5 steps to being more positive about your pharmacy business

There are many things we learn at a young age.  Lessons that are supposed to guide us through life safely and successfully.  Hopefully when we are young we have someone in our lives telling us that the sky is the limit.  We can do anything.  Be anything.  As long as we work hard and apply ourselves.   As children, we may think that means we can be a Starfleet captain or Wonder Woman (If only!) but as we get older, we settle into more realistic self-expectations.  Unfortunately, along with those more realistic expectations there’s also this annoying little tagalong known as self-doubt. 

To a certain extent, an ability to honestly critique yourself is a good thing.  That ability can help you learn from mistakes, make changes for the better, be more confident and grow your pharmacy business. But there’s a very fine line between being honest with yourself about your flaws and being too hard on yourself.  Running and managing an independent pharmacy is no easy task and too much self-doubt will hold you back. 

This info graphic is titled “how not to be hard on yourself” and it demonstrates some of the ways you can conquer your self-doubt and move past it.  All of these points are important to take into account on a personal and professional level, but a few of them are especially valuable for independent pharmacy.

“Your mistakes are part of your learning.” This is true for mistakes you make as well as mistakes made by your pharmacy staff.  Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something new and make improvements for the next go round.  Make sure that you create an environment where learning is encouraged and where employees are not afraid to admit to mistakes so they can learn to correct them.  Work with your technology partners to see what training resources they have available.

“Don’t compare yourself to others because you are not them.” Being aware of what your competition is doing is important, but trying to be like them is counter-productive.  Embrace what makes your pharmacy different and unique rather than dwelling on any perceived shortcomings.

“Learn from people who criticize you.” It’s not easy to hear that your pharmacy may be falling short of someone’s expectations.  But it’s going to happen.  While you probably shoot for 100% customer satisfaction, the odds of that happening are pretty much 0.  Try as you might, sometimes you just can’t please everyone.  So really listen to what disgruntled customers have to say.  Instead of wallowing in the failure, use it to make things better. 

“Every single problem you have is not unique.” While problems may present themselves in different ways, many of them have the same root cause.  And many business probably experience the exact same problems.  This is good for you because it means that there is almost definitely a solution out there for whatever problem you are facing.  This is where choosing the right business partners come in handy.  If you work with pharmacy industry experts, you’re likely to have someone on your side who’s knowledgeable about what you need to change. 

“Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed.”  This is all encompassing.  Your business partners should care about the success of your pharmacy.  And your employees should be invested in that success as well.  But for this to work, you have to know what exactly success looks like for your pharmacy.  If you don’t know your goals and share them, it’s going to be much harder for anyone to get involved and help.

We all fall down sometimes.  But when we do, it’s important not only that we find a way to get back up again, but that we figure out why we fell and learn to walk with a little more confidence.