← Power Hour Optometry
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to the Power Hour, Optometry's biggest and longest running show. I'm your host, Eugene Shotsman and I'm going to start with a warning for this episode. You are about to hear some numbers about independent practice performance that you're probably not going to like. And this is not publicly available data. This is a large segment of data, but it is not publicly available anywhere. It is real time and we're bringing it to you as soon as it becomes visible. And the truth is, refractions are down, revenues down, exam only is are climbing for the first half of the year. For 2026 and for a lot of independent practices, the first half of the year has been a lot tougher than they expected. But because the numbers are changing, independent practices need to know now. And that is the point of this show is not after the quarter is over, that not a year from now, not after the year's over now. So that you can take action now because you, if you're an independent practice owner, you can steer the ship much faster than other than other options in the marketplace. And this is kind of the good news because not everything is all bad because there are some practices that are still winning, some are still growing, some are still improving their capture rate, increasing revenue per patient and producing Zemo. He's building loyalty while one at a time when patients are still feeling the pressure, but it's leading to quality and effective outcomes in your office. So today my guest Jason Lake joins me to dig into what is behind these numbers. What's up with consumer sentiment? What is is this delayed demand or is this no demand or what's happening with declining refractions, weaker optical sales, rising XAM only behavior, all of these things we talk about as products of when consumers become cautious about money. And there is data that's showing us that consumers are becoming more cautious about money. But we also talk about, and probably more importantly, what you can actually do about it in your office right now to sharpen your team, improve the handoff, protect your capture rate and just a lot of tools, techniques to make sure that your practice is ready when demand comes back, but is also capitalizing on every opportunity that you have right now. That's kind of the key here because I view and I talk about this in the show, any sort of economic uncertainty as true and meaningful opportunity for those that recognize it and want to capture. That's why we wanted to bring you these numbers now first and so that you can see the opportunity, you can capitalize on it. And of course, as Always make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. If you have questions, ideas, feedback, you can reach out to me@geneshotsman.com or on the Power Hour website. And by the way, make sure you check out the new book, I Care Boss, now available on Amazon. It's the system that Jamie Rosen and I built to help independent practices create accountability, improve revenue, strengthen their teams, elevate their patient experience, and use data to run a better business. I look forward to hearing your feedback on the show. I look forward to hearing your feedback on the book.
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And.
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A
And now let's get into my conversation. Dr. Jason Lake. Dr. Jason Lake, welcome back to the Power Hour.
- [03:15]
C
Thank you, Gene. What a beautiful July day. Well, we're asking you the 200th anniversary. 250th. Excuse me, anniversary of our country. What a week.
- [03:25]
A
It is quite the week. And this is the highly anticipated segment where we talk numbers and we talk industry. And in preparation for this episode, Jason, I did some, I did some research and these are not publicly available data points. As you know, the Vision Council does an amazing job of putting together publicly available data about performance. It's just that their data, because of the way that it's sourced, is generally a few months behind of when, when things actually happen. The thing is, because of our work, we have some data internally and about a billion dollars of ICARE transactions and about a million refractions, I believe, a year. And so I wanted to share some of that data and I wanted to talk with you live about what the heck is that's more than a million refraction. I think it's about 1.2 million refractions a year.
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C
Nice hunk of patience.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Right.
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A
So I get to, and I'll, I'll bias this by saying this is not representative of the corporate stores. So this is mostly represented. My data is mostly representative of independence. So I, I am showing you a more independent, focused picture. Although some of the independents may be operating a little bit more like, you know, they're multi location independent. So they're.
- [04:57]
C
Yeah, I think for the bulk of your listeners, that's your target audience, Eugene. And I think one thing to consider, even within your subset of data, there are groups that are doing better than others. Right. So there's highs and there's lows. There's a standard deviation even within your data. So let's dig in. I haven't seen it yet either. I'm super excited.
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A
So you can be excited or you can be whatever, but here's the deal, and it's going to give it to you straight. We can start at Refractions or we can start at Revenue. Where do you want to start?
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C
Let's, let's start at Revenue and work our way down. Okay, now let's start Refractions. I changed my mind. Let's start at Refractions. All right, let's go.
- [05:35]
A
Refractions. So here's the deal. We are six months into the year, and literally today is the day that all the data became available for the first six months of the year. And we are, we're not looking so good. So refractions are down 8% in January. They're flat in February, up 1.5% in March, and then down three months in a row, April, May and June. The scary part is that we're down double digits in May. And this is one of the first times I've seen double digit decline since I've been tracking this data. So like, we're, we're seeing significant decrease in the second quarter in terms of the number of refractions that our patients had. When you compare year over year. So this is, you know, I'm comparing May of 2025 to May of 2026 and I'm seeing a double digit drop. I'm comparing June of 2025 to June of 2026 and I'm seeing an 8% drop. And I'm comparing April of 2025 to April of 2026 and I'm seeing a 5% drop.
- [06:54]
C
Well, I think, you know, if you're tracking a few million of these, one of the things that I think always shows up is there is a story to be told behind that. And it's, I don't think it's a health care issue. It's a confidence issue. And you want to look at money first before we dive in too deep. I, I suspected you were going to tell me this because I watch our groups very closely and although they're trending a little bit better than those numbers, there is still a lot of downward pressure that we're feeling just to get people in the door.
- [07:26]
A
And let's maybe talk money because it kind of gets.
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C
Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll just get all
- [07:32]
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the data out because it all kind of correlates a little bit. So the, the money side actually looks similar, but worse in the sense that of the last 12 months, I have seen eight of the last 12 months have had a negative growth in terms of revenue. And the last quarter, April, May and June, we've seen 1.3% decline in April. April over April. April 25th to May. I was hoping that would be a bounce back in May, but in May we saw a negative 13.8 decrease in revenue and then I saw a 5% decrease in revenue in June.
