We are all on different stages of our life and career. As per explained by Marshall Goldsmith & Marc Reiter in their book named “WHAT GOT YOU HERE WON’T GET YOU THERE” in which they interestingly invent and explained the concept of our life and career. We require different set of skills and traits on different stages of our life and career and as we all know we have got mainly 4 stages of our life (Childhood, Youth, Middle Aged and Old Age) similar to this in our business, profession or any employment also we have got various stages. If we are aware of this concept and we can evaluate our position then we can work on that effort-fully and we can bang on that!!

The skills we require as a student are different than the skills we require to start the practice and clinic or business.

While before starting career we require to study and work long hours for education but while starting practice we need to have risk taking capabilities, when to start the practice, where to start the practice, may be we need to work on all rounder practice since we do not have much staff. Only one receptionist and the doctor – in many cases this is the scenario. Somehow we manage to do it. So this requires mainly risk taking nature, little plan and little of all your interpersonal skills.

The skills required for early success in the practice are different than the skills required for starting of the practice.

Once the business or practice has been started, we need to recruit more people but the challenge is on this stage the brand of the clinic is not so strong. At the same time budget is also low and we need somebody who is more of trustworthy rather than competent. So usually recruitment of some known person or some relative or some well-wisher is being done. At this stage because the brand is not so strong the competent people may or may not join. Here the skills required are patience, focus, hard work, utilization of all available resources, a bit of finance arrangement. Since the brand is new even the investors also reluctant from the investment.

The skills required for scaling up the practice are different than that of the skills required in early two stages.

Now the clinic, business or the profession has been set-up with good revenue. So now the question is of scaling up by having more number of patients, more branches, aggressive advertising budget, building a brand, collecting & keeping patients’ data base, taking follow-up of all those things, we need more efficient & competent people in this stage. The people who were there in first two stages may not be that much helpful for us in this stage unless we educate and develop them. Here lot many things are going on at a time. We are also overwhelmed. Now we are on our way to build a brand so lot of focus is required on quality & efficiency, creating PATIENTS’ WOW EXPERIENCE is our prime focus. Lot of systems and processes needs to be put so that the doctor can save on the time for small-small issues. If scaling up in terms of more number of patients then proper marketing is the key while scaling up through more number of patients as well as more number of branches then proper marketing as well as systems and processes play a major role along with team building. Here if your brand has become strong, more quality people will inclined to join you. Same way more bankers would be offering finance, vendors would be liberal with credit facilities and rates, etc.

The skills required for corporatization of your clinic and practice are different than the skills required in previous 3 stages.

After scaling up, the next stage is corporatization where optimum focus is on brand building and developing systems and processes so efficient that our business, clinic or practice works even in our absence. And this is the real game. Scaling up the practice up to the level that it becomes legacy and runs even for hundreds of years like McDonalds, CocaCola, Tata and Reliance. Here the skills required are willingness to decentralize the power and the authority and be ready to let your business or your practice/clinic go into the hands of the systems and processes. To reach to this level, the contribution of the team is very vital. So in process we also become a very good leader.

Now, if we see all above stages in context of “Dermatalk”, when we launched Dermatalk’s first issue the main concern was to launch it and to get enough articles and funds, then after gradually we increased the numbers of articles, then after we started on focusing on quality & content of articles to be more impressive and diversified to cover vast number of topics, then after we improvise the quality of printing & paper. Thus in every project of your business and in your practice above all stages play equally important role.

Still there is another side of the coin also, “AS WE SUCCEED, WE USED TO FORGET THE BASIC THINGS WHICH BROUGHT US HERE”. This article I have uploaded on our website, we welcome you to visit our website and go through the article to get the other part of the coin also.

Here is the link: www.ethicare.in/what-got-you

EVEN EAGLE NEEDS A PUSH : Being exposed to hundreds of books on marketing & management, I though to share those experiences with all the readers under this section, so in different issue various topics we would be covering under this section. While we love to receive your comments and suggestions or topics which you would like to be covered under this section, nevertheless as the title of this para says “even eagle needs a push” – your comments and suggestions would really be a truly needed encouragement for us. Feel free to write to me at [email protected]