What a year it’s been, Colleagues! 2023 brought its share of challenges to be sure, but as always, we saw that if we make a choice to control what we can the best way we can, we will (and did!) steamroll the things we can’t control!
That’s certainly not to say it’s easy, as every reader of this blog will attest. But it absolutely is to say we have the ability in post-Covid bricks-and-mortar private practice to achieve our objectives. In practice and in life. And as we put the wraps on a great year (and for those readers participating in MetCHECK Monthly Metrics Tracking, a RECORD YEAR), let’s do a Lightening Round Review of highlights from the 2023 blog discussions that helped (and keep helping) us quiet the private practice nay-sayers out there!
JANUARY Post 28: Time for a Real, Live Marketing Plan (Part 2)
In Part 1 of our focus on a real-live marketing plan, we talked about Practice Vision and the Marketing Objectives to deliberately support that vision. In Part 2, we moved into the workhorse section of the marketing plan, which are the specific Tactics to make those objectives actually happen. For the detailed discussion, have a look back at Post 28. For the Year-End Lightening Round here, let’s review one Objective with one corresponding Strategy and Tactic:
-OBJECTIVE: Double our Vision Therapy Revenues to $XX in the Next Calendar Year.
Strategy: Sub-Brand our Vision Therapy Practice to be its Own Entity within the Practice.
Tactic: Develop VT Name, Logo and Positioning Phrase for VT practice by X date.
FEBRUARY Post 29: An Ounce of Prevention – Strategies to Recession-Proof the Practice
As we saw more evidence of recession in the economy and specifically the industry, we discussed metrics we want to be watching as a team LIKE A HAWK (and strategies for impacting them), including:
Pre-Appointed Patients
Recall Success Rate
No Shows
Production Capacity (percent booked)
New Patients
Revenue-Per-Patient
MARCH Post 30: An In-Depth Look at “Twenty Something” Patients
In this post, Dane discussed the consumptive habits of his own peers (including a custom survey) – “Twenty-Something” consumers – and the huge opportunity we have in private practice to market a relationship-based practice mission specifically to this very fertile demographic.
We revealed that despite their tech-savvy ways (and accordingly wrongly concluding they want to buy all their products on-line), this consumptive group is all about thorough, relationship-based care and high quality vision enhancing products if we teach them to KNOW ABOUT AND VALUE THAT! They survey showed 75 percent of these potential patients don’t know the difference between vision and future of vision (and 1/3 of them haven’t had an eye exam in the past three years), and when we teach them, they respond! So let’s let the internet and chain stores market the $79.99 packages and free shipping all day (and year) long, while we attract EXACTLY the consumers we want as our patients from this market segment BIG TIME!
APRIL Post 31: Attracting and Retaining “Twenty-Something” Team Members
In this post, we moved the “Twenty-Something” conversation from patients on over to co-workers and discussed keys to attracting and retaining this group that is now the single largest segment of American workers. And accordingly, a major key to bricks and mortar service providing going forward! So we got rid of some bogus notions out there regarding this labor force demographic:
• Twenty-Somethings don’t want to work. WRONG! They simply require meaning in the work, and it’s on us help these workers, and the entire team, see that meaning! That one, Colleagues, is on us!
• Twenty-Somethings aren’t team players. WRONG! They’re quintessential team players, and will play with team members of all ages as long as they feel engaged and see value in what we’re doing. Again, that’s on us.
• Twenty-Somethings are “job hoppers.” RIGHT AND WRONG! These workers job hop more frequently than we before them, no doubt about it. But far more often it’s for culture and some flexibility, not signing bonuses. Again, on us.
• Twenty-Somethings aren’t ambitious. WRONG! Most are VERY ambitious, but it’s a more “balanced ambition.” They absolutely plan to own houses (and vacation houses), SUVs and investment portfolios along with all those electronics, as well as travel the world, and will Venmo on a dime to pay for it. But it has to be meaningful work, desirable culture and flexibility.
MAY Post 32: What Do We Do When Skilled Workers Don’t Align?!
We started this post with what we hear at THRIVE pretty much every day –“I can’t believe what a difference it’s made getting rid of “so and so!” …
I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you’ve said this. And probably with more than one so-and-so. So we shared what has become a THRIVE go-to after four decades of coaching and developing teams… If you THINK you might need to replace someone (even if they have a lot of skills), YOU’RE RIGHT! We also talked about our critical chronology in evaluating team players by these three things in this order:
Character
Mentality
Performance
We also discussed that although experience is great and certainly welcome, it’s overrated and often backfires. So we’ll take these three game-changer considerations over experience every time, despite the inconvenience of having to train new people up. We also talked about importance in the Post-Covid Era of getting new employes contributing and productive sooner than before and specific strategies for doing that. As with all the posts featured here in the Lightning Round review, look back to Post 32 for more detail.
