French But Funky

You'll rarely see the words French and funky in the same sentence, but when you combine antique style chairs with in-your-face color and top it off with pop art, what else can you call it? This place has a hip, fun point of view that's bound to attract a hip, fun clientele.

The front window, though, is a disaster zone. The pink miniature couch is cute and colorful but there's just too much "stuff" in this display. Mon Dieu, mon ami! Less is more!

Parisian Sunday Strollers

Hot fashion sunglasses were everywhere in Paris, the bigger the frame, the blacker the lens, the better. Saw a fair amount of aviators too.

Effective Leadership = Higher Profits

An effective leader is the key to any successful team. In Get Everyone in Your Boat Rowing in the Same Direction leadership expert Bob Boylan teaches you how to push your team to its full potential.

If you asked your employees the question, "Who are we, anyway?", would they all know the answer? Would you get different answers or just a blank look? As a leader it's your job to communicate to employees:
1. What's important around here
2. Where we are headed
3. What we stand for

Boylan says when everybody knows and believes in these three things, you've got a group of people working toward the same goal. And that translates into higher productivity and more profits.

I love this book. It's a short and simple read with great ideas you can put into action in your practice right away. Maybe you're not a born leader, but you if you don't learn to lead your people, your practice will never reach its full potential.

Some wise man once said, "Your level of success in life depends on how well you can get things done through other people." This book will help you step it up a level or two. And what's more it's only $9.95 at Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/34hydm

Photos: Vision Source of Texarkana

This office was completed in November, 2006. Dr. Mark Allen reported a 21% increase in average revenue per exam within their first 3 weeks in the new facility.

Dr. Allen was very concerned about how to display and sell more high end frames without losing patients who were looking for more moderate priced frames. The solution was to create a high fashion boutique within the optical defined with a barrel-vaulted uplit ceiling and columns. The see-through showcases divide the reception counter from the optical.

The high end frames are shown off in cubicles that are individually lit with halogen strip lights. The moderate priced frames are presented on frame bars and glass shelves built in to the wall.



We'll have more photos of this office up on our new website soon.

Fabulous French-Italian Retail Tour April 4-23, 2007

I'll be in Paris and Italy for three weeks in April to scout out the best in French and Italian retail design! I'll be cruising through some of the finest optical shops (like Alain Mikli in Paris) and the best boutiques and retail shops in Venice, Florence and Rome.

Naturally, we'll do a bit of museum hopping too, but my main intent is to steep myself in world class merchandising, design and architecture for creative inspiration. In today's global economy people's tastes are getting to be more similar according to their income group than their geographic location.

Many of my clients are opening new locations in high income areas or wanting to attract more high income patients. People who want high quality merchandise also expect high quality interior design whether they live in Paris, France, Toledo, Ohio or Palm Beach, Florida.

On the other hand, stores like Target have shown us that great design isn't just for the rich. Target sells a whole line of Michael Graves kitchen wares and Isaac Mizrahi clothing and shoes. People with moderate incomes respond to great design, too.

I expect to come back from my trip with a boatload of ideas for display and design that I can translate and adapt to any income level. Of course, I will bring back photos too and you'll be the first to see them if you're one of my subscribers.

Not subscribed to my mailing list yet? Fill out the form on my home page and you'll get a free report too!

Websites Need Remodeling Too!

How's your website? Have you added more content, made any improvements lately? It's easy to hire a company to set up a nice looking website. Sometimes the website is part of a package that you get when you buy practice software or marketing services.

Most people are relieved when the website finally goes live. Then they get so busy with other things that new content is added on a very sporadic basis. The site may not have anything new for months at a time. Sound familiar? I'm guilty of this too.

The problem is that unless someone is assigned the task of sending update material to the web master on a regular schedule, it simply won't get done. One of the obstacles to website updating is that you have to get the web master to do it. Then you have to check whether what he or she did is working properly and get them to fix what is wrong.

This has been a big frustration for me and I decided that I was NOT going to be at the mercy of some web master's work load any more. After months of research I found a web site design program that we can handle in-house. (We're using Freeway Pro, which is only for Macs.)

Many of the internet marketing guru's recommend "throwing a bomb" into your website every couple of years and doing a complete re-design. So that's what we did. To save time, I hired a web master who knows the program in and out to do the initial design and set up.

Now my assistant and I are in the final stages of adding new material and fine-tuning everything ourselves. Our brand new totally re-designed website will be up by the end of March (maybe sooner!). We've given our business a fresh new look with a new logo and color scheme carried through in printed materials (business card, letterhead, etc.) and on the internet.

Sometimes you need to "throw a bomb" into your old image and start fresh again. When you remodel or move to a new location, think about the image you present in your printed materials and on your website. Your identity sticks in the mind of your patients only if it's consistent across the board.

I'm so happy to be in total control of my website at last. Now if I want to add a new photo or case study my assistant can do it and I'm right there to edit it as I see fit. And new content can go live the same day! No more waiting for the web master to do it! Your website may be larger and more complex than mine, but that doesn't mean you can't have better control over updating it.

If your website was built with DreamWeaver (one of the most popular web design programs) you can use a program called Contribute that allows you to make changes and updates only to certain portions of the site. Your web master can set it up so it's impossible for you to mess up the code on the essential elements.

The web is an important marketing tool that no practice can afford to ignore. When you have an easy way to do changes, you'll stand a much better chance of keeping your web site up to date.

The New Demographics: You Are Where You Live

People sometimes wonder how I can successfully design offices all over the country without setting foot out of my hometown Portland, Oregon. Now I'm revealing to you one of my "secret weapons" that I use to help me understand who your patients are. Knowing their lifestyle preferences, income, age levels and such enables me to design just the right style and color scheme that appeals to them.

My secret weapon is a website called "My Best Segments" featuring free demographic information from Claritas, a world leader in demographics and customer segment profiling. They have taken a mountain of data on consumers, filtered it into cohesive lifestyle groups and given them each a clever title like Money and Brains, Bohemian Mix, Kids & Cul-de-sacs, etc.

At the website you enter the zip code of the area you want to know about and up pops the top five groups living in that zip code. You can click on each group name to find out information like income, number of kids, favorite restaurants and TV shows, types of sports they like, even the make and model of car they are likely to drive!

Demographic characteristics such as education, housing and race/ethnicity are also available. So it's easy for me to get a good picture of the folks who are my client's typical patients and then tailor the office to fit their tastes and lifestyles. It's fun to put in your own zip code and see which group you fit into.

Think of MyBestSegments as a "photo album" of consumer markets. Each of the Claritas market segments has its own pages that display "snapshots" of the segment's demographic traits, lifestyle preferences and consumer behaviors.

Did I mention that all this great information is FREE? Try it for yourself:

http://www.claritas.com