As medical professionals you think you know what your patient wants.
And that means you create all sorts of services for your patients. But that is not enough. Sometimes we are prepared to devote your lives to it. Sometimes you will even try to force it down the throats of your patients.
But here’s the thing. What you think your patients want and what you give them may not be what they want and if you think differently, you would give them something else.
Ever had a patient who promises to do better Healthwise and then comes to you next time only looking worse? I’m no better. My GP has been telling me for years I need to drop a kg or two. To be honest it’s a bit more.
Anyway we say one thing but really other things get in the way.
Henry Ford once said if he asked a customer what they wanted they would have said a faster horse. It was not until he showed them a car did they realise they wanted a car. It was the same for Steve Jobs when designing the iPhone.
And it is the same for motor vehicles generally. Experts in the motoring world (those who really know about cars) will tell you SUV’s are Satan. The chief of BMW once said that as a maker of the ultimate machine he could not understand why anyone would want to pay for an inferior product.
Motor manufacturers do not believe SUV’s are a good product. Because they are taller they are unstable. To make them stable the suspension must be firmer and the tyres more uncomfortable which also makes them slower and less efficient. They are also more expensive to buy than a traditional salon.
In other words, SUV’s are more uncomfortable, inferior, cost more to maintain and run and you pay more for them. The manufacturers know this and want to make and sell more because they make a ton of money. Guess what? SUV’s are a runaway success.
And the manufacturers are happy to continue making an inferior product ….. because that is what the market wants.
Now I know what you are thinking. You’re in healthcare. You don’t have the luxury of providing inferior healthcare and have nothing to do with SUV’s. Besides you would never do it.
I get that too. But healthcare is only a tiny part of what you do with a patient.
A 15-minute consult may be all you do with a patient. But for a patient it is a larger and longer investment from the moment an appointment is sought to the time they get home. Their time is their investment and trust in you.
And that is sometimes what we as a medical professional in business needs to understand. It is not about us. It is not about what we want. It is ultimately about the patient.
You see as an accountant our service really is about preparing tax returns and financial statements. It is what we do and most clients come to us not because they want to but because the need to comply with tax legislation. Our clients invest their time and energy complying with tax legislation.
But we also know that what most clients want is to create more time, more money freedom and more wealth and that has nothing to do with compliance. That has to do with that our clients feel.
So have a look back at your service. Is it what the patients really wants? Is it what they want to feel? If a patient can tell you what would they say? And if they cannot tell you what would you create for them?
