Last week we worked out what one sale is worth to you in pounds.
This week, the person making it.
Picture two customers, two minutes apart.
The first has a prescription. What you earn from that is decided elsewhere: the fee, the reimbursement, the rules. You can be the best pharmacy in the county and it won't change the number.
The second has no prescription. Just a problem and a question. "I've had this cough for a week." "Is this rash anything?" "What can I give my son?"
Everything about that second customer is yours: whether they get the right answer, whether they trust you, whether they buy anything, and how much profit it makes you.
That's the one to build a business on.
The thing everyone assumes
You've heard it many times: the NHS is stretched, GP appointments are hard to get, so people are turning to pharmacies instead.
For paid NHS services, that's true, and it's growing.
But for the everyday problems people used to bring straight to you, the opposite is happening.
The number of UK adults who would ask a pharmacist first about a self-treatable condition has fallen from 69% in 2022 to 51% in 2025.
Eighteen percentage points, in three years.
And when people who wouldn't use a pharmacy were asked why, nearly a third simply didn't know a pharmacy could help.
So that valuable customer isn't just walking in by themselves. Fewer of them are coming than three years ago, and many don't know you're an option.
Why owners don't notice
Because nobody counts them.
Every prescription is recorded. Every NHS consultation gets claimed. The person who walks in, asks a question, gets a good answer and walks out with nothing appears in no report anywhere.
So the shop gets organised around what's measured: the queue. And the customer with the highest potential value gets served in whatever time is left over.
What that customer is worth
Two things at once.
A paid consultation. In England, an eligible Pharmacy First consultation is worth £17, and pharmacies that reach 30 clinical pathway consultations in a month earn a £1,000 monthly payment on top (£500 at 20 to 29 consultations). That's real money for conversations many pharmacies are already having for free.
A purchase you control. Whatever they buy sits on your list from last week, where you know the profit in pounds. Nobody sets that price but you.
Prescription customer | Advice customer | |
|---|---|---|
Who sets your profit | The NHS | You |
Counted anywhere | Every single one | Almost never |
What they need from you | Speed | Time |
The uncomfortable bit
That customer needs time. Most pharmacies are built for speed.
So the honest question isn't "how do we get more advice customers?" It's this: if ten more walked in tomorrow, could we actually serve them well?
You can't answer that, or fix it, without knowing how many you get now.
The Potheko Move
Five days. One sheet of paper by the till. Three columns:
Prescription only
Prescription AND bought something else
No prescription - came in with a question
One mark per customer. Then, at the bottom of column 3, a second number: how many of them bought anything.
That's it. Five days, no system, no software.
I've made the sheet for you, ready to print. Reply with the word SHEET and I'll send it over.
One thing to do this week
Run the tally. Don't change the layout, don't retrain anyone, don't order new stock.
Most owners are surprised by column 3 in both directions: some find far more of these customers than they expected, and some find almost none, which is its own answer.
Then hit reply and send me your numbers. I'll tell you how they compare with the others I get, and I read every reply.
Next week: what to change so that customer is easy to serve. Because finding out you have them and staying built for the queue is the most expensive outcome of all.
Pollyanna