Lower your COGS — and master it for good! — inside The COGS Reduction Blueprint
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But functional isn’t the same as Profitable
Sure, you’ve got systems—you’ve set reorder points, keep your data updated, and monitor your P&L. You’re serious about staying on top of the numbers.
But your COGS might still be frustratingly high. Every time you and your team put your heads together about it, you just cannot figure out the problem.
COGS Stuck at 27%.
Won't budge :(
(and it’s clearly not that you aren’t putting in your best efforts!)
It’s that your systems don’t give you the WHY behind the numbers.
Because there’s only one surefire way to boost profitability without hurting your staff or your clients.
Just about every practice is feeling the squeeze in some way right now.
You need better margins, but you can't:
or their benefits You need them!
your inventory budget Fingers crossed for no more stockouts?
What’s left, then, is actually getting on top of your inventory spend.
Understanding where the money’s going and where it’s stuck. Why your COGS sits at 23%, or 34%, when it could be 18%. And exactly what to do to lower it.
Because inventory is the one lever you can reliably pull to increase profitability without sacrifices.
Thin margins don’t have to be a fact of life in vet med—they’re just a symptom of “managing” inventory instead of strategically controlling it.
Practices with healthier bottom lines aren’t working harder than you and your team. They’ve just learned what and how to optimize, so when their COGS creeps up, they don’t panic. They look at the data, spot the problem, and fix it confidently.
That’s what The COGS Reduction Blueprint teaches you to do.
The COGS Reduction Blueprint: Master Your Inventory Spend in 6 Months
Learn exactly where you stand right now and where the issues are
Stop leaving money on the table with smarter pricing.
Eliminate waste, redundancy, and dead stock
Build systems that keep COGS down long-term
In six months, you could see an initial 2-4%+ reduction in your COGS and $10-20k in freed-up cash.
(Seriously. It's completely doable!)
And your progress won’t stop when the program ends. Once you get your COGS down, you’ll be able to keep it that way, with the knowledge to manage your inventory confidently and strategically well into the future.
Something important you should know, right off the bat: yes, this is an educational program run by Inventory Ally, but your practice does not need to use Inventory Ally software in order to join!
The tools and techniques in The COGS Reduction Blueprint apply no matter what software you use.
Strategies + Skills + Structured Implementation
You learn and implement at the same time.
Every month, you learn a pillar of COGS reduction, practice the skills live, and then immediately apply them to your specific practice during structured implementation weeks. By the time you’re done, you’ve actually built the systems (and documented them!), not just learned about them.
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You’re doing the work with inventory pros who get it.
You’re probably the only one who speaks the language of inventory inside your practice, so you’re usually out of luck when you have a question or issue. But inside the private course community, The Inventory Alliance, everyone’s there with support and ideas. You can share wins, troubleshoot challenges, and stay accountable with your fellow pros.
You get expert answers on your specific issues throughout.
You never have to figure out how to apply theory to your actual practice. Throughout the program, you can submit your questions and get expert video responses added to the evergreen Q&A library. Plus, you can learn from everything that other practices around the country are asking, too!
You’re building knowledge, systems, and confidence that last.
We’re not aiming for a quick COGS dip that’s destined to rebound in three months. The skills you learn, techniques you implement, and processes you refine and document keep working long after the program ends.
After the program, the next time your COGS creeps up, you won’t be staring at your P&L in confusion. You’ll pull up your dashboard, identify the root cause, take precise action, and watch it come back down. Just like that—because you understand the whys behind it all.
Everything you’ll learn inside The COGS Reduction Blueprint
Here’s where we set the baseline.
You’ll complete your Diagnostic Snapshot, calculate your true COGS and inventory carry costs, and launch the Red Dot Challenge to visualize what’s actually moving (spoiler: you’ll be shocked).
- Clear baseline metrics and your biggest opportunities identified
- A prioritized action plan based on your practice's actual data
- 30 days of data into how much inventory is and isn't moving
Before you think about cutting costs, doesn’t it make more sense to recover the revenue you’re currently losing?
You’ll create a sustainable pricing strategy, fix low-margin items, identify missed charges, and implement systems to catch cost increases before they eat your profits.
- A documented pricing strategy that protects your margins
- Recovered revenue from items you've been undercharging
- Systems that flag cost increases so you can adjust before they hurt
In Month 3, you’ll reduce redundant formulary. You’ll learn our signature MERIT Model to evaluate what stays and goes, consolidate duplicate products, and get team buy-in for smarter inventory choices.
Heading into Month 4, it’s all about eliminating overstock and low turnover. With your Red Dot Challenge results in hand, you’ll get slow-movers off the shelf and reclaim the cash that’s tied up in inventory that’s just… sitting there.
