May is dedicated as Healthy Vision Month. While it’s no secret that eye health and nutrition are connected, few people know how much eye health depends on nutrition. Eating right and exercising can help protect against age-related eye health issues and other causes of vision loss. Completely changing one’s lifestyle and diet to include food rich in nutrients the eyes need can seem like a tall order, and dietary changes are often not enough to make an impact. For this reason, many eye care professionals suggest that patients begin a nutraceutical regimen, but this adds another layer of complication. Selling patients on the idea of nutraceuticals is difficult enough, much less getting them to purchase the specific vitamins you recommend. Susan Lake, OD, encountered this problem when she began prescribing  EyePromise^® nutraceuticals.

Susan’s Story

As with most practitioners, Dr. Lake credits her love for the human body and how it works as the driving force behind her becoming an optometrist. She’s in the industry to serve her patients’ medical needs, and she’s not interested in the “business” aspect of selling product in-practice. In fact, she admits that she falls in the “not comfortable” category when it comes to the sales part of her job. With over 300 clinical studies scientifically validating supplementation, she believes in the importance and efficacy of nutraceuticals and wanted to add them to her “patient care lineup.”

The Challenge

Dr. Lake struggled to find the right “delivery.” She would find herself over-explaining and confusing patients or underselling the importance. One of her biggest concerns was that her patients would lose confidence in her because she was trying to sell them another thing. She frankly stated that she “hated selling eye vitamins.”

The Solution

Eventually, Lake found her happy medium, and she credits her success to one simple question. A patient of hers asked,

“Would you still want me to buy these if I drive down the street and bought them from your competitor?”

She said with no hesitation “YES.” She believes in EyePromise and its results enough to let a competitor profit if her patients agree to take the nutraceuticals, and the patient took note. He bought 3 bottles that day. This helped Dr. Lake perfect her “delivery.” She explains the patient's health and the product she’s prescribing and why. She then adds,

“You can purchase these from me, you can purchase them online. Heck, I believe in them so much I’d send you to my competitor to buy them. It’s that important to me that you start taking them…Remarkably, since I started this almost all of my patients have chosen to buy them from me. Even though I really did love them enough to let them leave, they chose to stay.”

As Healthy Vision Month begins to ramp up, there's never been a better time to start offering nutritional support for your patients. Dr. Lake wants her patients taking nutraceuticals because she knows it’s the best thing for them, regardless of where they get it. She trusts EyePromise because of the guaranteed outcomes and sound science behind the products. She strongly urges her fellow eye care professionals to consider offering nutraceuticals, as the nutritional benefits their patients will receive are well worth the “sell.”

Learn more about EyePromise nutraceuticals.[/caption]