WE ALL HAVE a persona or personality profile whether we like it or not. Introvert/extrovert, dominant/passive, you may have even taken a personality test like the DISC profile to see what your personality traits are and what kind of person you are or are becoming.
Your persona is used against you every day by yourself, your team, your patients, your spouse or kids, your sales reps and by what you look at online. Everything around you is trying to push your buttons (and getting you to push theirs), but by knowing and understanding your persona you can uncover your blind spots and use it as your super power.
We are told time and time again that we are terrible business owners. If I hear this one more time, I might throw my phoropter through the wall. Well, to our defense we did go to optometry school (not business school) to become great clinicians and technicians of our trade but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn the business side of our industry in order to create a great practice that is profitable. Our patients are counting on us to do so.
In order to do this, I want to share four personas we are up against as physicians who happen to own businesses and how you can use your persona to build the practice of your dreams.
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Where do you fall? Be honest — that is the only way you can move forward. Read all of them before you pick where you fall and remember you can move from one box to another, they are just lines on a piece of paper not a brick wall. (Well even that you can break down if you want to.)
- Business/Business: Physicians who typically own multiple practices or other businesses and rarely still see patients as their net worth depends on them being outside of the exam lane.
- Business/Science: Physicians who typically own one to a couple locations and dabble in other things outside optometry.
- Science/Business: These are physicians who happened to have bought a practice but don’t run it effectively or efficiently. They can get there, but it is a skill they have to work on.
- Science/Science: These are wonderful clinicians who love the latest and greatest treatments that also may or may not own a practice. They are risk averse and need scientific and social proof that they are making the right decision.
Our patients, our staff and our investment in our profession are depending on us to be better at business. As a physician you are allowed to make money and be successful. If we don’t run profitable businesses we can’t invest in our practices, our patients or ourselves or leverage the knowledge we have. We are also at the center of patient care and all that comes with. If we keep putting our heads in the sand and not learning about how to run more efficient practices or invest in technology faster for the benefit of our patients, we will no longer have wonderful dinners to go to, conferences to attend or new companies innovating in this space. Get out of your exam room, take advantage of all of the people around you, and say yes more often. Those people are hoping and craving that you do, as you are a wealth of knowledge but so are they!
We need all types of physicians in this industry but I want you to know where you sit and learn where you can move to benefit yourself! We have to realize that we are currently pawns in the entire system and when we as physicians don’t feel fulfilled everyone around us loses. The industry is hoping we don’t figure it out so peek behind the business curtain … it is fun over here.
westbrowardeyecare.com
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