MY EYE DOCTOR IS THE BEST BECAUSE

Why so? What causes people to say their eye doctor is best? And what people? Patients? Employees? Neighbors? Family? Friends? Colleagues?

What are the essential ingredients to people endorsing and recommending their eye doctor?

Competency

Eye Doctors have been trained, graduated, licensed and certified. Patients accept this educational process and accept the doctor’s ability to perform. Patients assume competency.

A procedure is assumed to be done well but we won’t know until it’s completed. And not being trained, can our patients discern performance variation? We can discern the before and after effect, but how would we know how brilliant our doctor was?

And so, when we gather the opinions of others who came before us, what are we learning?

Testimonials

Today, customer opinions and ratings are omnipresent, but coming from unknown sources, their value varies from belief to doubt. And if we know little about the procedure and the quality of the work, what can we comment? And what causes us to write?

Other than being competent, as most doctors are, what can an eye doctor do to inspire patients to speak well of them and their practice?

Word Of Mouth

Jeffrey Gitomer has studied and written great content about how we sell, how we buy and how we communicate.

At the end of his Little Red Book of Selling he lists “10.5 things that make you strong enough to make a sale.”

These “10.5 things” also might be the definition of “good character”. They include:

Image

Speaking ability

Attitude

Knowledge

Desire to help

Preparedness

Humor

Creativity

Sincerity

Reputation

Someone who owns all of these attributes would be held in high regard. They would have earned a stellar reputation among everyone they serve and meet.

The last ingredient, the .5, is what he calls the glue – the way in which all of these attributes are held together and “how” they are revealed and received.

He further asserts that being of good character is what makes someone “strong enough to make a sale” — not only to patients, but to employees, colleagues and anyone else

If our patients, employees, neighbors, colleagues and others speak well of us, Gitomer contends that is mostly due to the way people experience us and the way they feel treated.

Teamwork

John Dunne said, “No man is an island content of himself.” A medical practice is a Doctor but also a practice, dependent on a supporting cast. Staff, facilities, equipment, location, parking and other details all combine to create their customers’ experience.

A great Doctor surrounded by a non-supportive cast of people and props can cause too few happy clients. The Doctor alone is not enough and the performance of the supporting cast, is the Doctor’s responsibility.

According to business guru Peter Drucker, it is the Doctor’s responsibility to assemble, train and monitor staff and surroundings. Drucker said, “Productivity is the responsibility of the Manager, not the worker.”

How?

Beyond competency – doing the medical procedures well is important but almost a given in the eyes of our patients. Whether true or not, assume all competitors to be competent and good.

Now, how to stand out? How to differentiate? How to cause your people to speak well of you?

As Gitomer wrote, be of “good character”, all the time and mind the Glue, the “how”. How you blend the attributes together. How you speak to patients and employees. How you show your sincerity and your desire to help. How you exhibit each of the 10 attributes.

And as a bonus, Gitomer equates this strong character, these 10.5 things, to be essential in “making the sale.”

To be called the best, what we do matters, but how we do it and how we treat our people and our props is what patients are more aware of and what they tell others.

Steve Gatter is an advocate, critic and cheerleader to solopreneurs. His website is www.underdog704.com.

 

Dale Brodsky, Founder & Owner of Fundus Photo — provides a broad range of ophthalmic imaging equipment and Fundus Photo’s “NewVision Ophthalmic Imaging Suite”, software designed specifically for ophthalmic imaging and image management.