- [08:21]
C
Yes. So all these things make sense with your leading indicator of exams. So I mean, let's break it down for your audience a little bit. So everything in our world in my opinion starts with, you know, I always call it Bic butts in chair. If you don't have it, people coming in, you can't there, there is no retail, there are no treatments, there's no anything. We look at the patient as a financial metric. You have to have bodies in your office. And when you see a pullback on bodies in your office, we can talk about that and dive deep any way you want to dive deep on that, there's going to in turn be. If you're seeing a pullback, there is almost always a greater pullback in dollars and the reverse actually is true as well. For those who accelerate and grow, you see an exponential growth in dollars. What that story tells you is if I am delaying care, I am delaying care not because things have changed. It's honestly a confidence issue. And so when you don't have confidence, even when you do come in, you're probably not selling the high end eyewear, you're not doing the dry eye treatment, you're not doing any of the things that really drive our industry's dollars. When I did a little bit of my research and do you want to dive into that now or do you want to take a look at that later?
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A
Yeah, no, let's, let's do that. Let's talk about your research.
- [09:40]
C
I thought about this a lot and I kind of, I didn't think they were going to be that bad. Honestly. One of the notes that I wrote down is I don't think this is a healthcare or an eye care issue. I think it's a confidence issue. So consumers, even when they do come in, when they're not confident, they don't purchase. So one of the first things I always turn to is I love looking at consumer sentiment. I use a term a lot that your listeners are probably tired of called a buy obsession. There isn't always a reason why consumers stop spending. It's just a negative vibe. And so I think when you look at weak consumer sentiment, and this year, I think you and I had had talked about it recently, it is at an all time low. It actually bottomed out. I think late in spring, Eugene and it's came back a little bit, but it is at an all time low. So the consumer and there's a million things that can lead into that and people want to point at their favorite. Well, it's the Iran war, it's the price of petroleum, it's this, that or the other. It's always a conglomeration of things. And I actually think it's three or four things that have a lot to do with it. Number one, even though inflation has slowed down, I think there is a fatigue because it still dominates media, people still hear about it. I think gas, where I'm at in rural Missouri, fuel prices have a massive effect. It's not the only factor, but it's a big factor. Number two, for the first time in probably 10 years, maybe not 10 since pre Covid, we are seeing layoffs and people don't, of course, people respond when they lose their job. People respond violently when they think they might lose their job. And that's really one of the bigger drivers of a lot of the sentiment when you read the experts, is people have, there is a generation of employees who have not seen significant layoffs. Eugene so they think about that I might lose my benefits, I'm going to lose this. And the hiring has slowed down. So you had a generation, four, five, six years there where people were just job hopping and getting raises and it never ended. And now you see that pullback. And that has a lot to do with sentiment. There's not always the next great job out there. And I think the other big thing that we see really, there's just a trending down. Consumers are trending down in electronics, are trending down in cars. I think that naturally extends itself to eyewear and eye care. I think people, we talked about it a lot in the contact lens industry, right, that people are taking dailies and making them three daily, three days. They are taking premiums and stepping back. And I think that has to go with eye care, eyewear. I would be willing to bet if you dove into your exam only data, you see a massive jump in exam only. I think consumers aren't spending and as they pull back a little bit, you're going to see natural drops in capture and things like that. That in turn creates that scenario. You discussed less exams equal an even bigger drop off in dollars. And if you can turn that around, I, I'm not of the belief that it's gone away. I think it's delayed. That's the way it usually works in our field. 30 60, 90 days. Although Ada, the last 11 months you said there was negative growth. Right. That tells me that people came in for a cycle and just didn't buy. The demand will be there. It's how are we going to get your listeners to turn around and be in the front of that cycle? It turns around. That's the way businesses do. It's just how do we get it to turn around?
- [13:04]
A
We're going to come back to the how in a second, Jason, but actually I want to expand on some of the things you just talked about because my favorite place for a couple of reasons including that I went to school. There's the University of Michigan consumer Random Wolverine.
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C
Yeah, throw out just, yeah, right.
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A
Just, just, you know, go, go blue. But the, the interesting thing is that, you know, I think it's the most trusted consumer sentiment data in the nation. And so last year when you and I kind of talked about, actually I think it was Vision Council and you and I talked about this when we said, hey, you know, consumer sentiment really bottomed out because of the tariffs last year, which was true. And when I say it bottomed out last April and May, consumer sentiment was at an all time low, a low that had not been seen since COVID And that consumer sentiment was at 52.2. Keep that number in mind because when I looked up what was consumer sentiment this May, May 2026, we saw consumer sentiment of 44.8. That is legitimately, I believe, the lowest score that has ever been reported by the University of Michigan since they started tracking it in 2008. I did not, I looked back through the data. I didn't find a single time where they had a number that low in the, in, in the entire survey history of, of that particular tool. And it did, as you said, it did bounce back in June, June, it kind of bounced back to, I think it was 49.5, but still under, under the quote, rock bottom that we hit last year around this time. So I, I agree with you. I think consumers are feeling the pinch and it is true, like, you know, when you, when you got to spend a hundred dollars to fill a tank of gas, when, or maybe $130 to fill a tank of gas, depending on the size of vehicle you're driving, when you were used to paying 30% less, you, you feel you, maybe you don't even see it in the bank account, but you feel like your wallet slider when you're leaving that gas station. And you know the, that is a, you know, it's a very Real thing. It's not. I'm not talking any politics here. I know you and I both make a business of not talking politics. But the reality is that this is. This is a true thing that impacted every. Every patient coast to coast, I believe, is that they had to pay more for everyday things, right? And for. For necessities that they couldn't avoid. So that's one I agree with you.
- [15:44]
C
Well, Eugene, I think you ought to look at though that extends, right? Like the necessities chew up the budget. And then when it comes time to get. Get wants. There's wants and needs, right? You got to eat. But what might be a new pair of sunglasses after your primary pair? Or what might be a daily disposable contact versus a monthly. I like to watch industries that are about. Once I find them fascinating, I think they tell their own story. And the one I follow the closest. I'm a big boater, a water skier. I follow the marine industry really, really closely in. The marine industry has been bad for two or three years. In this particular year, in my own anecdotal study is I went to the marina, which is the ultimate judge of consumer sentiment on playthings. I was just there yesterday, filled up my boat. I'm on vacation. But Eugene's power hour comes first. And I said, you guys have been busy. The doc. And they're like, we've sent people home every day for early for the last three or four weeks, except for the Fourth of July. And I said, is that. Do you have extra people? He goes, we're just. We're slow. Sales are down 20% this summer. And that. That's about needs. Like, people aren't spending money on big vacations. And I think they're pulling back. And so I think that would naturally extend itself into the premium segment. Eye care and premium treatment. So all those things line up. I don't know if you can use. Boat gas is the greatest indicator.
