ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT TOOLS IN BUILDING YOUR PRACTICE IS TIME

OPTOMETRISTS ARE very good at math and three dimensional geometry. We must be to understand optics. The X, Y and Z axes are a part of our DNA, whether we’re thinking of the spatial relationship of the layers of the retina or the peripheral curves of a contact lens.

But what about the fourth dimension? Even though I took physics in college, I admit I can’t explain the fourth dimension. (Can anyone?) For our purposes here, let’s say it’s time — specifically, how time needs to be added to the current “three dimensional” thinking about our practices.

For example, a very common practice-building goal for many of us is “three dimensional:” “I want to make more money” is the first dimension. If pushed, it can be expanded to, “I want to make $100,000 more.” And if pushed one more time, “I will do it by selling more glasses.” What is lacking is the critical fourth dimension of time: “I want to make it by June 30, 2018.”

One of the basic business tenets is that businesses run over time. They start, run a course, and at some point — unless they go on in perpetuity — they stop. However, any activity within that business has a start and a stop time. For example, showing a patient how to clean new AR lenses has a start and a stop time; so does booking appointments. It’s obvious that tasks have time elements associated with them, but not so obvious that business initiatives (such as earning more) should also have them. Here are more examples.

PROMOTIONS

Let’s say you run a promotion to sell more photochromic lenses. The offer is to include them for only $20 more with any frame purchase more than $200. Hopefully, it’s obvious that this should have an end.

However, what if your staff has come up with techniques to promote positive reviews online? If it’s working well, should that initiative have a stop? Unequivocally, yes! While this may seem counterintuitive, it’s necessary, so you can regroup and review results. For example, if it’s working well (“well” should have been defined before you started), you might say, “Our positive review strategy was a three-month test, and we hit our goal of getting 20% of patients to post a positive review. What can we do in the next three months to get it to 22%?”

TRIAL LENSES

Doctors may complain that they have no room for new trial lenses. Yet, those same doctors will show you a cabinet full of lenses that they rarely, if ever, use. The next time you take in a new lens, give yourself a timeline to re-evaluate it: “In the next three months, we will use the lenses on at least 25 patients. If we are successful with at least 70% of those, we’ll keep the set. If not, we’ll send it back.”

NEW FRAME LINES

As above, “We will take in this new frame line. If we sell 20 units in the next eight weeks, we’ll keep it. If not, we’ll sell it off and not reorder it.”

The fourth dimension, while difficult for a mere O.D., non-physicist like me to define, is surely at play in your practices. And this dimension can be one of your most important practice-building tools. 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.