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We had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Brian Wadman of Eyecare Specialties in Greenfield, MA at our Leadership Summit for optometrists last fall, and here's what he had to say about his experience with Williams Group! You can play the short video testimonial below to learn more about how working with a Williams Group consultant helped Dr. Wadman improve his marketing efforts and grow his optometric practice.

For more information on how Williams Group can assist you in growing your optometric practice, click here. And share your thoughts in the comments below!

For the first time in history, most companies have four distinctly different generations working side-by-side. Each of these four generations (Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Gen Y) is guided by a different set of values, beliefs and expectations. In Crossing the Generational Divide, Preston entertainingly reveals each generation’s preferences and priorities to highlight what they bring to the workforce – and how to build on their common ground.

Preston shares processes leaders can immediately rely on to lead a culture of cross-generation communication, innovation, engagement, teamwork, and performance. Filled with surprising statistics, step-by-step strategies, and laugh-out-loud stories, you leave this presentation prepared to turn your multigenerational teams into a competitive advantage.

Preston Swincher graduated from Texas Christian University with a BBA in Entrepreneurial Management and a BFA in Theatre. An accomplished speaker, poet, and thinker, he has headlined events across the United States and Canada, for audiences of over 2,000. Currently, he studies how the Information Age has evolved the American Dream, and how this molds the behavior of young employees and customers. Swincher’s work has appeared on several major media outlets, including CNN, where a camera crew persuaded him to text during his interview. Swincher connects businesses, educators, and even parents to Digital Natives.

Click here to learn more about the Leadership Summit and how to register. What are you most excited to learn about from Preston Swincher? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

One of the oft-overlooked aspects of practice sellability is how your office is organized internally. How is your staff communicating with you and each other? Are you up-to-date on EHR and Meaningful Use? Having these management pieces in place will give a new doctor greater peace of mind when they are considering purchasing your practice.

Get the EHR thing done
Remember, if you have the EHR conversation behind you with all its initial stresses, staff frustrations, and lost production, then the buyer has it behind her as well. That means you’re in a much better position to keep patients happy, keep the team on an even keel, and see this thing through than the new doctor who doesn’t know what’s going on yet. Which optometric practice would you buy—the one that put in a great EHR system and has it behind them, or the one that hasn’t? Do it now while you can get the Meaningful Use bucks, and benefit now and later.

Evolve Your Organizational Model
Read that once again: It’s the single most important factor in sellability. It’s very simple, really. The more the operation and its results depend on you, the less sellable your optometric practice is. The readiness question you can ask yourself is this: Am I confident my practice is well-managed and things are humming along smoothly when I’m gone for two weeks?

If not, you have your answer. And that means it’s time to make the patient care team the management cabinet. You’re the CEO, not the COO. Endow every member of the patient care team with a serious role on the management team, help them become excited about that role (rather than seeing it as more work). Have them report weekly to and interact with the team at large on their initiatives. Ask any of our clients—this one changes everything! More joy, less stress, a shorter to-do list as owner = a better premium as seller.

Have Team Reports on Production Weekly
If I were doing weekly production reviews, the first thing I’d do with a serious buyer candidate is invite her to attend one. When she sees staff managing production results and me, the owner/doctor, not saying a lot, the thought would be: “It looks like the staff are running this place, so they’re staying here after doctor leaves.” Exactly! More fun while you own it, and better sellability when you sell it.

Stay tuned for my tips on how to make your optometric practice more sellable—more turnkey—next week. For more information on Williams Group, click here, and share your thoughts on selling your practice in the comments below.

If you’re looking for a way to engage your current patients and build relationships with potential patients, online newsletters are a great option. Newsletters can be monthly or quarterly depending on the time and resources that your office has available. In your newsletters, you can let your readers know about services and products you provide. You can also update them with announcements about new frame inventory, new employees and upcoming events such as trunk shows. Make sure you have a call-to-action, such as reminding them to schedule an appointment or directing them to your website to get a sneak peek of some new frame arrivals.

