THE START OF the new year is a great time to reflect and plan for the future. If one of your goals this year is to improve sales, now is a good time to start developing that plan.
Most of you will begin the year by reviewing last year’s profitability and set goals to increase it. Goal setting is important, but if you really want to make an impact on sales, you need to stop pointing the finger at the team and instead take a look at the leadership in your office.
In our industry there are many people in managerial roles with titles but who lack the ability to actually lead. When a strong, inspiring leader is in place, the team they lead responds with action and excitement to the needs and growth of the business. One of the core practices of great leadership is being able to set proper expectations. When there are no expectations from leadership, optical teams lead a docile existence in the office where daily tasks are completed in boredom. These scenarios lack vibrance and growth. Often managers and doctors will report that the team is just unmotivated or unwilling to grow or change. Often the most painful part is when employees believe they are entitled to a raise yet haven’t grown themselves or the business.
At Spexy, we believe team members should be rewarded heavily for growth and development, not given mediocre raises for “time served.” Think about it. This is an optical you are leading, not a prison. We work with hundreds of opticals that have found massive sales growth by adapting how leadership communicates expectations to team members.
Advertisement
The most foundational exercise a leader can implement to improve a team’s performance is quarterly one-on-one check-ins with each member. During these meetings we recommend using a template to plan and guide the conversation. Get a free download of this meeting template by scanning the QR code. Once there, you can also watch a video on how to best implement this exercise in your office.
During these meetings you can:
- Highlight the areas where this team member excels.
- Review your team goals and how this team member can contribute.
- Uncover specific areas that you would like to see improvement in.
- Lay out what these improvements would mean monetarily for the team member.
- Check-in with the progress of how the team member feels they are improving and the areas leadership still needs to see growth throughout the year.
- Ultimately this allows for leadership to instill accountability in each team member by owning their own growth and development.
Setting proper expectations and opening communication between the team and leadership has proven to be amazingly beneficial for both the growth and sales of optical practices. As the calendar flips, make this year the year that you adapt the leadership skills in your office to see massive action from your team that will lead to growth in your optical sales.
Download here.
