Anyone who has been in the hearing aid field for more than a year has run across some situations or had some experiences that remain with you forever; some good, some not so, and others funny, or simply unusual. As we approach the end of the year we often feel compelled to look back and remember them, and relearn their lessons.
Here then, are few items that “old timers” may relate to while newer dispensing professionals may not, but these are all true.
When I first started as a Dispenser I worked for Beltone in Baltimore. My first day out on the street following up on referral leads I visited an elderly couple. Everything went just the way I was taught and I finished with a binaural sale. I was on top of the world. When I returned to the office, and told the owner what I had achieved, he said “Damn, now you think you know what you’re doing!” It was two long weeks before I made another sale.
Later, I was working in rural Maryland. I stopped by a house and talked to the wife of a prospect. She said, “He’s at the fish farm.” I dutifully went to the fish farm and talked with the man who was wearing hip boots and bib overalls. I then followed him back home where I tested him and sold a set of instruments. When it came time for him to pay me, he walked over to a brick wall in the kitchen, pulled out a loose brick and took a cash box out of the wall. He paid in $100. bills. Moral: Never pre-judge a client.
I once visited a woman who wore one instrument on her right ear and needed a second one for her left ear, but declined to purchase it. A few weeks later she walked into the street, heard a car horn and looked right. She was hit, but not badly hurt, by a car coming from her left. After recovering she bought another aid. This is a story I have used many times when counseling a client to get two instruments.
The first week after I had purchased a thriving dispensing office in Tucson, AZ a client walked in. She said, “Where’s Bob?” the previous owner. I said, “He’s retired.” She was outraged that he could do such a thing and let me know it in no uncertain terms, even though I had sent out a letter over Bob’s signature telling everyone of the change. She then walked out and slammed the door never to return. Needless to say I was wondering how wise a decision I had made in buying the office.
Bob was also known around town as “Mr. Audiometer,” since he sold and repaired Maico instruments. When I took over the office, that aspect of the business came with it. Thankfully I had a good background in electronics. Every May I would drive all over Southern Arizona (a round trip of 470 miles) collecting audiometers from school districts for calibration and return them the end of August when the schools reopened. My office became an audiometer warehouse for the summer with over 200 audiometers, mostly Maico’s, stacked in every available corner. My wife Sue and I created a very efficient calibration team and things ran smoothly except for when resistors had to be changed out. Only about half the units were new enough to have calibration potentiometers. Maico screening audiometers lasted a LONG time.
