Choosing your ideal patient is like choosing a spouse. Get it wrong, and it may be the most expensive mistake you’ll ever make.
A European ophthalmic group entered their Ideal Customer Profile session ready to define their “target market.” They listed the usual suspects: “Professionals over 45… people who value convenience… maybe high-income earners.”
I stopped them.
Because choosing your ideal client isn’t market research. It’s a life decision.
You don’t choose a spouse by saying, “Someone in the 30–50 age range, employed, relatively health-conscious.” That’s not a person. That’s a demographic.
So I asked, “If your clinic could marry one type of patient for the next decade—whose life, identity, and aspirations would you commit to elevating?”
That question changed everything.
They stopped describing demographics and started describing a specific individual.
“They optimize everything in their life. They value time more than money. They want the best because it signals something about who they are.”
Clarity replaced complexity. We weren’t building a marketing campaign anymore — we were building a relationship. Our focus was a business built to serve one kind of person so exceptionally well that price becomes secondary and loyalty compounds.
They walked in trying to capture a market. They walked out choosing who their business would build its future with.
Like a life partner, the right patient makes you stronger, more focused, and more valuable over time. Choose vaguely, and you end up compromising. Choose intentionally, and you build a category of one.
You make a more successful practice of who they are, not because of who you are
The profit margin of any business comes from the premium it can charge — and that premium comes from who it serves.
Two surgeons can perform the same lens replacement with the same skill and the same outcome. One of these surgeons can earn five times more - not necessarily because they're any better, but because of who is sitting in their chair.
When you operate on patients who value time, status, and certainty, you deliver disproportionate value. The same procedure saves them more of what they treasure most, and so they pay more, refer more, and stay longer.
How to find your ideal patient
The process is simple — but only if you’re willing to think. I use a tool called the Ideal Client Profiler to help surgeons uncover who their best patients really are. It expands on a four-step process:
Survey your best patients.
Don’t guess. Ask. Who are they? What do they earn? Why did they buy? What fears did they overcome? The goal is to see patterns, not anecdotes.Find your biggest spenders.
Look at who paid the most, got the most value, and referred others. Focus on the top 20%. Ignore the rest.See what they share.
Your best patients usually have common psychographics: they optimize, act fast, and trust expertise. List the three to five traits they all share.Execute.
Speak to your new avatar. Be explicit about who your clinic is for — and who it’s not. Seek to discourage those clients you do not want to attract.
Re-engineer your sales process. Track how your best patients found you and what convinced them. Then, make that happen again on purpose.
Leads dropped. Surgeries increased.
Quality over quantity
Most surgeons want more leads. Few stop to ask, “More of whom?”
The wrong kind of leads drains your team, floods your schedule with no-shows, and forces you to compete on price. The right ones energize your staff, respect your expertise, and close quickly.
When marketing and sales work together around qualification instead of volume, friction disappears.
"I’d rather pay £500 to acquire a £5,000 patient than £100 to acquire a £1,000 patient."
What happens when you get it wrong
I once met a practice owner who served the same number of patients as a client of ours. Same country, same treatments, same number of staff.
But he earned seven times less profit.
His mistake? Accepting anyone with a pulse and a credit card.
High cost of acquisition. Low satisfaction.
Meanwhile, our client sold to a specific subset: patients who saw surgery as an investment, not an expense. Same market. Different customers. The result was higher retention, higher margins, and far less chaos.
That’s what happens when you stop trying to please everyone.
Serve the patients who never stop buying
Fortunes are built on people who keep saying yes. In private ophthalmology, that means focusing on patients who refer, review, and return (when indicated) — it is those patients who see you as a trusted guide for life, not just the person who fixed their eyes.
Once they start buying, they tend to keep buying: premium aftercare, additional procedures, and long-term eye health. They’re the compounding interest of your practice.
The long-term call
Focusing your efforts on one ideal patient type may feel risky at first -you’ll say “no” more often and you may see short-term dips in volume.
But the long-term rewards can be immense:
Higher lifetime value per patient
Lower acquisition cost More predictable growth
A stronger brand built on reputation, not reaction.
The average practice that refines its avatar doubles its lifetime patient value within 18 months. Not by adding more treatments, but by attracting people who buy the way they live - decisively, confidently, and repeatedly.
Once you narrow your focus, everything compounds.
If you’re serious about growth, you need to stop chasing patients and start choosing partners.
Because who you serve determines how far you can go.
