You can find out a lot about a person from their IT setup. I’m not talking about the Mac vs PC debate (which regularly surfaces in our office), but about IT backup systems.
If you’re a proactive type, one that acts before a crisis occurs, you’ll have all your important data backed up to an external hard-drive… and maybe to a ‘cloud’ as well.
If your response is: “What backup?”, you’re the passive type. What’s the bet, though, that if a crisis occurs and your precious data is wiped, you’ll quickly become the reactive type, and install backups to ensure it never happens again.
People talk a lot about how tough business is. It’s all you hear in some circles. Many optical retailers tell us that – to varying degrees – they’re experiencing tough times. With advances in technology and the economy, we’ve felt it in publishing as well.
rather than reacting in fear… by grabbing at the first opportunity to come along
We could passively accept the world changing around us, shrug our shoulders – because there’s not much we can do about it.
We could get angry, be reactionary and vent our spleen. We could cut corners … after all; it’s expensive to produce 7,265 copies of an 88 page 100gsm covered with a 250gsm matt cello glazed magazine and deliver it on time, every time. There’s a cost, too, in meeting our obligations to our readers, to produce a broad range of well-researched, quality content. Then there’s our website, newsletters, social media, etc. Compromising quality or editorial content might be an acceptable course to some, but we don’t see it as an option.
What we’ve done, instead, is access our backup. In this case, the backup was the clear vision we had in launching mivision eight years ago, and the relationships we’ve developed with the professions and associated industries.
We’ve never expected our clients just to book ads with us simply because we exist! We’ve deliberately chosen to be proactive by becoming strategic business partners with our advertisers. We’ve chosen to continue to provide a quality product; to be creative; to constantly come up with new ideas that meet their needs; in order to help grow their, and our, businesses. In difficult times, it is even more important to stay focused on your course and your cause.
When I speak with other business owners, specifically those who run optical outlets, it is hugely satisfying to hear how so many are doing exactly the same. Of course, our product is different, but there’s no difference in the strategy.
There are so many astute business people in optics in Australia who, rather than reacting in fear to increased competition by grabbing at the first opportunity to come along, have been proactive about their business plans.
Patients or customers aren’t delivered on a plate. Smart operators stay true to the vision that brought them into the profession in the first place. They’re drawing on the strong relationships they’ve developed over the years with their patients. They’re differentiating themselves from ‘the herd’ and finding new and creative ways to excel and meet their needs. Now, that’s inspiring!
