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Please give me eye contact!
It what seems obvious findings, patients prefer their doctors to be engaging in conversation, and to ignore any online screens. As electronic medical records become more common, it’s not unusual for doctors to enter data into a computer as they talk with their patients. Doctors seeing patients for the first time, when trying to build…
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Pharmacy Disruptors – Amazon, Artificial Intelligence & Holographic Health Practitioners
Disruption, as we all know, is an inevitability that is to be feared. If that fear can be used to motivate a chain reaction of positivity, then we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Fear is already building around the knowledge that Amazon will be entering the pharmacy market in Australia and that…
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Your business depends on your personal touch
Mamie Adams always enjoyed going to a branch post office in her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to buy stamps just before the holidays one year and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine in…
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MARKETING FOCUS – TEN ESSAYS on Management & Marketing
1. COMMUNICATE, TELL STORIES, BUILD TEAMS There exists among many in business at present a focus, if not a fixation, on digital disruption, technological change and the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence. It is important that we do not get ahead of ourselves and the marketplace. Too often customers and clients are left behind. …
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Good enough never is
There’s a good reason why Debbie Fields of cookie fame is so successful, and she summed it up in an aphorism I’ll never forget – “Good enough never is.” Debbie told me how she coined that phrase after she visited one of her first stores. She walked in unannounced and saw a large crowd of…
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Arrogance and business don’t mix
In a village long ago lived a young boy who loved nothing as much as competing in athletic contests. Because he was fit and strong, he usually triumphed and grew to love the adulation he received from the villagers around him. One day he challenged two other youths to a race from one end of…
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MARKETING FOCUS – 1. Love your customer more than your products 2. Everybody’s talking brands 3. Promotions Fatigue 4. Unpredictable, Unprecedented 5. The hidden costs of Discounting
1. LOVE YOUR CUSTOMER – MORE THAN YOUR PRODUCTS You’ll have to lift your game (… and lower your prices, too). This clarion-clear message from customers and clients is only now starting to resonate. Responses up to this time have been slow, spasmodic, inconsistent and conspicuously reluctant. Just three years ago the taxi industry was put on…
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Stop procrastinating before it stops you
A third grader had to do a book report, and he chose a Socrates biography. His report consisted of three succinct sentences: Socrates was a philosopher. He talked a lot. They killed him. Not much more to say about brevity. Maybe that’s why U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated.” Another U.S. President,…
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Pharmacists are primary in healthcare and its economics
One of the most successful marketing slogans ever developed by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) was: “Ask your family chemist – he knows!” The public response to it was massive and just seemed to hit the right nerve. Its popularity eventually irritated the medical profession who couldn’t understand how a pharmacist might know more…
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Clinical Services – What Patients Will Pay For
Pharmacists have always been well regarded by their patients for their ability to deliver health literacy programs, over the counter in semi-private spaces in roughly three to five minute segments. Generally, this service has been delivered free of charge and it has formed a nearly invisible component of “core” business. Only invisible because it was free,…