With tax season almost over, it’s a good week to shift away from looking back at 2021 and focus on 2022 and beyond.
For the last few years, the number one complaint I’ve heard from practice owners is they are tired of running day to day operations. COVID certainly didn’t help—making decisions on furloughing, stimulus programs and PPE protocols certainly put extra pressure on owners. Not to mention the aftermath of a difficult labor market as well as increasing wages hasn’t made things seem much easier.
But this is only the case for some of my clients, not all. While hiring remains tough across the country, I’ve had owners who have had tremendous growth and been able to reduce their days of patient care, schedule multi-week vacations and feel far less stressed today than they were in 2019.
One common denominator with these practices is a willingness to work ON the practice instead of just IN it, something all business owners have heard but may not be willing or able to embrace. But another surprisingly common denominator for many of these practices is a system they use called Traction.
If you’re not familiar with Traction, it’s a book by Gino Wickman on building processes, teams and businesses that succeed. It’s been recommended by Forbes, Success Magazine and highly thought of programs like Strategic Coach. And while setting up Traction in a practice requires some heavy lifting on the front end, it alleviates operational dependency off of owners and onto a more motivated and engaged staff.
I’m lucky to call the optometric expert on Traction a client. Dr. Larry Golson is the sole owner of a very hip, trendy 3 doctor practice in Asheville, North Carolina . I almost wrote that he runs a practice but the reality is that most days, the practice runs itself. He has been able to pare his patient care schedule down to 1-2 days per week and only goes into the practice 2-3 days, allowing him to pursue other hobbies like skiing, mountain biking, and consulting other ODs on how to implement Traction in their practices. Also notably, Dr. Golson isn’t in the mature phase of his practice life cycle— without giving away his age, he’s still a bit of a spring chicken.
Over the last few years I’ve seen Larry work with practice owners to implement Traction and from where I sit (which is a financial and emotional well-being perspective) the results have been impressive. So impressive that I’ve asked him to take time out of his schedule to share Traction with you via a live webinar on Tuesday, April 26th at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific Time.
Whether you’ve read Traction before or intend to, I hope you are able to join us for this interactive conversation that takes, and if not, definitely register for the replay. We’ll take 45 minutes to talk through the Traction system Please reply back with any questions you may have and see you on the 26th!
Best,
Natalie