According to the Federation of Small Businesses, over 89% of UK businesses were trading again as of August 2021. As I travel around the UK now, although there are some regional variations, most businesses seem to be open, and that means the flow of money will be increasing as the economy returns to ‘normal’.
Although many optical practices have been doing well in terms of revenues, this has been caused by seeing only those patients who need or want new eyewear. Added to this, for many practices the revenue per patient has increased, which has offset the fact that the volume of patients seen has decreased. For many practices going back to the pre-lockdown method of seeing as many people as possible is an unattractive proposition. Practice owners have realised that spending more time with patients has enabled them to understand more about their patients’ needs and problems, and that this leads to an increase in the dispensing of office lenses, sports eyewear, fashionable and vocation specific issues.
Before we all get back on the hamster wheel of running around being busy fools, now is the time to take stock and really think about what we want for our practices and ourselves going forward. So, what do we need to think about when planning our business?
Being clear about your overarching purpose, values and vision for your business is essential if the plans that flow from that are to deliver on your objectives. There is no right and wrong here, it’s about what kind of service you want to deliver to patients. Sometimes this aspect of business planning may be referred to as ‘defining your why’ or you ‘setting out your mission’. It is important not to get hung up on what you call it – this is all about content and substance.
As the internet has grown, people now research more and more before they choose a service, often relying on customer reviews to decide where to go. This increase will lead to patients being more and more specific about what they are looking for. Traditionally many practices across the UK have tried to be all things to all people with something of a generalist approach, and now it is crucial for business success to clearly set out what you stand for as a practice. This will help you catch the eye of those patients who are looking for what you are offering.
Whether your primary focus is family eye care, boutique eyewear, clinical excellence, bespoke eyewear or one of the many other practice types, it matters not if that is the service you want to provide. What matters is that you communicate your offering to those patients who are looking for that type of service.
Once you have accurately defined your practice’s purpose you can move on to setting out what I call your strategic anchors. These are the non-negotiable areas of your business on which you will not compromise and onto which you will build your business and marketing plan.
In defining these strategies, it is good practice to limit yourself to a small number, so you maintain a focused approach and do not start diluting your offer. When defining your strategic direction, sense check against your purpose to ensure there is a strong link.
Once you have set out your strategic priorities, you can start to look at the tactics you are going to employ to deliver on those strategies. This is the part of the planning process where many small business owners have their ‘ah-ha!’ moment. If up to now you have always gone straight in with trying to decide on the tactics you are going to use to promote your practice, you will have no doubt fallen into the trap of having a disparate number of different ideas, none of which hang together.
Lurching from one promotion to another, without really understanding whether your approach is working or not, often leads to practices running price-led promotions, assuming that is what your patients are looking for. As a mentor once said to me: ‘If you focus on price-led promotions, you will attract price-led customers.’ It’s obvious when you think about it.
It is impossible to evaluate and improve if you don’t measure performance. As clinicians we know about measuring, whether it is pressures, prescription changes or more detailed analysis of clinical issues, practitioners keep detailed and accurate records of all kinds of details. So why is it then, that so many optical businesses fail to accurately measure their business performance in the same way. Where is the record card for the prescription sunglass campaign you ran in 2017, or for the loyalty program you ran in 2016, or the recommend a friend campaign you ran in 2014?
I am leaving out the word marketing here and replacing it with activity deliberately because many practice owners assume that marketing is just about advertising. Making sure your activity is measurable against defined objectives is the only way you can understand which elements of your practice communications are working for you and which are not.
By setting out measurements that monitor your tactics, which in turn deliver on your strategies, which in turn deliver on your business purpose, you will maximise your chances of running the successful business you want.
