BUSINESS

  BUSINESS STRATEGIES

BE AWARE AND ACT

HOW TO INCREASE THE UPS AND MINIMIZE THE DOWNS IN THE BUSINESS CYCLE

GARY GERBER, O.D.

“HOW’S BUSINESS?” a consultant asked.

“Oh, you know,” replied the doctor. “Things go up and down, as usual. Last month, lots of patients walked out with their eyeglass prescriptions or gave us the old, ‘I just want what the plan covers’ routine.”

“Sorry to hear that. What did you do about it?”

“Nothing really. Things just always go up and down like that.”

Every business, practice, person and rock band has ups and downs. The hope is that these micro undulations show a macro trend going up. In my experience, the two things that help push the arrow in the positive direction are awareness followed by action.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

In the scenario above, many would tell the doctor to work harder at keeping his eyeglass prescriptions “in house” or on educating insurance patients why their baseline coverage might not be enough for all their eye care needs. That approach should be obvious. Yet, if it is, then why don’t more of us act on it?

The underlying reason is because most of us don’t like focusing on our shortcomings:

“Really? I actually have to train my opticians about the benefits of patients getting their glasses from our lab? Isn’t that what I’m paying them for?”

This excuse allows one to conveniently sidestep the uncomfortable fact that the practice is underperforming.

Knowing that businesses do move in sine waves, let’s take a different approach:

“August was a killer month! We knocked frame sales out of the park, and the number of patients who bought glasses from us was off the charts!” the doctor said.

“Why was that?” asked the consultant.

“I’m not sure. I think we just got lucky,” the doctor said.

“Well, let’s dig a little deeper.”

BECOME AWARE

Let’s look at the second example. After digging deeper, the doctor’s optician told him that patients loved the edgy look of a new frame line. A review of frame bills showed that the high-end line sold more than all the others combined.

TAKE ACTION

At the next staff meeting, the optician presented the data demonstrating that the high-end frame line was outselling the others. Instead of doing what many practices do, that is, stop here, the optician went on to say,

“Therefore, we are expanding our inventory of these frames. Our rep will give us 10 more of their top sellers in two colors each. To make space, we will eliminate the frames that aren’t moving.”

Here is another example:

Awareness: “Why do you think more prescriptions stayed in the practice last month compared with most other months? Did you change your script for patients?” the doctor asked his staff.

Action: “Not really. We think that once we changed our office hours to stay open an hour later on Tuesdays and Thursdays, our later appointments weren’t feeling rushed to get out of the office. While we’re spending slightly more time with patients, the schedule change is obviously resulting in more patients buying glasses from us.”

Examine what is working — and do more of it! OM

DR. GERBER is the president of the Power Practice, a company specializing in making optometrists more profitable. Learn more at www.powerpractice.com, or call Dr. Gerber at (888) 356-4447.