Many solutions like Constant Contact, iContact, and MailChimp provide you with easy, customizable e-mail templates. These solutions allow you to import or copy and paste your emails into a list. In addition, many appointment reminder resources such as SolutionReach, Websystem3 and 4PatientCare provide free newsletter templates.

Your website and social media networks are great avenues to help you grow your list. Some of these e-mail marketing solutions provide you with a sign-up form for your website. This make entering new contacts easier and you can get notified when someone signs up for your newsletters.

Online newsletters are less expensive than mailing a newsletter to your patients. Depending on how many e-mail addresses you have in your contact list, some of the options will either have a free plan or cost as low as 10.00 a month. Another way you can promote your newsletter is by sharing it on your social media.

However you choose to utilize newsletters for your practice, we highly recommend using them as another tool to grow and communicate with your patient base. If you would like more info on how Williams Group can help you grow your practice, click here. And share your thoughts on using newsletters in the comments below.

If you’ve been following my blogs on work-life balance and are reading this, you’re probably looking for more info on how to create more harmony in your life. Last week we looked at unplugging and re-engaging at home—now let’s look at how you can make your workdays more manageable as well.

Schedule your Interruptions.
It’s easy to get distracted by every new email that appears in your inbox or notification that pops up in your Facebook feed. But by checking these feeds over and over throughout the day, you’re inviting disruption into your work flow.

So how can you avoid being sucked into the “instant information” vortex? Try scheduling your interruptions. First thing in the morning, set aside a half-hour to check your email. Then do the same after lunch or at the end of the work day. Limiting your distractions to two or three times a day will help you learn to prioritize what needs to be responded to quickly versus what can wait. Avoiding the lure of email every 10 minutes will also increase your productivity throughout the rest of the work day.

Get moving.
Keep your juices flowing by getting up and moving. Even 5 minutes every hour or two can make a difference. Walk around your practice, stretch, and do breathing exercises.

Studies show that sitting for prolonged periods of time can be damaging to not only your physical body but also your mental energy. As an optometrist moving from patient to patient, you have an advantage over the typical office employee who sits for 8+ hours a day. Still, making a conscious, planned effort to move around even more at the office and vary your activity will help both your physical and mental state.

Delegate.
When you own your own practice, in many ways it’s your baby. You’re not just a doctor, you’re a business owner. And with business ownership comes a unique set of responsibilities beyond just patient care.

It can be difficult to trust someone else with those responsibilities. The first step is finding those rare employees with the talent and drive to manage and love your business as much as you do. Once you’ve accomplished that, delegating tasks to such employees becomes an easier proposition.

Assign tasks to employees that align with their talent and their interest. If you have a very Type-A, hyper-organized employee, he or she may be a good fit for handling billing and scheduling. An employee with a passion for working with others and creativity might enjoy managing your marketing and social media.

Once you have a strong, trustworthy team in place, delegating may not seem so scary. And while you still need to check in with your team on a regular basis, sharing some of the workload with others will ultimately bring you peace of mind and balance.

What are some other ways you have found to ease your stress at work? Share your thoughts in the comments below. For more assistance on balancing your work-life relationship, click here.

We're excited to welcome Zach Zavoral from Solutionreach today to share some of his thoughts on no-shows and how to prevent them.

One of my favorite Seinfeld scenes is from Season 6 entitled “The Kiss Hello”. After George Costanza's first visit to a physical therapist’s office, he's at the front desk scheduling a follow-up appointment for the next day while writing the check to pay for his visit.

When George hands the office manager his check, the OM lady (very cliché mid-90s style and perky front desk personality) informs George that he actually owes a no-show fee for not arriving for his originally scheduled appointment earlier that week.

George: “I couldn’t come! I had to drive my mother to the chiropodist!” 
Responding to the commotion at the front desk, the physical therapist emerges from her office and asks, “What’s the problem?”
George: “Are you aware I’m being charged for Tuesday’s appointment? I had to take my mother to the chiropodist!” 
PT: “Oh, I’m sorry. But that’s our policy.”
George, now furious: “Oh you have a policy!? The delicate genius has a policy!”