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A
Well, listen, boat gas, if you guys think, you know, I mean, if you're not familiar with this boat fuel is always more expensive. Because I think $6 a gallon when
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C
I filled up yesterday, Eugene, 648 on Lake Erie.
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So you guys are living, you know, you guys are living the dream. In Southern or in.
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C
Yeah, yeah. It's six bucks a gallon. It. It made me flinch a little. I'm not gonna lie right. You.
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You immediately leave that. And, you know, all of a sudden you're like, I don't think I'm gonna go to full throttle. Or maybe like any Throttle, drink a
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C
beer and we're in a idle home. Yeah, but it just, it is. And it's just something I've, my family and I, that's something we enjoy. And I follow the industry and I watch the stocks. It's really interesting to watch how the markets are doing great. But Wall street doesn't decide. Main street and mainstream is what walks into your door. And when they feel that pinch, even though inflation's better than it has been, every piece of data shows us that it's still a fatigue. It's still just one more thing. And so I think it's, I think it's tough on the consumer. And as a result, I, I think you're seeing delayed demand, which I don't know. When it turns, it's going to turn. When it does, those who are ready will benefit the most.
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A
But I do think, well, that's actually. So it's so true because the delay demand aspect is, is a very valid argument. And I, I want to come back to that point in a little bit. But the reality is that you have, you have just like what happened after Covid is that when people don't get eye exams or don't buy stuff for a while, you will have an economic event that makes people feel like they can go out and spend again. That economic event in Covid was health related and then there was also a stimulus related. And so I got free money and I feel like my life's no longer at risk. I'm going to go spend that money.
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Right.
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That was an economic event at Covet. And then again, you're right. The ones who were ready and who had been proactive about it got that money first and they got the bigger chunk of that money, I think. And we'll come back to what to do about it. I just want to make a couple key points on what you had said as well. Is that the way consumer sentiment is generally measured?
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Right.
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I just want to go back to that point as I, because I looked up, I was like, what did we actually bottom out at? The way consumer sentiment is actually measured is that you are asked, are your current personal finances better or worse than they were a year ago? Are your expected personal finances better or
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worse
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than they were last year? And short term business conditions better or worse? Long term business conditions better or worse, and buying conditions, is it a good time or a bad time to buy major household items? And based off of how consumers answer that question, all the positive answers add up to 100. And then you know, you, and then they have like a whole bunch of other calculations that they do. So that's the idea is that people. So when you. When you see a number of 44, that is more consumers. Answering questions like that with a note
- [20:30]
C
means the majority of people do not feel financially secure or have financial anxiety at the moment. And in turn, that equals delays and everything. So there are admittedly people doing great, There are admittedly people doing bad. But you've just got the majority that think they're doing bad. And as a result, the way they think and the way, you know, as a man thinketh, I believe was the name of the book is if you think bad is it drives whether you're going in, it drives spending habits. And so one of the things that I think that we're going to see the most this year are those. I know that in our groups, we're up. We are not up. Like I want to be up. We're not up double digits. But as a group, what I'm seeing so far for the year have been pretty good numbers. Some of that is more sophisticated. People that are driving the bus, they're leaning in. I would say most of the people that are on your stuff, you know, Eugene, are going to be leaning in. There's a whole segment of eye care that's really not doing very well right now. Dragging this down, I would also suspect, based on consumer sentiment, that some of the retail partners that maybe live in lower income brackets and do well at discounting, I think is the correct word. My suspicion is that they're doing better right now if they can find doctors, that they're doing better. So what an interesting time to be in eye care that we can't get enough doctors. We're paying more than we've ever paid for staff and doctors. And on the flip side of that is even when you get them, the consumer is pushing back on. So we're hitting this x, y axis. Eugene of at what point is our sustainability is not to be taken for granted. For those who are not practicing at the highest level, it is no longer popping a tic tac and you're going to be fine. You're going to have to run the business. And I think that that is what's accelerating. And that's a whole different conversation. But that's the pressure I feel. In the last month, I've had people reach out to me about buying and selling practices and ask me where to go. And Eugene, not only is it confusing, there's a lot of bad advice out there, too. Advice I looked at and just went, that's really a mistake in this market to look at it that way. I've done this for 30 years. It's not what I recommend. So I, I think now is a better time than ever to batten down the hatches and get yourself prepared for return of demand. It's going to come. Are you going to be ready for it?
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A
Well, and it's, you know, so the, the way I look at it, and you made a point earlier that I want to go back to, which is exam only. And so exam only to me is an indicator. I mean, the way we measure exam only is refractions without a transaction, for better or for worse. That's just, you know, the way if I look at one point, some million refractions in a year, I look at the number of refractions that did not have on the same day purchase. That gives me an idea of exam. What I can tell you is whether you agree or disagree with the way that measure it. It's gone up four points in the last, in the last year. Four points is $4 billion.
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C
That's real money between friends right there. That's a lot.
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A
That's a lot of ICARE revenue for the entire industry. I think our friend Jamie Rosen had had Vision Council calculated, but about each point is about $1 billion of iCare revenue. And that revenue translates not just to the, not, not just patient doctor, but that's also going to the frame companies, that's also going to the labs, that's also going to everyone who supports the practice. And so we got to make sure we lean in and help and help with this. But that to, to that point is that we're about to cross. I believe it'll likely happen this year and I'm not cheering for it, I hope it doesn't. But in my study we're about to cross 60% exam only. That means one, that, that means that six out of 10 patients who walk into a practice, on average, this is the independence that 6 out of 10 patients that walk into an independent walk out without anything other than their refraction and the doctor gets paid their BSP fee or whatever.
