If you dive down the rabbit hole of trying to better your business in any meaningful way, you're going to run into the idea of "strategy". It's become so prevalent it almost seems like a buzzword. And it's easy to start to think it might not really apply. After all, you're not playing a board game or planning a hostile takeover. You're running a pharmacy. Do you really need to think about strategy?

At the most basic level, a strategy is not a game of chess. It's not you pitted against anyone else either. It's a plan that you use to achieve a goal.

But if it's that simple, and that sensible, why doesn't everyone use a more strategic approach to growth and profitability in their pharmacy? Well, like most things the big picture is just that. Way too big to tackle in one piece. Breaking it up into smaller pieces makes everything much more manageable. Here's how to do it.

Getting rid of unnecessary clutter seems to be trending. From simple organization hacks, to purging your life of everything that doesn't bring you joy, or even tiny house living. The idea that less is more is taking over.

Whether you subscribe to this theory of less is more in your personal life, chances are there's at least one place that could benefit from a more minimalist approach.

The pharmacy counter is often stuffed to capacity. Counter top displays compete for space with point-of-sale equipment and you need more registers than you actually have space for.

Cost vs. value is a tricky thing. How do you decide whether something is really worth the money you'll spend on it? It's a question we talk about often here at RMS, as pharmacy-point-of-sale isn't just an application and a bunch of new hardware. Point-of-sale is an investment in your pharmacy. And if you invest in the right POS system, your returns can be pretty big.

But where do those returns actually come from? How does money out of pocket for new technology in your pharmacy end up becoming a positive on your bottom line?

Two weeks ago I woke up, attempted to get out of bed and promptly fell on my face. While I'm not what you'd call graceful, this kind of clumsiness is definitely uncharacteristic. A trip to the doctor's revealed that I had an ear infection, which was doing all sorts of nasty things to my equilibrium.

While I knew that ear infections could cause balance problems and dizziness, I'd never actually experienced it for myself. I was a bit surprised that something that seemed to be impacting me so little in every other way was throwing me off of my game so much.

There are so many working pieces that keep us balanced. Both physically, in our personal lives and in our businesses. In your pharmacy, there are dozens of seemingly small or unconnected things that can throw your entire pharmacy business out of balance if you aren't careful.

There are some things that it makes sense to do the long way. The extra work makes your end result better. Warm from the oven homemade cookies (or fresh from the local bakery) are always going to be better than the package you bought at the grocery store. And taking the time to have a meaningful interaction with your pharmacy customers will lead to more loyal, long term customers compared to a pharmacy that treats patients as just another prescription number.

But there are definitely a more than a few areas you can make up valuable time by automating key pharmacy processes. One such process that we run into quite a bit is streamlining the price and cost change process. Through integrations between your pharmacy point-of-sale system and your wholesalers, you can take advantage of automated price updates.

Even pharmacies with small front ends can put this feature to good use. Even updating a few products by hand each day takes up valuable time and increases your margin for error.

Here are a few other reasons you might want to consider automated price updates:

How many times have you walked out of a store because you couldn't find anyone to assist you? I can think of at least a few. So can most people. Depending on how desperate the need is, if a customer can't find help with something, it's easier to go somewhere else. And there are plenty of options for customers to choose from these days.

We know that locally owned independent and independent chain pharmacies have always had service that's a cut above the rest. You know your customers and your community, which gives you a competitive edge. But as more big retailers zero in on the importance of the customer experience, the bar gets higher and higher.

Making sure that your customers have the help they need when they need it now goes beyond having a well-staffed front counter. Service must go beyond that barrier to provide assistance where and when customers have questions. Having an employees available in the retail areas of your store to meet this need can play an important role in the continued success of your pharmacy.

Here are some tips to help you get started.

This time of year, it feels like we need reminders for everything. I've got to-do lists covering the entire surface of my refrigerator, holiday events at my kids school to attend, "Friends-givings" to go to, Thanksgiving dinner to plan and cook, and holiday shopping to finish. When I look at my calendar, I can't help but wonder what crazy person took it over and why they thought it would be funny to fill every available day with something to do. And then I remember that crazy person looks a lot like me!