Growing a Wellness Business

At McMahan Pharmacy in Goldthwaite, Texas, we recognized the wellness market potential some time ago and implemented several initiatives to grow our business. We dedicated a section of our pharmacy to wellness products, paid large consulting fees for product recommendations, and sent our pharmacists to special CE training. We had some success but we knew we could do better. Then we implemented a program from Wellness Works, called Rx Wellness Center, which totally customized our wellness program and has clearly made us the wellness leader in our community. Sales have significantly increased, patients are happy, and our investment has more than paid for itself. 

Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned in growing our Wellness Business.

Keys to Success

1. Offer a comprehensive professional product line. We started our wellness program with many product lines and multiple vendors. The result was often a confused patient, overlapping inventory, and plenty of vendor headaches. We have since standardized on one professional product line which minimizes our inventory, reduces vendor management, and prevents patient confusion. We chose Wellness Works products because they covered most all of our needs, were high quality, from FDA certified manufacturers, and custom labeled for our pharmacy. We still carry other brands, including a low cost line for the cost conscious patient, but we always recommend our own product line first.

2. Brand your pharmacy wellness center and products to capture the value of your professional recommendations. Nothing is worse than spending time counseling a patient on nutrition and wellness products, only to find they buy your product recommendations at their grocery store or discount pharmacy chain. Having your own brand of wellness products helps to protect your investment in time and money. Creating your own brand also promotes you and your pharmacy as a “center of excellence” for wellness in the community. The Rx Wellness Center program not only custom labels your product line but also provides matching marketing materials like custom banners, posters, and product catalogues.

3. Organize health information and product recommendations into Wellness Centers. Patients want information and professional recommendations when selecting nutritional supplements. Before we implemented our Rx Wellness Center, patients would have trouble navigating through our assortment of wellness products. And even worse, our front-end staff was ill equipped to guide patients with appropriate product recommendations. We now have over 35 Wellness Centers organized by Healthy Living, Healthy Bodies, and Health Concerns. The Wellness Centers provide general health information and specific Pharmacist recommendations to support both the patients and our pharmacy staff. In the pharmacy we have a Wellness Reference Center which provides all the health and product information on both a computer website and a reference book – both of which are branded for our pharmacy 

4. Leverage the internet to promote your pharmacy, provide wellness information, and sell your exclusive product line. In the “new economy”, every business needs to think about how they should leverage the internet, especially us traditional “brick and mortar” businesses. At a minimum we needed a website to promote our pharmacy services and give us presence on the web. The internet is also an excellent medium to provide our patients with additional health information. We did not however, want to encourage our patients to buy commodity products, like Tylenol 60 ct., on the internet since it will only erode our in-store sales and encourage our patients to “shop the internet” for the lowest price. However, we do offer our exclusive wellness products on our website since it is only available from our pharmacy. Our website is provided as part of the Rx Wellness Center program and is completely customized for our pharmacy.

5. Actively recommend wellness products to your patients. I’ve heard somewhere that 80% of the public believes there is value in taking vitamins and other nutritional supplements, but only 20% routinely do so. I’ve been amazed at how easy it is to add nutrition to my patients overall health care program, and almost entirely using our own pharmacy brand. From essential vitamins and minerals to nutrient depletion formulas, every patient is an opportunity to recommend a wellness product. And best of all, the public appreciates a professional recommendation versus the junk mail and T.V. advertisements which bombard them everyday.