- [24:37]
C
Right, let's play with that a little bit and let's talk about it. So I did an interview recently and they asked me the inverse of that question, what a capture rate is. And I said, they said, well, we see in the industry, this is an independent group magazine, and they said, we think your industry is about 70. No, it's not. I said 50%, 55% in the independent space is above average. It's pretty good. And one of the things that's interesting is independents, although much more financially stable, tend to have a lower capture rate than their retail brethren. Because when you're driving people back for exams, they tend to not always want something where on the retail space they're not coming in until they want something. I always joke that your capture rate on new patients ought to be 100% because they didn't just come by to say I want something. Right. And I think that that is what we are seeing right now is we're doing a good job, we're taking care of people, which is paramount to the industry, what the independent represents. But we're also seeing the independent take on some of the hit of this. The other thing that I know to be true, I was at listening in on a training the other day at a practice. One of the things that I listened to were how really poor the sales skills were. And one of the things that struck me is we've had so much staff turnover, those cultural norms of what we expect from a sales team, because that is their job to sell. The optician's job is to sell glasses to what the doctors recommended. I don't think we've trained like I think we. We are. Part of the problem is we don't invest any training because the staff's turning so fast.
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A
And.
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C
And now we have an entire staff of people that don't follow the prescribed procedure the way we set it up. There's a lot of people. There is a training right now that I am watching happen. It is having a big effect on returning that number back. But I think it's just a. It's a. You take already a consumer sentiment that's negative and then you combine that with a doctor who doesn't spend the time to recommend and staff that maybe aren't as trained optimally as they should be. And it's the perfect circle. You are absolutely going to cross over 60% example, like it's multifactorial. We need to get a mirror though. This isn't just consumer sentiment. This is driven by the independent as well that isn't doing what they ought to be doing.
- [27:08]
A
And Jason, to talk about the capture rate, frame capture rate currently that we track is 50.8%. So just under 51%. And contact lens capture rate is a 50.45%. And that's a. The denominator there is contact lens fits. Yep.
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C
So that significantly lower than last year.
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A
It is. It certainly is. And so the interesting Parts of like what, what are we to, to your point is that when I, when I think about. And the difference between obviously exam only and capture rate is that I can buy, if I buy multiple pairs. So if one patient, If I see 10 patients today and one patient buys 10 pair and the rest of them buy Nothing. You had 90% exam only but 100% capture rate. Right. So that's the, that's the model. So yes, I would expect capture rate at 50%. That means that there, there are some people succeeding with multiple pair. There are some people succeeding with outsiderx, but it is because like those, those numbers are not zero. But this is to your point, like if we go back to the, to the, to, to the idea of what can you do about this? This is the time to sharpen the saw. So when we come back from break, I, what I'd like to do, Jason, is I'd like to go through some strategies that we can recommend. If we're really looking at, you know, five of the last six months we've seen, or as I say, four. Yeah, five of the last six months we've seen decrease in the number of refractions that the practices have had and then four of the last six months we've seen a decrease in the amount of revenue that practices have collected or build. If that's the reality we're facing right now. And as you said, it's deferred demand, what the heck can we do about it? So we'll be right back in the power hour and we'll talk about that.
- [29:06]
B
Hey there, it's Eugene and I want to let you in on something. So you've been to conferences before. You come home fired up and then Monday morning hits and it's back to the grind. The ideas don't stick, the plan never gets made, and six months later your practice is in the same place. So I know that pain. I've been to those conferences with you and that is not happening. At this new event called I Care Boss Live.
- [29:29]
A
You've heard the story of I Care
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B
Boss and now there's an event, I Care Boss Live. It's September 16th through 18th in Cleveland. Two and a half days. We're bringing together 200 of the best practice owners in eyecare for a one of a kind event that combines speakers, peer learning, mastermind groups and industry innovation, all designed around one goal. You leave with a 90 day plan and you can actually execute it and get stuff done. And we're going to tackle some real stuff. Exam only rates, revenue preparation, people Problems, leadership, AI and technology, specialty growth, Ethereum, things that keep people up at night. We're going after it and we're doing it in a room full of practice owners that are just as serious about
- [30:12]
A
growth as you are.
- [30:14]
B
This is not a conference, it's not a seminar. It's something different. There are only 200 spots. So if you want to be in on this, this is not publicly announced, just on this podcast. Go to thepowerpractice.com click events. Click apply now. This is invite only. It's not for everybody. So you have to apply. We'll ask you a few questions, and if it's a fit, we'll invite you to register this event. Icare Boss Live is going to sell out. Do not sit on it.
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A
I invite you to apply right now. All right, we're back on the Power Hour. I'm here with Dr. Jason Lake and Jason Gut reaction. I mean, are you feeling, how are you feeling about some of the information we're talking about here in the show?
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C
Well, I mean, it's not good. I mean, nobody wants to be down. It's harder and harder to do it. I mean, I, I guess there's two ways to look at. Number one, I think, you know, we keep saying we think it's, you know, it did, consumer sentiment did rebound. I think you are going to see things get better because they do, because there's delayed demand, but it's not going to get better on its own. You're going to have to take the bull by the horn, so to speak. And I think the practices that are going to come out of this stronger, that are going to take share from other people, whether that's retail or whether that's other independents or wherever you're getting your share, are going to be the ones that actually act on something, that are going to be actually the ones that are sharpening the saw, as you like to say, to use the Franklin Covey analogy. And I, and I think, you know, we said we were going to come back and we were going to talk specific strategies. And so I, being contemplative, I think, I think we can definitely give your listeners two or three things to work on and some things that they need to be watching out for in the industry. Yeah.
- [32:02]
A
And, you know, to me, the way I look at it is it's a time of opportunity, Right. When your patient isn't knocking down your competitor's door to buy, to buy their frames and lenses or when they're sitting on their hands and kind of putting off their eye Exam. This is a time of opportunity because they're also doing the same thing for your competitors. Right? This is the time where if you get really smart at operations and maybe you aren't seeing quite as much volume and you might have a couple blank spots in your schedule, let's use that time to make the business better. Let's not sit on our hands, let's invest. Let's take the time to capitalize on this opportunity. So for me, like, of course I don't want to see these numbers, but if I'm talking to my clients right now, if there's clients listening right now, like this is the time to take the bull by the horns because this is like, and we got to have a toolkit that we, that we start thinking through, like mental toolkit of like all the things that you can work on right now. Because this, because you won't have the time or the cape or the capacity to work on it when that deferred demand comes beaten down your door. So this is the time to make things better because it's going to be an annuity that pays you over and over and over again. If you can raise your average revenue by, per transaction by 20 bucks, that's like six figure increase that you can do by training your optical staff or working on your handoff or doing something that ultimately makes you better at in the practice. But there's so many of these optimizations and, and so I'm going to let you lead because I could probably, if I started listing them, I'd probably drive myself crazy and this episode would be three hours long.