- A leaner, more intentional formulary with higher turnover
- Freed-up cash from reduced inventory on hand
- Team alignment on why certain products stay or go
Month 5 is all about demand forecasting and reorder points. You’ll calculate your practice’s particular reorder points based on actual usage, implement reorder flags, and let data drive your ordering. (Never shake a bottle again!)
In Month 6, you get set up to optimize and maintain. Here’s where you’ll create monitoring dashboards, document all your new processes, train your team, and plan for continuous improvement so these results last.
- Sustainable systems that maintain your COGS reduction long-term
- Documentation so you (or anyone else inside the practice!) can replicate your success
- A roadmap for ongoing optimization
Lower COGS. Tens of thousands of dollars in potential annual savings. And the systems—and confidence—to keep it that way. It’s all inside.
Staying strong in this economic environment is huge. It has to be a priority. And this is a great way to cut costs because you’re not sacrificing.
You’re not giving anything up—you’re just ordering smarter, you’re keeping the shelves leaner. You’re not sacrificing patient care, you’re not sacrificing employee expenditures, it’s about not wasting money. You’re more plugging a hole than making cuts, which is great. The time is now, I think, to make sure you’ve got a good system in place.
Join The COGS Reduction Blueprint to lower your COGS in six months—and keep it low long-term.
Choose the Foundation or Accelerator Tier to enroll!
After you join the Accelerator Tier, we'll reach out to you to begin onboarding for your Proprietary Inventory Analysis!
Choose AcceleratorEnrollment for The COGS Reduction Blueprint opens from August 25th – September 22nd, with a program start date of September 22nd.
The COGS Reduction Blueprint is tailored to practices ready to go from “keeping things running” to driving profitability.
We built this program for practices that:
- Have 4-8+ doctors (typically $2M+ in revenue)
- Review financials regularly
- Use a software program to manage inventory (it doesn't have to be Inventory Ally!)
- Have dedicated inventory management (whether that's a full-time inventory manager or someone wearing that hat)
- Feel like they’re doing everything "right" but don’t understand why COGS won’t budge
Whoever owns the inventory function at your practice is welcome to join: owner, practice manager, or inventory manager.
It’s been really, really rewarding to have a 5% drop in our COGS. That’s a significant number when you’re dealing with a four-and-a-half doctor practice.
These aren’t small numbers. Our owner was shocked! He didn’t think it was possible to do better than what we already had. We didn’t just exceed the benchmark—we redefined it.
Meet your educator and guide, Nicole Clausen
Co-Founder, Inventory Ally | Founder, Veterinary Care Logistics
(And yes, I literally wrote the book on veterinary inventory management!)
Before founding Veterinary Care Logistics and Inventory Ally, I was an inventory manager absolutely bootstrapping it. After being in the job long enough, I’d figured a lot out on my own—I set reorder points, tried to order strategically, and prevented a ton of stockouts.
But every time I sat down with my supervisors to review our financials, our COGS was still stubbornly high. They looked at the P&L, I looked at the P&L, and none of us could figure out why.
Knowing something was off but not being able to see it drove me crazy… and I’m the kind of person who has to solve a problem once she sees it! So I did. And then I tried to get those skills and strategies in the hands of as many inventory pros in vet med as possible.
Since 2017, I’ve helped thousands of practices develop inventory strategies that provide gold-standard care while saving over $3 million collectively each year. And now I’m here to get that knowledge into your capable hands, too!
Since I’ve been in your shoes, I’m so excited to teach you what I wish someone had known enough to teach me: the WHY behind high COGS, and exactly what to do about it.
Nicole got our practice on the right path to have our COGS under 16%.
We have a rapidly growing practice and were desperate to have systems in place to make our lives better and improve the practice overall. Nicole was exceptionally helpful and full of knowledge. She will definitely help make your practice more profitable, as numbers don’t lie.
You’ve been doing everything “right.” Now it’s time to do something different.
In six months, you’ll understand exactly why your COGS wasn’t budging—and you’ll be lowering it for good.
Enrollment for this cohort has closed. Join the waitlist and we’ll let you know when the next one opens.
Questions? We’ll answer them all!
The things people actually ask before enrolling — grouped by what you might be wondering about.
Good question! Here’s the breakdown:
The program is structured in six 4-week blocks, with a predictable rhythm.
- Week 1: 30-60 minutes of self-paced video curriculum (videos are 5-15 minutes each, and you can watch anytime)
- Week 2: 90-minute Live Workshop with practice skill-building sessions
- Weeks 3-4: 3-5 hours on your own for Get It Done Challenge implementation
You’re actively building systems in your practice over the six months, which does take a commitment of time and energy. You’ll want to be present and focused on our calls, not multitasking, and making sure that you schedule enough implementation time each month!
