and children helped to create a global
business that is no fairy tale.
“LET YOUR PERSONALITY DEFINE THE FABRIC
OF YOUR BUSINESS, AND THE WAY YOU
ENGAGE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY.”