- [33:47]
C
Again, whenever we talk, we've discussed before, it's like a kitten with a ball of yarn just going around. We don't know where it's going. I would say I would begin. One thing is number one, you need to level set the experience with your team is probably starting and being in my career where we are, we're a little bit more urban now, but the bulk of my career, I still only practice in rural Missouri. And one of the things that practicing in a rural area does is that it really makes you sharpen the saw with a simple mentality that there is not an infinite supply of patients. And yes, there is in some ways. But getting the mentality to your staff that every single patient encounter is important.
- [34:30]
A
Important.
- [34:31]
C
I think when a staff or a team sees somebody booked out for two weeks or holes in the book, they have to realize that every one of those there's only so many spaces you have to see patients and there's only so many patients that are going to come into those spaces. If you get your team to start thinking about each visit is important because it's the only time that patient's going to be in all year. I know that sounds cliche, but really starting to emphasize that whatever that patient's best outcome experience is, you then replicate and duplicate that 25 times a day, times five days a week, times 52 weeks a year. That's the outcome that we have to. So everything should be framed around that number one. Number two, if it was me and strategy number one, you know, to take the page, add. The great game of business is I think you need to gamify it. Number one, I would have capture rate as a mini game in the back of the office and I would track it on a scoreboard. And whoever, you know, people asked me one time, they said, what did you use as great bonus systems? I was like, we never could figure one out. We certainly used a lot of things. But I always say that Dairy Queen ice cream is the greatest motivator in the summertime. And there's a Dairy Queen across from my main office. But it was whoever had the best capture that day gets a blizzard for the week or whenever it was ice cream, vanilla ice cream for whatever's the greatest motivating factor. I don't know why or sonic drinks or whatever, but it's silly. Things that don't cost a lot that make things fun. You can go back to basics. And number one, let's talk about the process. Let's talk about how we go through it. What does it look like? Are we setting the patient down? The three big things. A patient has to hear something three times. Eugene and I would be willing to bet that 75% of your your listeners don't do this. The doctor has to say it once. It's a refraction. Yes. This is different. Do you want to see better? We go over the options. They say it a second time at the handoff. And this is if you can get the doctor to do that. The optician takes them. They go set them down outside in the dispensary or the boutique. And they say, okay, Dr. Shatsman said, XYZ, let's go from there. They've heard it three times. It's the doctor recommendation. And then they go to the dispenser after they discuss the options. One of the things that opticians sometimes don't think about is if you go out and pick frames first, how are you ever going to sell the second pair Unless they know they need them. You've dropped your second pair capability significantly because I believe you got to talk about the lens first. They won't, they won't shortchange themselves on the frame. But when you discuss, hey, the plan is the doctor wants you in a pair of regular glasses, a progressive, you need computer glass or sunglasses or whatever that may be. Then you have the platform to go to the dispensary to pick the right frame and hopefully maybe bring it back to the patient. Patient may want to come with you. Simply changing that mindset around will drive significant changes in capture rate. Because you said you wanted it, you and the doctor agreed you needed it. Now your job is to do what the doctor told you to do. The patient still might say no. It just happens a lot less frequently because it makes sense. It's not a business transaction. It's a, I haven't, I have a need instead of a want. If, if you did nothing more than that training the rest of the summer, Eugene. And there are variations on that, whatever your flavor is, but I believe that the doctor has to say it twice, the optician has to repeat it. And when you do those things, you will in turn absolutely drive your capture rate on Double digit change 100%.
- [37:59]
A
And I, I, I love that suggestion. And I want to reiterate the first suggestion you gave that you kind of glossed over, which is changing your staff's attitude about it. So when we teach our 90 day exam only clinic, one of the things that we find in that clinic is that it's eye opening to staff, that the doctor somehow expects a zero percent exam only. They're like, well, half the patients are going to leave. Right. But we teach people to say, look, it's no longer acceptable to have an exam only they came in here because they had a need. And it is our failure if we let them walk out of here without filling that need.
- [38:38]
C
It is our failure with you.
- [38:42]
A
Right.
- [38:42]
C
Wait.
- [38:42]
A
Well, exactly. That's the thing is they, it is our failure that we didn't give the patient what they needed. So this is one of those things where, like changing the staff's mindset. And then, you know, one of the techniques that we teach again in our 90 day exam only program is like, it is like super straightforward. If you just have daily accountability for every patient that walked out the door all of a sudden, magically, when we've, we've heard this from people, they're like, oh, well, we started doing that and we started using some of that, some
- [39:15]
C
of the forms you Gave us to
- [39:16]
A
fill this out on a daily basis. Yeah, it's a little bit more work, but like the value of that work, the return on investment on that work is massive. Because all of a sudden like exam only is improved substantially. Double digits in a couple of weeks. And it's like, it's true because all of a sudden your staff have changed their attitude towards. Well, the patient didn't want to buy today. I didn't want to hassle them to like, I am underserving the patient. If you truly believe. I had a guest on here a couple, a few, few weeks ago and he was like, I just really believe that, like I am truly not doing a good job if I'm not serving the patient fully and not serving the patient fully. You know, to him that's how he was getting a thousand dollar revenue per patient. And I was like, geez, that is great.
- [40:01]
C
What that takes, Eugene, is, as you, you pointed out, everything is not an infinite supply. And every experience, if you do 3,000 patients a year, every one of them has to be unique because that's, you know, to them the experience is an N of 1. To you, it's an N of 3,000. You have to make them understand that that experience for that patient is their only experience. You can't have a bad day, you can't be flustered. You, you know, row the. What's, you know, paddle like a duck, work like hell on the bottom and look smooth on the top. I mean, you, you gotta put it on. And I think at the end of the day, I think reframing it was gamification. You know, hey, whoever has the best capture rate, we're going out for ice cream. It doesn't have to be big. What it does have to be is you have to insert yourself on the conversation as the owner of the business.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah. And, and you have to show that you care and that you have expectations. I believe that that's, that was a really, that was a really key part of what you had said. So, I mean, I think we're talking some exam only, but I think that this translates to everything in the office. Right. So this is your. And I, I get this. I, I heard this recently from a practice and they said, well, you know, we really don't talk about dry eye anymore because, you know, a patient got kind of frustrated that we were, that we were pushing it too hard. And what do you say if you hear the office manager of an office say, well, you know, we really don't bring up dry eye that much anymore. Because, you know, there are some patients complaining that we were pushing it too hard.
