Be Liberal with Those Compliments and More March Dates for Your Calendar

1World Compliment Day. Go on, they’re free to hand out to customers, to staff, to your family members.

17Shake those limbs, suck up the oxygen, we’re leaving nothing in the locker — or in your stockroom. Yes, March Madness, aka the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships, starts today and for retailers the date’s become one of surprisingly rich potential, be it to do good, raise awareness (basketball is the leading cause of eye injuries in young males) or just leverage the general madness theme (“40% off for 40 mad minutes!”).

20On the 170th Anniversary of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s birth, run a time and motion study on a part of your business to boost efficiency, by say reducing average patient wait times or identifying a bottleneck in patient flow. You may find different staff members perform the same task in wildly different ways, leading to inefficiency, or that opticians are walking extensively between frame boards, measurement tools, and computers. All you need are a stopwatch, clipboard and an open mind.

20Allergy season begins. For the next month or so, adopt a more flexible schedule and expect desperate calls from patients with “allergy eyes.” It doesn’t take long to treat, and you can earn gratitude from existing patients and maybe gain a few new ones as well. Tie your campaign in with contact lens promotion — How about a 90-day trial? — and you’ll be on your way to making this a fertile season for your business too.