Enrollment for The COGS Reduction Blueprint opens from August 25th – September 22nd, with a program start date of September 22nd.
There is one 90-minute live workshop and skill-building session each month. Mark your calendar for:
- September 22nd
- October 13th
- November 3rd
- December 8th
- January 12th
- February 9th
We strongly recommend attending live, as that’s where we’ll practice the skills you’re building! But workshops are recorded and available in the curriculum library, so you can catch the replay on your own time if you need to miss a call.
You’ll have access to the program materials up to one month after the program ends. After that, you’ll have the option to renew your access to the Inventory Alliance community and materials if you’d like even more time.
Everything lives in The Inventory Alliance, our community platform hosted on Circle. It’s private and ad-free! That’s where you’ll find the curriculum, live workshops, Get It Done Challenges, Q&A library, peer discussions, and support from both Nicole and the Inventory Ally team.
This is a cohort-based program with monthly milestones. While you can watch the self-paced videos on your own schedule during Week 1, the workshops happen live in Week 2, and the Get It Done Challenges are designed for the cohort to tackle together in Weeks 3-4. You’ll have the community support and accountability to stick with it!
Nope! You don’t need to be an Inventory Ally user to participate. (We promise.)
That said, you should be using some sort of software to track inventory and financial data (whether that’s your PIMS or another inventory management tool).
The principles and skills we teach in the program apply universally—it’s about understanding the why behind your numbers, not just which software you use—so it’ll be relevant to you regardless of your particular tech stack.
This program is ideal for practices with around 4-8+ doctors, typically generating $2M+ in annual revenue. These practices usually have enough inventory complexity and volume that small improvements create significant financial impact (think: freeing up $10-20K in cash, reducing COGS by 2-4%+).
If you’re a smaller practice, the strategies will still work, but the ROI might be less dramatic simply due to scale. On the flip side, if you’re a larger practice or multi-location group, you’ll likely see even more substantial results.
Yes! Practice owners, practice managers, and inventory managers are all welcome.
That said, this program is designed for whoever “owns” the inventory function, which in most cases is the inventory manager. If you’re a practice owner or manager, you’re absolutely welcome. Just know that you’ll be expected to do the implementation work, not just observe.
Yes! The principles of COGS reduction and optimization (pricing strategy, formulary optimization, demand forecasting, etc.) work across practice types.
Because certain practice types have unique considerations, though, we also supplement the core curriculum with dedicated Playbooks for specialty, emergency, and large animal practices!
That’s exactly what The Inventory Alliance community is for! You can post questions anytime in the community and get support from fellow participants, Nicole, and the Inventory Ally team (including the customer success team and other IA experts).
During implementation weeks (Weeks 3-4), you can also submit questions that will be answered and added to the evergreen Q&A library. If you’re in the Accelerator tier, you get priority responses to keep you moving forward quickly.
As you work through the Get It Done Challenges each month, you’ll inevitably hit questions or roadblocks. Submit your questions during implementation weeks, and Nicole will provide expert answers that get added to the growing Q&A library. It’s like having a troubleshooting guide that gets larger and smarter over time.
If you’ve joined the Accelerator tier, yes! You get one full Proprietary Inventory Analysis where Nicole audits your practice’s data and provides a personalized action plan, plus a one-hour 1:1 review call to walk through the findings and answer your specific questions. This fast-tracks your results by identifying your biggest opportunities right from the start.
Yes! Both tiers offer a 6-month payment plan:
- Foundation: $2,997 total, or 6 monthly payments of $527
- Accelerator: $4,997 total, or 6 monthly payments of $877
The payment plan aligns with the program timeline, so you’re paying as you go through each month.
No, because this is an implementation-based program that requires your active participation and effort. The results you get are directly tied to the work you put in.
That said, know that we take your success and your investment seriously, and we’re absolutely confident in the methodology—it’s proven across practices and has generated millions in inventory-related savings.
Absolutely! Many practices cover this as professional development or continuing education for their inventory managers or practice managers.
This program builds real expertise in inventory management—a skill set that directly impacts your practice’s profitability. It’s an investment in both the individual and the practice’s bottom line.
Everything you need to complete the program is included: the full curriculum, live workshops, Get It Done Challenges, community access, Q&A library, templates, resources, and support.
The only thing not included is the cost of whatever inventory management software you’re currently using (whether that’s Inventory Ally, your PIMS, or another digital system). You’ll need access to your practice’s data and whatever tools you use to manage inventory day-to-day.
Inventory Ally is a cloud-based veterinary computer software that reduces inventory costs, saves time, and minimizes stockouts.