- [41:41]
C
If the office manager said that to you, I mean, I guess I would want to understand, number one. Well, let's expound on this. Did you hear this once? Was it a patient? Like, tell me about Eugene. I want to tell you that behind every complaint is some truth and a lie. So what I would answer that with is, okay, can you show me the specific example and tell me about it? Because what happens is in all of our lines, we hear something happen once and a patient or customer or whatever the situation may be goes, well, everyone thinks this and this is always happening. And I don't like this. It's. It's every one star Google review you get and you assume everyone hates you. And you're right, there's some people that hate you. My question will be, how is it presented? Who is the patient? What was the why? Because the other 98% of people probably had a very positive experience. And that made me wonder why an office manager will be making that decision. Maybe they shouldn't be managing my office. But that's just you. And you're asking me, you know, I'm shooting from the hip here, but.
- [42:43]
A
And that's. It is like, that's, that's. So I think you hit the nail right on the head. Is that when it is often a one, one time uncomfortable situation that permanently changes somebody's behavior. And if you don't have deliberate, intentional mechanisms inside your office to calibrate that behavior back, you're. You're missing out. Because it's. There is going to be somebody who feels like they're being oversold and they're going to complain and everybody's going to. Because you don't get a lot of complaints. So everyone's going to pay attention to the one complaint you got last month versus the 99 patients that left and. Or I guess 299 patients that left and were super satisfied.
- [43:24]
C
Can I give you a great inverse example of real world? Okay. We're. My wife went to the gym yesterday. We're on vacation. She goes to the gym. It's a little gym that's near our cabin at the lake. And she comes home and I said, how. How was your workout? And she said, the music. I said, what? She gna. Probably kill me when she listens to this. And I go, what? She goes, and if this is your jam, I don't mean to offend, but the screaming death metal stuff where they're like, you know, that is not my particular genre of choice, but it's, you know, the genre of death metal. This is a very retirement filled. And she goes, you know, I didn't want to be that person, but I went to the front desk and said, could you turn this off? Like it's so bad, like it's just, it's literally making me miserable. Like I'm going to leave. And the lady behind the counter says, oh my gosh, yes, we have a new owner, he really enjoys this kind of music. And he goes, but. And then she said two other guys behind her go, yeah, our wives won't come here anymore. They can't stand it either. So they've got six or seven people at the counter. And so intuitively I'm thinking at this point that's probably a problem if you, if you're seeing business go down, you've got multiple people saying, hey, I don't like X, Y, Z, you need to change it. One person coming in and going, hey, could you pop some Barry Manilow in? Because that gets me pumped up to go work out. That's probably not a reason that you changed that either. Because one person likes death metal, I think is the genre. I can't remember. And I'm sorry if that's your jam, that's probably not a reason that 50 people are going to do it. So we know something as fundamental as sunglasses or dry eye treatment or premium iols change patients lives, they are the right thing to do. Supplements, whatever your thing is, you know, it's the science, you know what's right. If one person complains, that's not a trend, that's just one person complaining. And so I, I think that's kind of to roll it back. Eugene. Isn't that what we're talking about though? We go back to the basics of here are the things that we know that work and here are the things that benefit the patient and work. Well, let's get back to basics. Eye care, eye aware, dry eye, the things that your practice does well that have all, they haven't changed by the way, they've just gotten more advanced. But the concept doesn't change. People still want those things. So that was a long way to answer that question.
- [45:48]
A
Well, and this is, this is where I think about the value conversation, right? There's nothing about price in the, in the value. Well, price is a component of value. But it's not just because a dry eye treatment is $2,000 or this or when I combine this frame with this lens and this thing and this treatment and you know, I end up with a $700 out of pocket purchase. It's about understanding the value. And so to me, value is much greater. Value is how you make a person feel and how the person believes this is going to benefit that. And so if I make you feel like you could have just gotten the same $700 thing on Zenny for, you know, 80 bucks, you know that you don't have a great perception of value, but if I make you feel like this thing was custom crafted to your individual situation, your lifestyle, with a staff and a doctor who truly understand your exact situation. And listen, yes, I know it's 800 bucks, but it is absolutely something that you're going to wear for, you know, most of your life for the next year. Like, it is really, really important that we get this investment right, because, you know, it works out to sense for, for the hour that you're going to be using.
- [47:09]
C
You know, it's, it's funny you say that. I had a patient experience a couple of weeks ago, a female in her 80s, and she came in like, where you been? And admittedly I don't, I'm not full time, just occasional in the clinic. And she says, well, I went somewhere else and I'm miserable. And I said, well, why is that? She says, well, I see two of everything. And I said, explain that to me. They said, well, you, you got me this glasses with this thing in them that made my vision 1. And in the last I went to see said, well, if you're only, if you're only seeing double a little bit of the time, you don't probably need that. And I said, well, how much is a little bit of the time? She goes like, well, every time I drive as a pedestrian, I think it's one is that we go back to the prison, let's go ahead and take a swing at that. And she kind of chuckled and we got it and she was fine. But I thought, how lazy must one be to go, yeah, it's just driving two cars, three. Whatever you're saying should be fine. But there was a. The funny story is the truth of the matter is the patient needs what the patient needs. Maybe they don't want a thousand dollar frame that time. And maybe that's where they go, hey, you could do a really nice $300 frame or $200 frame, whatever, but you still need this. It doesn't. It's like you said, this is some. You're using your vision all day long. I have patients who've said that to me for years. They Go, Doc, you don't understand. My vision's really important. Really, it is. I never would have guessed that after all these years. I do think that that again, it's back to basics. Does your staff think about that when they think this person works outside all day long, but you didn't tell them to get polarized sunglasses so they're going to squint for the next 365 days with glare all day long because you didn't tell them to do that or they're retired and they want to fish or do xyz. Did you suggest it? And that's your job. And I hope, I wish that we could have this magic red easy button that your listeners could hit. But I can tell you, the practices that I watch, they're really successful in times like this. Do two things you can. Number one, they get back to basics. They train, they remind staff everything that we talked about, although maybe not sexy. And number two, they really run their business better. They get into their business, they know their metrics and in particular, the ones that I see that do the best lean into those vendors and opportunities that lean back. And they almost always. Well, I mean, I can't imagine when they don't. They always outperform and they usually are more profitable because they're leaning in and getting back to the basic fundamentals of how their business operates as well as how they take care of patients.
