Sorry Optometrists!
Sorry Ophthalmologists!
You spent all those years in college learning how to provide eye exams only to have some programmers create an app that does the exact same thing. Why should anyone have to take time out of their busy day to drive down to your practice and pay $140 of their hard-earned money to get the very same eye exam they can get for FREE from an app they can download from the Apple iTunes Store or the Google Play Store? Certainly, that free app is every bit as good as what a professional with years of experience can provide…another example of technology eliminating jobs, right?
Yes, of course, there is no app that can provide the expertise a skilled Optometrist or Ophthalmologist can. Anyone who thinks one of those free apps can replace a skilled medical professional is smoking Colorado Glaucoma herb. You as an optical professional know this without having to study every aspect of every app. You know at best, these apps provide just a pinch of the knowledge and skill you have at detecting problems with people’s vision and are nothing more than a cheap gimmick or a teaser for what you can provide your patients.
Every few weeks on Facebook forums experienced Optometrists who take pride in their skills and their expertise, who complain that neither their patients nor insurance companies appreciate truly appreciate their talents, are fast to brag about how little they spent on their marketing or more specifically, their website. I constantly see these seemingly intelligent ODs brag about the websites they built themselves or paid almost nothing for. Your cheap or free website is worth just about what you paid for it…nothing. Your freebie website is about as good a website as any of those free exam apps are at diagnosing eye diseases.
To quote the powerful 1992 movie, Malcolm X,
“Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had!
Ya been took!
Ya been hoodwinked!
Bamboozled!
Led astray!
Run amok!
You’ve let the appeal of free cloud your judgment and affect your practice and it shows.
Could you build your own home? How many of you have? You are Optometrists, not carpenters. Could you negotiate all your legal contracts by yourself? How many of you have? Once again, you are Optometrists, not attorneys. You hire professionals to do professional work; in the same way your patients hire you as a professional to diagnose their vision. Web designers look at your websites in pretty much the same way you look at their attempts to give eye exams…let’s all roll our eyes at once.
This phenomenon does not affect just Optometrists either. I’ve seen many an Optician owned eye care practice gush how much better the independent lines they carry are so superior to the “ junk” put out by the Luxottica, Marchon or Safilo, only to see them fall into the same trap and not draw the same parallels that most massed produced cheaply made product rarely compares to quality hand-made products. If you make a living selling $300 frames why should your website look like every other cheap ECP carrying all those massed produced brands?
The best websites, like the best eye exams, like the best eyewear, are crafted by professionals…period.
If you want your patients and customers to take your counsel seriously, let them know you take yourself seriously. You can’t do everything, and you certainly can’t do everything with the same skill and expertise as the profession you chose to study for years and practice for years. Seek the counsel and help of those who put the same love and devotion in their chosen field as you do yours. That time and money will come back to you month after month in increased patients and sales.
