BUSINESS

  business strategies

Take a Deep Breath and Count

When situations anger you, there’s a better plan than reacting immediately

GARY GERBER, O.D.

We’ve all heard, “When something makes you angry, take a deep breath and count to 10 before you react.” This sage advice works in business situations too.

Though “following your gut” isn’t always bad business advice, checking emotions and relying on facts usually is better.

If any of the following bring you to the boiling point, remember: breathe, count to 10, think things through, and then respond.

1 Negative online reviews

When someone isn’t happy with your practice, it’s human nature to take it personally and become defensive. “Is he kidding? We bent over backwards for that jerk and remade his glasses three times for no charge and when he left he was happy! I don’t see him telling that side of the story!”

Resist the urge to respond in any fashion right away. Instead, count to “10” (waiting a day or two is even better), and then craft your response if you still think it necessary to respond at all.

An immediate response usually escalates to establishing office policies or procedures that are focused on the outliers in your practice instead of the majority of your better patients.

For example, a few bad reviews buried among many good ones should not cause you to hire a Web reputation company, start a promotion to seek more good reviews or change a policy in response to one negative review. But, this will only become clear if you don’t respond immediately.

2 Online shopping

“I’m going to scream the next time a patient asks me for his or her PD. I know he or she is going to buy glasses online! Starting now, we will charge for PDs.”

A better “count to 10” response would be to actually analyze what percentage of patients DO get their glasses filled from your optical. If it’s not inordinately low, then why make this an issue at all? Instead, focus your efforts on those patients who DO buy from you to make their experience that much better.

3 Checks

We had a client who got his first bounced check the third day he was in practice. It was a catastrophic event for this young doctor. In fact, it was so damaging to his psyche that today, nearly 20 years later, he still has a “no checks” policy even though it’s never been revisited to see whether bounced checks are a chronic problem.

The better “count to 10” response would have been to keep taking checks and see whether it was indeed a huge problem.

4 Pricing

“Patients want everything for free and are buying their contact lenses online. We have to lower our prices to compete.” That’s a classic “count to 10” response. A better one, like with the PD example, would be to analyze how many patients are really complaining about pricing and to adjust your pricing accordingly. This also means, of course, that if complaints are low, you should raise your prices.

5 Staff

“I’m tired of my staff taking advantage of me. No more buying lunch during office meetings and we WILL now be open on Black Friday!” Common “Count to 10” responses like this are usually the result of one interaction with one staff member. A more reasoned approach is to address the topic with the specific staff member and act in a more focused manner. 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.