- [49:53]
A
Yeah. And Jason, going back to this concept of operations, you know, and when I think about value, again, I'm a little bit conflicted because I think about like, there's the value that your team creates by simply people walking into your office.
- [50:12]
C
Right.
- [50:12]
A
And this is where the independents have the greatest amount of advantage in my opinion. Because you've got the opportunity to run to make the people feel. To make the people walk into your office feel special. Feel like you are really knowledgeable at what you do and that you've got solutions that, you know, big box stores don't. But, you know, there's that value component which I think you touched on is like your first tip is like get your staff's mind, mindset in the right place. But the second component of value is actually dollars that they have in their pocket. Because, listen, as we, where we were talking about earlier in the episode, I just spent 150 bucks on gas to fill up my truck. Like, I'm not feeling particularly wealthy at the moment. So like, you know, I might, I might pass on that $700 pair of glasses. So here's the deal. I'M curious from your vantage point, how important is having a lower cost option or a cheaper option so that my total out of pocket, right? Like really, like if I push back, like is there something you can take out and make me, make me feel like, okay, well you know, here's, here's a solution is going to get you 90% of the way there or 80% of the way there, but we can still take care of it here in this office rather than you walking out and buying something on, on the Internet that you're going to be unhappy with.
- [51:31]
C
There are 30 years and being in literally hundreds of offices, you could kind of divide offices into thirds. There's a third of the offices that, this number's shrinking by the way that just, they're, they're too cheap, they don't sell up. They, so you know, they, you don't see this so much anymore. But I can remember buying offices that 90% of what they fit were straight top bifocals. They never changed, they never added technology. Today I will tell you the far greater crime, when I say crime, obviously not illegal. The far greater issue is that we sell up the ladder very, very well. So you're only selling the premium, you're only selling the best stuff. What happens is, is that when you have a consumer sentiment that is trending downward, you need to be prepared for that. You need to have a good, better best option. And there's so much good stuff out there today that yes, admittedly maybe not be the single best lens available, but there's really great digital products out there in progressives. There's really good quality stuff that you can bundle together. Complete frame and lens solutions I think are from a practice perspective this simple and easiest way to drive capture rate, to make sure you got frames on the board and you have to have that full spectrum. You've got to have some value product that you don't lead with. But if you have a trusting relationship with the patient, they'll lead you there. And if you don't have it, they're going to walk. If I had a nickel for every time I, you know, my customer. My customers are perfectly optimport. Well, yeah, like it's Costco or Sam's or whatever their thing is. And I go, well, do you have 150, $200 option to save the sale? Because what frequently happens is they don't know how to use their, their vision plan benefits. And when you bundle everything together, you'll be, you can be incredibly competitive. But we don't sell down we only sell up. And I, I think that's probably the single greatest risk of loss of capture rate, which is what we're seeing. When you've got a downward trending consumer sentiment, they, they really want good stuff. They'll probably pay you a little bit more. They don't want to go to the, you know, stuff, the $15 junk. But you gotta be able to trend down from the thousand dollar pair of glasses to the $500 pair of glasses and 500 to 300 and so on and so forth. It's the single greatest reason capture it isn't good right now is we don't know how to sell that down.
- [53:54]
A
Yeah. And you know, there's things becoming available on the market that I think help with that too and help a patient. Well, I see is as a, I've, as you know, we've worked with practices that do aesthetics and when we studied the aesthetics market, one of the things we saw is that aesthetics is really good at patient retention. Not because, not just because they explain value, I mean a lot of times it's commoditized stuff, but because they have membership plans. And so if you think about vision insurance, in many ways vision insurance is just a membership plan, but without loyalty to your specific office. But if you could say, if you could say to a patient, listen, you know that frame is half off. If you, if you jump on our membership plan of 30, 30 bucks a month or something like that, it could be supplemental to vision insurance. It can be something that you replace a crappy vision insurance with. You can, you can use it with cash. Patients who sometimes don't anticipate spending as much as you're asking them to spend for an eye exam and, and a pair of glasses. But having those options, I think this is a good time to consider membership plans. And I could probably a lot of
- [55:09]
C
people having success with that right now.
- [55:11]
A
Yeah.
- [55:11]
C
The flip side of that is on the back end of the sale, maybe with your membership plan or it's an a la carte item, making sure that you are selling an extended warranty on your glasses is just, people expect it. I, I can't. Where I was the other day, I was buying a light fixture that was like 25 bucks. And for 799 they offered me a extended warning on the light fixture. And I just remember thinking this thing gonna explode on the wall. Like it's a light fix I could possibly break in the next three years on this. And even I did, I just go buy another one. But I, I think the customer has shown that they are interested and that they want that. Because think about that. If, if I'm gonna spend, let's say, 500 bucks, I want the peace of mind to know that this is gonna last me. It's not gonna break tomorrow. I trust you. But this, you know, the amount of times I've lost sunglasses or hit my glasses or scratched them, consumers, that's just being alive. And so I think that you, in actually a constricted environment like this, actually, I think consumer protection plans in office actually will sell better at a higher percentage because they want to protect that bigger investment that they made.
- [56:25]
A
You're absolutely right. And that's a great way to increase both revenue and also consumer perception of value. And you can say, I mean, you can, you can set up your warranty however you want to set up your warranty for any, any pair of glasses over $400, the warranty is half off any pair of, you know, whatever, whatever you want to do.
