May 1-7
MANAGEMENT If summer is a busy period for your practice, ramp up cross training and lock in vacation requests now.
May 8-14
MARKETING Finalize plans for summer trunk shows or other events. Confirm dates with vendors. Planning your catering now will allow you to negotiate volume discounts when multiple events are booked.
MANAGEMENT If your typical response to handling day-to-day affairs is, “Let me take care of this,” then try this experiment: For the next two weeks, free up two hours a day just to manage. Delegate some admin work, drop less important meetings and spend the extra time giving more guidance to your team. You may find the extra productivity far outweighs your “lost” hours.
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May 15-21
MERCHANDISING To help you freshen up your window displays — it is spring after all — tap your vendor reps to see what they can offer you in the way of displays and customer giveaways. It’s always smart to “be nice to your patients and give things away,” says Caitlin Wicka of San Juan Eye Center in Montrose, CO.
COMMUNICATIONS A recent survey of small healthcare providers by SMB Communications found 61% of patients are more likely to pay their clinic bill if they receive a text reminder with a link to pay, and 58% of patients consider filling out paper forms “old fashioned.” If this feature is missing from your operation, start studying a revamp of your communication system now. The more digital-native demographics coming to market don’t have the patience for legacy systems.
May 22-28
INVENTORY It’s been almost two months since Vision Expo East. Scrutinize the sales data of product brought in from VEE to see if it’s going to be successful or not.
TRAINING Get your salespeople to brush up their customer approaches with Harry Friedman’s “Opening the Sale” game from his Selling Games & Contests book. Pairs of salespeople face each other with each side taking turns delivering a fresh opening line. Fail to come up with one and you’re out. Last person standing wins. Rules: The lines must have nothing to do with business, should generally be questions, and should encourage conversation.
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