 Conflict, yes! Everyone's favorite topic. Hey, thanks for reading my article in May's Envision Magazine. Now, isn't society funny how we gravitate towards other people's conflict? Love to gossip about it, or we'll even watch shows about other people living their real-life drama and fake conflict. But when it comes to dealing with conflict, most people just pretend it's not there. Most feel that that tension and do everything to try and avoid it. Though there are few who thrive on conflict, and there are even fewer yet that are constructive with how they thrive on conflict. Now, I'll start by saying this. As an optician myself, I will admit that the opticianary role is most equipped to deal with conflict because of our part in the patient journey when the patient decides to purchase eyewear, right? We here know the most, I think, of anyone in the office because we are in the sales position. So these uncomfortable kind of conflict-type scenarios are frequent. But just because opticians deal with the most conflict does not mean that opticians are good at dealing with it. Uh-uh. Equally as terrible as everyone else at conflict. So no matter your role in the office, listen up. If you're working in the administrative reception area, the pre-testing area, if you're a scribe, if you're the doctor, if you're an optician, you're in a position to absolutely abolish a patient's desire to buy eyewear. And I guarantee that you have unintentionally talk patients right out of buying glasses without even knowing it. Cheer story. Now, you didn't do this on purpose, right? No one ever does. But here's the great thing about this with the right verbiage. Each one of you, no matter your role in the office, also has the power to save a sale. Let me explain. When a patient says, for example, that they want to take their prescription and are going to go order their glasses online, which is a very uncomfortable situation, by the way. The awkwardness causes us to kind of freeze up or even stutter. Uh, oh, okay, okay here. Or cower away and pretend that we didn't hear them, right? Or sometimes just say really dumb things like, yeah, a lot of people order online. Don't do that. All of these completely close or even like slam the door on the patient getting their eyewear from you. Now, can we force a patient to buy from us? Absolutely not. I would have done it. But we sure as hell do not need to go about shutting the opportunity just because we get uncomfortable in a situation. Let me tell you this. When you and your whole team are properly equipped with the correct responses to give your patient throughout their journey in your office, you leave that opportunity open. Having responses all queued up and in your back pocket so that when something is said, you can confidently respond is amazingly empowering, not just for you, but for every single person on your team. At Spexy, we have a course that specifically addresses these uncomfortable situations that we're placed in with patients. And we discuss the proper responses to give your patient no matter when you hear an uncomfortable comment in their journey. Your reply to the comment should be one that is reflective of your role at the office yet keeps the patient open and comfortable with the idea of seeing what your office can offer them. We never want to make a patient uncomfortable and can absolutely avoid doing so with the right conversation. So rather than googling how to get your co-worker to stop saying stupid things, go ahead and type in bespexy.com into your browser and see how your team can start making a difference with your patients like right away. I'll see you next month. Bye guys.