As you may know, last week was Snowmageddon here in Texas. Now that we’re out of the sub-freezing temperatures, I’m sharing a few observations and notes from 3 days without power, water or heat.
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Hidden leaks are expensive.
Last week’s Texas Snowmageddon was one for the books, I tell ya. And before you think. “Troy, 0 degrees isn’t that cold. It gets down to -20 in [insert your frozen tundra state].”
I’ll just say the cold wasn’t the problem. Heck, I was outside in a t-shirt and shorts playing football with my boys at the beginning of this thing…
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It was all fun and games until the power went out.
(The cold isn’t the issue. The inability to warm up is the issue.)
We had 3 days of no electricity, no central heat and no water, with temps dropping to -5 degrees. And I’m not complaining, because we still had a ton of firewood, plenty of food and cases of bottled water to tide us over. We managed just fine, and it’s good to go through times that build resiliency and show you your weak points.
We finally got power back Wednesday evening, but there was still a big question mark around the water.
Would we have damage to the water system? Did we have any frozen pipes burst?
Did we have hidden leaks?
It’s one of those questions that couldn’t be answered immediately, or by just looking at the surface.
We had to investigate. We had to put heat lamps on the water well, the purification system and all the pipes. We had to look for issues.
Sure enough, as soon as I was able to thaw the pipes in my garage, I discovered it. A giant crack in the PVC pipe, water pouring out.
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I had to rebuild the whole connection, which cost me money and time (about 6 hours between the actual work and multiple trips to every hardware store in town. All of Parker County was scouring the PVC shelves…)
I had to find the leak and fix the leak if I wanted water to flow in my house. And thankfully I was able to do that quickly, without significant damage.
My neighbors weren’t so lucky. They didn’t discover their leak until half their ceiling collapsed. The leak was within the walls of the house. They couldn’t see it. And now they’re dealing with thousands of $$ of damage because of it.
Because hidden leaks are expensive. Not just within a home, but also within your Patient Journey.
Leaks in your Patient Journey are often hidden, and they also become expensive over time. A few leads “leak” here, a few non-converted consults “leak” there, and suddenly you have $50k – $100k (or more) “leaking” from your surgery schedule every single month.
When practices engage us because they want to do more refractive surgery, the first thing we do is “find the leaks.”
And there are always a few common leaks that cost a practice at least 10-30 new refractive patients each month.
Fix the leaks and the patients flow, just like water.
I didn’t have to dig a new water well, put in new equipment or retool my entire system. I just had to fix the leak, and the rest of the water system could do it’s job.
You don’t have to overhaul your entire practice, double your marketing budget or drop your prices. Just find the leaks and fix them.
If you wanna know how to solve the most common – and expensive – leak that I see in elective practices (refractive, plastics, etc), reply to this email. I’ll send you a private audio recording where I cover this specific leak in detail, and tell you how to correct it.
Fix this one leak and you’ll add 10+ refractive eyes next month.
– Troy “Leakless” Cole