To drive sustainable eye clinic growth, you must as an Optometrist chart new roads that embrace innovative business strategies. 

Doing school runs can be stressful. This is notwithstanding the joy of seeing to the development of your children. It can be especially stressful if you stay in a big busy city or most capital cities.

We usually want to be going through the routes we have grown familiar with. This is because of the fear of the unknown. After all, like in traffic routes, there could be heavier traffic elsewhere. We ultimately become reluctant to explore new roads. If eventually a trusted friend has used a different route and encourages you, then you are more willing to try it.

Charting New Roads is a great article I read in TRENDS magazine about the new reality in business. Technological disruption and business transformation of today require a new approach from leaders, according to the writer. This great article by Sevag Papazian of Strategy & (formerly Booz & Company), showed superb thought leadership. 

Optometric eye clinics are professional entities that require even more informed leadership. To chart new roads for your optometry eye clinic growth requires following up with technological advancements. You must also understand how the internet is disrupting eye care delivery.

4 things you must do to chart new roads for your eye clinic include:

1. Focus on differentiating capabilities.
2. Become more agile
3. Be bold and embrace risk
4. Accommodate diverse working styles

1. Focus on differentiating capabilities. 

What makes you different from others. Of course, as professionals, if we take the right steps in examination and differential diagnosis most outcomes are likely to be the same or expected to be the same. But even as our professional judgments could differ, we can still bring into play our individual personalities to create unique patient experiences.

Success in today’s digital world, with optometry practice as no exception, requires eye clinics to identify and give more attention to what they are really good at. These could include but are not limited to

• Your eye clinic brand 
• Your product or service quality
• Your speed of delivery
• Your customer service
• The awesome personal brand of the optometrist.
• Any other unique value proposition

I once listened to a Defocus Media Podcast – Optometry: 2020 Eyewear Trends.  According to Dr. Melanie Denton, founder, and owner of Salisbury Eyecare and Eyewear, 

There are so many elements of my personality and my style that are so different from other practices in my area, but I’ve been able to incorporate all of that in starting my practice.

The ultimate strategy would be to focus on the areas of great strength with less emphasis on other areas. This is not to say that the other areas should be neglected. No. Rather, they could be outsourced to those with special strength in such areas. For instance, an eye clinic known for myopia management can outsource lens fitting. This is not because it can’t be done in the clinic but so that they focus resources on areas of strength. Except where the practice has the capacity to do more, it is still great to be known for some specialty areas. 

Consider outsourcing opportunities in your practice is an optometry times article by Margie Recalde, OD, FAAO. She highlighted 3 major gains of outsourcing. 

They include:

• More dividends to the clinic owners. 
• Easier to balance in-house staff and overhead expenses. 
• Creation of a more positive environment for all staff. Employees are now able to focus on areas of expertise.

2. To drive eye clinic growth, become more agile 

Agile is a word mostly used in the software industry to indicate a quick and easy management process. It mainly entails the division of tasks into manageable chunks to enable continuous reassessment and adaptation. 

An optometric eye clinic is not a software company but must be seen as a business project. According to the Atlassian Agile Coach, 

Agile calls for collaborative cross-functional teams. Open communication, collaboration, adaptation, and trust amongst team members are at the heart of agile. Requirements, plans, and results are evaluated continuously so teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly.   

The Agile Manifesto seeks to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change by following a plan

What does this agile manifesto mean for the optometrist?

1. As an Optometrist, you must begin to see your eyecare practice as a business with a heart. Failure to understand this and acting like it will make it difficult to implement an agile process for eyecare business growth.
2. You need to shift from too much paperwork to digital integration. Some can even be automated to free up time for other activities.
3. See your customers as not just patients but eye health consumers. Just like in every other sector, consumers now know a lot. To start with, anyone can ask google. Whether the knowledge is right or wrong, your giving them adequate care requires involving them more than ever.
4. Change is constant. Being able to chart new roads for your eyecare practice requires flexibility. You should not remain rigid to set out plans but continue to readapt to offer an awesome consumer experience.

As optometrists trying to chart new roads for eye clinic growth, we must always remember that,

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

-Vince Lombardi

Perfection can become a big problem especially if it leads to overplanning, procrastination, and failure to take action. Agile is all about delivering the best value at any given time period. 

3. Be bold and embrace risk for a sustainable eye clinic growth

Being innovative requires being ready for unpredictable outcomes. Being averse to such risks means your eye clinic will maintain a status quo or be over cautious in trying new things. But the rate at which technology keeps evolving makes it imperative for eye clinics to experiment, even fail, gather feedback, and improve for growth.

Just like other industries are exploring new ideas, gathering feedback, iterating, and optimizing, so should be the case for eye clinic growth. As an optometrist, you must be willing to dare to try new things even in the midst of uncertainty.

Achieving something fulfilling in life often requires some level of risk. But if you really want to get to an exceptional height, you will surely need to do something beyond the ordinary.

Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” 

—Howard Schultz

4. Accommodate diverse working styles

Today’s optometric eye clinic needs to move away from the traditional eye clinic style. Making room for different working styles will make room for digital talents, empower employees to be creative and foster agility.

Many eye clinics still have old traditional working styles. For instance, almost the same open and close time, the same old management structure, the same clinic layout, and a mindset of maintaining the status quo.

From the makeup or your staff to the working environment to the working style, allowing diversity will help chart new roads to eye clinic growth

 When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become a wiser, more inclusive, and better organization.

— Pat Wadors, Head of HR at LinkedIn (Source: LinkedIn)

Wrapping It Up

In fact, the novel coronavirus pandemic ( COVID 19 ) is a compelling call to action. Some staff may even turn out to be more productive if the work schedule is flexible or remote. New innovative and creative roles are being exploited in almost all industries. Optometry eyecare business must be transformed to grow with the evolving market realities.

To be able to chart new roads for eye clinic growth and consequently enhance eyecare services, optometrists should among other business strategies… 

1. Focus on differentiating capabilities.
2. Become more agile
3. Be bold and embrace risk
4. Accommodate diverse working styles

As an optometrist with an awesome brand,  your eyecare business must maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Beyond your eye clinic doing well, it must thrive. To achieve exceptional eye clinic growth, you need to chart new roads now more than ever before.

Through this platform OptoBrand, elevating your optometry brand as a unique optometry professional is my core goal. Your success is my success.  Contact Me to let me know if I can be of any help. Need help starting or just need to explore ideas and discover growth possibilities? Book a free discovery session.

Originally published on our parent website – StarRose Designs as 4 Proven Ways To Chart New Roads For Eye Clinic Growth by the same Author.