Insights From Our Editors

What Do You Consider Your Greatest Growth Opportunities?

Many of you may soon be making a push to sell more prescription sunwear, if you are not doing so already. Sixty percent of ODs consider Rx sunwear a large revenue growth opportunity, according to Jobson Medical Information’s Practice Advancement Associates’ 2012 Frames Business Management Survey. Fifty-seven percent said the opportunity to sell additional second pairs was a large revenue growth opportunity while 50 percent cited plano sunglasses; 41 percent cited high-end frames and another 41 percent cited medical eyecare. Forty percent said improving the eyewear capture rate was a large revenue growth opportunity; 36 percent cited increasing eye exam frequency; 35 percent cited selling more lenses with AR; while 30 percent aimed to sell more PAL lenses as a strategy to grow revenues, and 28 percent said they would try to sell more contact lenses to stimulate revenue growth.

Over the next month gather data about your practice. Put this data into a SWOT analysis about your practice. A SWOT analysis reveals your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Here are three steps to start this process.

1. Compare your practice to best practices by downloading the2013 Key Metrics PDF located on the MBA-CE web site: 2013 Key Metrics: Assessing Optometric Practice Performance.

2. Review your Rx Analysis Report from your spectacle and contact lens laboratories.

3. Pull a demographic report from your practice management software. Examine your practice demographics to see if there are populations of people that you are not capturing at acceptable levels. Pay particular attention to the Baby Boomer demographic.

Now that you know what your practice is, you also know what your practice is not.Based on this knowledge, what do you consider your greatest growth opportunities?

Identify an area for improvement, then create and implement a plan. Here are the steps to go through to create your plan.

1. Set a goal for improvement. Make the goal a real number, not a percentage, so you can count your progress. Put a time deadline on hitting the goal.

2. Assign a staff member the responsibility of helping the practice hit the goal.

3. Work with the staff member to create a plan to hit the goal.

4. Create a measuring and reporting system to monitor the progress toward the goal.

5. Implement the plan.

The old adage is true: “Plan your work and work your plan.” Do this and you will move your practice forward to actually realize your growth opportunities.

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