JUNE/JULY Posts 33 and 34: Trending Employee Benefits in the Post-Pandemic World (Parts 1 and 2)
As we moved into summer, we moved the employee conversation to strategies for being competitive with employee benefits we provide in the Post-Covid Era, sharing some real-time email clips from the Thrive HELP DESK. See these posts for details, and here are some quick highlights for the Lightening Round:
• Expand health care coverage as much as you possibly can, and consider a stepped-up plan for premium coverage as employees are with the practice longer.
• To the extent you’re able, add PTO (paid time off), UPTO (unpaid time off) and HTO (holiday time off). Consider including time off for things like sick days, birthday, bereavement and even achievement, and include time off as a benefit from day one of employment. Remember our discussion retaining “Twenty-Something” team members – no one, especially these workers, wants to feel trapped by no time off and tell family or friends to take the trip without them.
Let’s do our very vest to contrast the additional cost of this to the cost of losing repeatedly losing employees to exactly these two things – health care and time off.
AUGUST Post 35: What’s the Value of My Practice?!
It’s a short question with a long answer, and we endeavored in this post to provide details of that answer from the most important angles, including these for the year-end Lightning Round:
• Going Rate – what are practices “going for” these days in various buyer categories?
• Traditional and Newer Valuation Methods – main of which are Assets and Goodwill, Capitalization of Earnings (i.e. CAP Rate) and Multiple of EBITDA.
• Sellability – how “sellable” is the practice in its current state at a given value (which is a totally different consideration than the value itself), and why/how are some practices more or less sellable?
SEPTEMBER Post 36: The Importance of Organizational Structure, and a Great Way to Do It!
As we rolled into fall, Dane did this post on the tendency in bricks-and-mortar business today (and not just healthcare practice!) to be understaffed and the consequent on-going need to get more done with fewer people. It’s all about efficiency, and we covered some ways we can be more efficient with a few Lightening Round highlights here:
• One person (owner or manager) managing everything will truly MANAGE (by definition) nothing.
• Delegate and sub-delegate. Every team member should have both practice care roles and patient care roles in the new normal, not just senior staff members.
• Designate the practice’s Management Centers and their specific Team Leaders.
• Designate the practice’s Business Functions and their specific Coordinators.
Put your organizational structure on paper – the picture really does tell a thousand words. We at THRIVE like a Matrix Organizational Structure, customized for a given practice and team.
Design and implement a well-oiled team reporting system that makes it impossible to have a train wreck as a result of lost control from delegation.
OCTOBER Post 37: Highlights from Helena – The 2023 Summit Summit!
In this post, we shared highlights from some fantastic partner conversations at the SUMMIT SUMMIT in Helena (don’t miss next year’s, Friends!), some of which included:
Yes or No on Vision Plans – We had partners in the room making it work well in their practices with YES and others making it work well with NO. We had a terrific group sharing of keys to success with both answers in a riveting conversation.
Marketing in the Modern Era – We shared our Six Fundamental Rules of Marketing, killer branding strategies, patient retention based on future of vision, the “everybody wins” power of well delivered doctor recommendations, doctor involvement in pre-appointing the right way and the killer combination of social media and traditional media marketing.
Keys to Successful Practice Transition – We talked about the WHAT (design of transition), WHERE (where I’ll live my life and spend my time), WHEN (planning timing of retirement from ownership and retirement from patient care), WHO (the buyer types in today’s market and how they’re trending), HOW MUCH (how much the buyer types are paying) and THEN WHAT (some planning for life after ownership).
Owning the Team Culture – A full-team (docs and staff) conversation (including small-group breakout discussions) to answer the question “What do we want it to be like working here?” and OWNING that answer rather than being spectators of it!
NOVEMBER Post 38: Setting the Right Metrics Objectives!
As year-end drew near, we discussed in this post the importance of establishing the right objectives to motivate our teams and create that “bias for success” we talk about a lot here at THRIVE.
That bias is real. We remembered a study that showed we’re fifty times more likely to achieve a goal if we write it down, and we covered five key considerations in defining our production objectives in this order of importance:
What the PRACTICE HISTORY shows
What YOU think as Owner/CEO
What the TEAM thinks
What the INDUSRTY thinks (benchmarks)
The ART of finding that place between too much and not enough!
Well that does it, friends! Hopefully this Lightning Round Review jogs our memories a bit, and before you move on to what’s next in your day, I encourage you to a moment right now to very briefly outline (IN WRITING – fifty times more likely!) a few things you want to put into action in the year ahead from these highlights of this year’s posts, and let’s get to it! …And with that, happy, healthy, successful New Year to you and yours!
Like all THRIVE content, the purpose of BOWEN’S BLOG and SUMMIT TALK Podlecture conversations is to keep us driving together toward IMPACT. If something here has struck a chord, shoot us an email or give us a call and let’s talk it out! Tbowen@mythrivecoaches.com or 402-794-4064.