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Small Biz - A Never Ending Lesson - The Early Days

Wow...when I look back to all that I have learned in business, it is vast. My entire career actually involved business & leadership in some capacity. I had never consciously made the decision to work in the business sector during my 20's & early 30's. Unbeknownst to me, I was learning very important business lessons back then; that I would apply later in my businesses.

Before I was a RN, I was an Optician & managed a smaller optical store in my town. At the age of 22, I was as green as possible in both leadership & business. I worked for a chain of optical stores in my state. I learned at age 22, that this company made their products & services stand out when compared to others. They did this by offering 1 hour glasses. They trained & pushed us to do upsells. Our office ran a special all the time, 2 pairs of glasses & an eye exam for $99.00. This special included single vision lenses & basic plastic frames. Over 80% of the time, individuals bought different frames &/or contacts. If they wanted contacts, they had to pay an additional examination fee. I estimate less than 20% of those customers walked out of there only paying $99.00. 

I attended nursing school & after receiving my RN degree, worked in the hospital. After 3 years, I started working for homecare & infusions. I eventually became the Director over it & learned a wealth of information. Our homecare agency was one of the top in the country. This included profit margins, performance (outcome of our patients) & exceeding regulatory compliance. We were highlighted in medical magazines, which inflated the executives to want more. They immediately purchased other homecare agencies in other counties, thinking they were unstoppable. The newly acquired agencies had been underperforming & some were located 2 or more hours away. After 6 months, our agency was losing money like a leaky faucet. The issues that impacted us were:

• Larger geographic coverage was difficult to manage. Staffing shortages & other issues we could handle effectively in a smaller core area. Distances definitely impaired this
• Our agency was owned by the local hospital. This resulted in all homecare referrals getting referred to us. After buying other homecare agencies in other areas, we could not bank on getting all of that areas hospital referrals. They viewed us as competition.
• The highest profit margins for earning is durable medical equipment & infusion medications vs. providing services

In a response to losing money the executives immediately got scared & sold off our infusion pharmacy contract to a local durable medical equipment company. This was a seriously bad decision. Our infusion pharmacy had only 1 of a couple abilities to mix meds. I wont get to technical to keep it simple. The executives never realized the financial impact of losing this. In hind sight, they should have ran a report showing the different areas of income for products & services we were rendering. If they would have done this, they would have found, infusion & pharmacy had the highest profit margins. About 3 months later, over 75% of the staff were let go. The agency had to relocate to a smaller less expensive location & ultimately ended up closing their doors forever more. 

Any successful business can go from #1 to locking their doors. Every decision you make for your business can make or break it. The vital lessons were:

• Allowing executives who lack the knowledge of the actual day to day business, making decisions that impact operations
• To never get conceited about the success of your business
• Do not ever think your successful equation will work in other new areas, there are many many factors that can impede it
• Know your stats, know what products/services have the highest profit margins

Despite the market you work in, these lessons will apply. Stay tuned to my next posting for business lessons learned after running one of the biggest multi-billion dollar companies.