As he throws his arms in the air and begins walking out the door, the ever-perky OM asks, “So will you be here tomorrow?” 
George: “Well it’s less than 24 hours away, so I guess I HAVE to!”

Of course, the next day, when George comes in for his now-mandatory appointment, the physical therapist isn’t there. George's response to the OM: “Oh, I’m sorry. I require 24-notice for a cancellation. Now as I see it, you owe me $75.” 

The Upsides of Charging a No-Show Fee

1. Your patients arrive for their appointments. 
2. If a patient doesn’t arrive, your office theoretically gets a little cash for your trouble. 
3. That's it.

The Downsides of Charging a No-Show Fee

1. Your office emits a lack of compassion and understanding. 

2. Patients who are charged the no-show fee probably won't return.
3. Every charged patient will probably share the experience with their friends and family, potentially ruining your reputation. 
4. If you need to take a sick day, you must also provide 24-hour notice if you expect the same of your patients. 
5. You’re unlikely to receive the no-show charges that you’ve billed. 
6. Charged patients may ruin your online reputation by posting a negative online patient review of your practice.
7. You utilize one of society’s least effective strategies: scare tactics. Nobody likes a company that threatens customers into following orders. 

Clearly, charging patients for no-shows is a bad idea. Sure, your office time is worth money to you. But your patients, especially the new ones, never signed any agreement to this pretentious policy. The goal is to eliminate no-shows. So why not just do that?

How to Eliminate No-Shows 

The best way to eliminate no-shows without producing a negative feeling is an automated appointment reminder system that utilizes text messages, emails, and phone call reminders. 

I work for Solutionreach, the original healthcare automated appointment reminders. Obviously, I’m biased when it comes to deciding which appointment reminders to use. But my bias does not interrupt common sense and logic: the appointment reminder system that reaches 100 percent of your patients right out of the box without alienating any patients is the supreme choice (cough, cough, Solutionreach). Regardless, every appointment reminder system, including Solutionreach, Demandforce, and Websystems 3, will eliminate no-shows by at least 50 percent without an elitist policy that threatens patients. 

Even George Costanza would agree that he'd rather get automated appointment reminders than a bill.

I'd like to share with you what I have found is one of the key components to making your practice more sellable: your space. From location to design to eye equipment, your optometric practice's physical space is extremely important to its sellability. Here are some of my suggestions for upping the "wow" factor.

Make Sure the Location is Conducive to Future Growth
Remember, location isn’t as big a deal when you’ve owned the practice for 30 years. Many patients are loyal to you, and they’ll find their way to even a weak location. But if you’re out of the picture, why would a patient beat a path to a location that isn’t convenient?

While you still have time, move your optometric practice to a better location. Benefit by owning it there for a few years, then again by selling it for a premium.

Make Physical Improvements Now
There are so many practices for sale right now as baby boomers retire that young doctors have a lot of choices. Perhaps you can leave some of the really big changes to the new owner. But updating frame boards, opening up the floor plan for patient flow, expanding the dispensary area, updating carpet and paint—you need to get those done now. Enjoy these improvements for a few years, and watch what happens to frame and lens sales after dispensary improvements! Then benefit again by selling the practice for a premium.

Add State-of-the-Art Equipment
Provide better care, wow your patients more, enjoy the new toys, take the expense/depreciation while you can, grow the asset base, and pay it all off with high utilization through great patient care and good marketing. Benefit as owner now and as seller later.

Beef Up the Frame Inventory
Regardless of a patient’s purchasing tendencies (high-end, low-end, etc.), the young doctor wants some great frames on the boards. Sit down with your frame reps, find out what younger practice owners want, and get those frames in your dispensary…now.

Stay tuned for my tips on how to make your optometric practice more sellable—more turnkey—in the coming weeks. For more information on Williams Group, click here, and share your thoughts on selling your practice in the comments below.