Whether or not you believe in making resolutions, the beginning of a new year offers a perfect opportunity to reflect on what went well in the past year and what you would like to see improve or change in the coming year.
Intentionally focusing on specific priorities for the new year helps you to create a defined path. This gives you clarity and purpose.
What are your purposeful goals for 2019? Do you want to start preparing for retirement? Do you want to increase your eyeglasses capture rate? Do you want to introduce a specialty branch to your clinic? Maybe you want to open your own clinic or a second clinic?
Once you have determined what you want to do in 2019 to consider it a successful and fulfilling year, flesh out a plan to achieve them. What needs to happen on a weekly or monthly basis for your goals to be realized? Make the plan as detailed as possible.
By way of example, let’s consider the goal of increasing your eyeglasses capture rate. The plan may look something like this:
- Week 1: Set up a tracking system to follow your capture rate every day.
- Week 2: Set up a weekly meeting to review the capture rate results with the whole team.
- Week 3: Do a cost comparison of lens companies. Which company offers you the best value? Create a lens offering with these products.
- Week 4: Set up a training session to ensure all team members are familiar with the product offerings and pricing.
- Week 5: Invite your lens rep in for product training.
- Week 6: set up a bonus system to acknowledge the team’s efforts as the capture rate increase – this will be tied to the tracking system from week 1 and the accountability meetings you set up in week 2.
- Week 7: practice your handoff. What works well? What can be improved? Would it help to have a dispenser assigned to a doctor every day?
- Week 8: Team training at the weekly meeting. Walk through the handoff. What could be improved? Share success stories – let’s repeat those! Any gaps that needs to be closed on pricing strategy?
- Week 9: What are some of the common objections in the dispensary? How can we overcome them?
- Week 10: At the weekly meeting, be sure to review results – where are we and where do we need to be to achieve bonus? What could we do/offer to improve our results? Are we offering a second pair option to every patient?
Whatever you envision for 2019, take the time to flush out a plan to help you achieve it. Don’t be afraid to only focus on one goal. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. The more time and effort you put into your plan now, the more likely you are to achieve it. So whether you believe in resolutions or not, take advantage of a time of year that lends itself well to reflection and purposeful goal planning.
KELLY HRYCUSKO
is the co-founder and managing partner of Simple Innovative Management Ideas (SIMI) Inc. and expert Practice Management contributor for Optik magazine. She can be reached at info@simiinc.com.
