Mark Clark, MBA, ABOC’s Post

This is an old proverb: He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. It reminds us that there is a balance between understanding our environment and being paralyzed by it. I like a lush lawn, but as you can see there is no rain in my forecast. So my options are overseed and water if it doesnt rain, or do nothing. Of course, I know If I do nothing, my current bermuda grass will go dormant for the year and I will have a brown lawn for the next 6 months. There are many parallels that can be drawn for life.

Every day you are faced with choices between what you need, what you should do, and what you want to do. You can look in your metrics and see how well each staff member performs in guiding this process. If you see a lot of purchases fully covered by insurance, likely your patients are also not getting what they actually want. Think about that for a moment. #optometry #eyecare #eyewear #optical #optician

Probably 95% of your patients could see "fine" with these...But think about that for a moment. They came to your office because they wanted something MORE than basic sight. They came to you because they really want to look good, feel good, and have the best experience. We make purchases based on several factors: what I need, what I should get, what I want to get. But here is the secret, they are already in your door because they have given into "what I want" and not just "what I need".

According to the most recent Vision Council Consumer Survey, respondents recalled spending the following out of pocket on contacts on average: With insurance: $123.5 No Insurance: $137.5 Now here is the kicker. Add in the average reimbursement to the amount of out-of-pocket for contacts, and you had more revenue for patients with insurance than those without. This makes sense because those with insurance may be more likely to order an annual supply. But it is often hard to get our brains around "making more revenue with insurance"!! #optometry #eyecare #kpi #contactlenses #eyewear

As usual, my colleague Patty Warren Aboc hits the nail on the head. Your lab and lab reps can be a great resource for your practice. While we are used to our reps buying us lunch, I used to buy lunch for the CS team at my favorite lab. It can be a good thing or a bad thing if laboratory CS knows you by name! Make it a good thing!

I need your help! (and there is nothing I despise more than asking for help!) I am finishing my doctorate and for my final doctoral project I am writing on Overcoming Barriers to Innovation in small business. I need to interview about 10-12 leaders of US based businesses with less than 500 employees for qualitative analysis. My goal is to find themes in responses that may unlock clues as to how to overcome risk aversion, financing barriers, and barriers in staff resources/knowledge etc. It will be a 20-30 minute zoom interview. I will also provide you the results of the qualitative analysis, so hopefully you can help your customers overcome barriers to innovation!

This type of story is too common. This person had no other option than to take to social media forums to identify potential sales issues. Your data can help you pinpoint the problem. Is it all staff? Is it all Physicians? If your data tells you "yes" to both of those, then you have a product alignment issue, product price issue, or need more staff. Watching trends in your ASP can help pinpoint the source of capture rate issues as well.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is an interesting tool. Recently it was applied to AI. I've been keeping close tabs on Nividia and AMD stocks with their recent stake in AI. 2023 was labeled the "trough of dissolutionment" for AI, so are we climbing the "hill of productivity" now?

What drives your team members? For me, it isnt always financial at the first layer. Do you have a way to track and reward progress?

Get intentional about your business, start measuring and achieving your goals. #eyecare #optometry