The idea behind my Client Reactivation Strategy started with a few boxes of old patient records in the back of a cleaning-supply closet.
It was January 1980.
I was managing a Sears Optical shop, and we had a fairly straightforward problem.
We needed patients.
Corporate advertising wasn’t producing enough eye examinations, and there wasn’t another marketing budget waiting for me.
While looking through the shop, I found boxes containing records of people who had previously been patients.
They weren’t prospects in the usual sense.
They already knew the practice.
So I started calling them.
Nothing elaborate.
I introduced myself, explained why I was calling and began having conversations.
Within four or five weeks, we went from roughly two or three eye exams a week to 28–30.
At the time, I was primarily interested in filling the appointment book.
Looking back, I learned something more important.
A business can spend a great deal of time and money trying to introduce itself to people who have never heard of it while paying remarkably little attention to people who already have.
I’ve never quite forgotten that.