Discover Why an Eye Doctor Became a Marketing Consultant!
Hi, my name is Dr. Sandi Eveleth and this is my story…
I was a young optometrist who just opened a private optometry practice and optical boutique with my partner. Neither one of us had much knowledge on how to grow, let alone run, a small, bricks and mortar local business from scratch. Optometry schools simply don’t have enough room in their curriculum to teach business or marketing courses.
Prior to opening the practice, we had practiced inside corporate locations, worked for highly-respected ophthalmologists, and even worked for other private practice optometrists. From those experiences, I thought I had enough business knowledge. We even took a business course from the local Small Business Development Center. That would surely give us enough business acumen…
It was frightening. And, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit, it took a couple of years even to decide to open up a private practice. Something I’ve learned about myself is this: it may take me a while to make a decision but, once I make it, it’s full steam ahead!
So there it was, the decision is made, and only a few short months later (and seven years after graduating from optometry school!), the practice is open and ready to see patients. The first 6 months were fantastic! Patients found the practice through diligent efforts, but then things started to slow down. It wasn’t a good sign. My fears were realized.
Because what I wanted was…
I really wanted to make our practice successful so I wouldn’t have to work for another eye doctor outside the practice — I wanted to be my own boss! And honestly, I really wanted to work less time IN the practice and spend more time working ON the practice. Why? I wanted to spend more time with my young daughter (she was 2 years old when the practice opened) and ailing mom.
No matter what we did, however, we couldn’t make enough money to allow me to quit working outside the practice for other doctors. We hit a brick wall at every attempt to grow the practice’s revenues.
We (thought we had) tried all kinds of marketing. But, it was hit or miss. There was something we were missing.
Maybe it was intuition; perhaps it was desperation or the beginning of my journey down a new path. But, whatever it was, I knew what we had to do next.
We had read about the benefits of hiring a practice consultant. We took the plunge and hired one of the best at the time. We really couldn’t afford it, but we also knew we couldn’t afford NOT to do it!
I could write an entire book on what he taught us during his three-day visit, and what I’ve learned over the last two decades, but two of the most important things he taught us were having the right mindset and adding a specialty.
We learned that we were still running our practice as though we were in a low to a medium-priced location with absolutely no unique selling points or propositions (USPs, as we call it in the marketing industry!).
Why would patients come to us unless we were the lowest price in town (also known as commoditization)? We didn’t offer anything special and had no way to stand out to prospective patients. Heck, we didn’t even have a website at the time!
The consultant also taught us about adding a subspecialty to the practice.
That was the “a-ha” moment that made it crystal clear to me how we were going to increase revenues and provide unique services for every patient that walked in our practice.
As a result of his incredible guidance, we:
- started a vision therapy subspecialty,
- trained our staff on how to upsell products that benefitted patients,
- overhaul the office procedures and systems from beginning to end,
- and increase our marketing efforts.
Even though we had transformed our mindsets and the entire practice using his advice, we discovered that we needed to market to a completely different patient base. I ended up getting a little frustrated as I thought making all the recommended changes would be enough.
It wasn’t…
What was missing was a clear understanding of how OUR practice was unique from other practices the consultant had worked with – how we managed our staff, how our personalities were, how we spoke with patients, and more.
To fill in the missing pieces, I decided to immerse myself into the world of marketing and practice consulting. I learned everything there was to know about online and offline marketing from attending courses at a local college (I never imagined I’d be heading back to school after getting a doctorate degree!) to taking online courses and reading everything I could get my hands on… and loving every minute of it!
YES! I discovered a passion for marketing and meeting clients where they were.
You know, the kind of passion where you can’t learn enough, and then start talking about it to everyone you know — then something cool happened…
Others began asking me how they could grow their practices and local businesses.
After implementing a full-scope marketing plan from what I had learned and tested, we grew the practice to allow me to quit my other jobs and we became known as THE eye doctors to help students and adults with learning-related vision problems in our town and surrounding areas (people drove as much as two to three hours, twice per week, to receive vision therapy from us).
Other eye care and medical professionals referred patients to us, schools referred students to us, and a plethora of happy parents referred others to us!
We even added a second specialty to diagnose and treat computer-related vision problems.
As a result of this and my new found passion, I was able to achieve my dream of working part-time to spend more time with my daughter and ailing mom. My daughter and I were even able to travel parts of the US during her summer vacations. Lastly, I was also able to start a second business using my digital marketing and web design skills that allows me to work from anywhere.
Being able to combine my almost 3 decades of practicing as an optometrist and several years owning a private practice with almost a decade of providing digital marketing services to form a consulting business to help eye care professionals achieve their own dreams… WOW! To realize what you’re supposed to do as your single motivating purpose in life, there’s nothing more exhilarating. It has been a tremendous blessing and a dream come true— I now know what my true calling is and how to best serve others.
Stay tuned to learn more about how I can help you grow your eye care practice and for a recommendation that’s so simple (oh how I wish it had been available those many years ago…!) – to understand, to implement, and to grow your practice.
If you’d like to learn more about growing your eye care practice, contact me here.
Leave a Reply