- [56:46]
C
You know, it's funny, Eugene, and all these years of running steady groups when we sit with our members, I can remember this was maybe six, seven years ago when this started taking off, and Jamie Rosen was actually the, the guy who was teaching it. And you would watch people come back in six months and go in literally 100% of the time, they went, what was I thinking? I should have been doing this five years ago. And then you see two more people do it, and then two more people, you know, and getting, getting that at the 50, 60% capture rate. And I think, I'm not even sure that's great. I think a lot of people, probably closer to a hundred, you got a happy customer and more real time revenue for the business. Like, it's the ultimate win, win. And people are always like, what was I thinking? What was that? It's like pre appointing, people fought that for decade. It's like, I don't, I don't want to make them mad and make them come back too often. And I don't. There's no solid answer to everything every time. But I think there are some things that you kind of see with time and you go, optos as a screener up front. I mean, there's something about every five years that I see that I go, oh, my goodness, what, what will we think of not doing that? And so I think that's one of them especially that resonates right now.
- [57:57]
A
Yeah. And I think, you know, if you're going back to your point of, okay, we're down revenue, we're going to have to pull patients back in. Right. They're obviously foregoing eye exams. I mean logically, yes. Patient communication, patient reactivation is one of those levers that you don't have a good solution, you got to pull it for sure. But the other part of it I think is what you just said, which is that pre appointing or even like the doctor saying it in the chair, not assuming that the patient's going to come back because whatever it's like, given your and I, I don't know if you have a tip for people of exactly how to say it, but the language of like I just, I want to see you back in 12 months. Expand that a little bit for me.
- [58:47]
C
Well, again you hear something. Three times I tell all doctors, when you finish the refraction, one of the things that I always tell people to do is you want. I mean we're all scientists, right, in our own regards. So the first thing is it's, it's not a script, it's a series of questions. When you finish, you go this, the last choice is one or two. So they're unbiased and which one's better? Well, I like two. Well good, because one is your old, two is your new. You want a non script, is it better or worse? And I don't want, I don't want your brain thinking about anything other than what's better. So as soon as you establish that what I got you to see is better, then we go, okay, would you like to update your prescription so that you can see better? And then be quiet and then sit down and go, oh yeah, yeah, you want to see better, great. And so then we'll talk about, you know, I want a Verilux with a crazal and a transition. And they'll go, okay, tell me about your sunglasses. And then the same process happens again. So I write everything down, we finish the exam and we're finishing up. The way that I've always done it is we, we sudden or we, we page the optician in and everyone does their thing. You hit the button and I know I've got about 60 seconds to wrap it up. Which for me, as verbose as I am, can sometimes be a lot. Big challenge, but I'll go over, hey, here's what I see. You know, I really great job on your diabetic care. This is looking better or you got some small lens changes, I noticed. Whatever the reason is that I want to sum it up. There's always something you find that you want. They, they want to know, hey, what did you see let's keep an eye on that. I want to see you back in a year. Let's connect on that. Or six months or whatever it is. About that time, the optician walks in. Hey, Mr. Shatzman here. He needs to update his glasses. He wears a barrel because I'll transition. He also was interested some sunglasses. I would put, you know, the polarized polarization in them and some Costas or whatever. And I want to see him back in a year to keep an eye on xyz. So they've now heard it twice there and they heard the glasses. So they go out and then they start the process. Okay, Dr. Lake said, you need XYZ. And then when they finish up and we. You went ahead and filled out your paperwork, when it sends you a card, we'll see you back in a year to keep an eye on xyz. They heard a third time. That's just good care. They're not going to remember things unless you tell them. That's not what they do. We have a mutual friend who bangs a question. He says, how much better would you do in your office if your patient was actually prepared for the exam and they knew the questions to ask? And I think we'll riff on that on a different day. But it's about educating your patient. If you educate them in the right way, you don't sell anything. You're just doing your job. But I don't know the right negative connotation. But I personally would say I think it's just lazy when we don't. That's your job. Spend the time with them, answer their questions. Again, that's the one time the whole year they're coming in for an annual exam. Explain your findings, do it in a way that they can understand it, and make sure that you pass that baton to the staff member to have them complete the treatment. Whether it's dry, whether it's the training or the contact lenses, whatever it is, you gotta pass that baton and they gotta finish it up. And if you do those things, you can consistently have a capture rate in the 70s and 80s. I don't see new patients anymore. And I. I can consistently hit in the 70s just because all I'm doing is answering their questions. And admittedly, my patients are older at this point in my career, but I don't think there's anything magical. And I've. I've seen practices hit 80s percent capture rates even in down times, because all they do is take care of their patient. I know that sounds like pie in the sky. One of the things I would caution your listeners to do is particularly with contact lenses. Unfortunately, like it or not, we've spent the last decade training our patients to shop online because we did not adjust our pricing and they are trained to go online now. You have to train them to come back when they want to leave. Have you given your opticians the ability to match a price? Have you talked to them about that? Because you're going to have to have those. I'd say in our prior lives, Eugene, some of those conversations were very taboo with the doctor and the patient. We didn't talk about that, we just did it. Your patient is taking a picture of the frame and having chat gbt price it out on three online ways right now. So that era of the doctor being smart, the patients don't look at that many more. They that is their right and it is their right to get a prescription. You now have to try harder than you used to try it because it's free economy. But you can still. They want to stay there. That's what we miss is they don't want to leave, they want to stay there. You got to give them a reason to.
- [63:28]
A
Yeah, and that's why I think elevating the value is always the case. And I mean even the simple stuff you just mentioned, like having a reason why I want to see you 12 months from now, I can just many people don't think about that. I've been to so many, so many senior shopper exams where it's like all I hear and I want to see you back in 12 months. Okay, give me a reason why. Why is that beneficial to me? And but to your point, it's the patient is more educated. If they're feeling the pinch in the wallet, they're going to take the extra 30 seconds to snap a picture of their item and give it to Chad, GPT, Gemini or Claude or whatever to go shop it for them. And you're absolutely right. You already have them in your office. So you've got to have a toolkit of experience plus you know, maybe software plus maybe presentation plus just general. How are you making the patient feel that they choose to stay with the independent and don't necessarily go somewhere where
- [64:31]
C
they're not going to get in consumer sentiment like this, Eugene, they actually want us more. They want to be reassured, they want to feel trusted. They want all those things we just, we fumble the ball at the five yard line, to use a football analogy. We get it all the way there and they're like, you know what I do Want a progressive lens. I do want anti reflective and Costco can get it to me way cheaper than you because you didn't tell me you didn't spend the time to do it. And I'm not picking on Costco, but I think it's the same with contact lenses.
- [65:02]
A
Are you?
- [65:03]
C
We're going to get these right to your door where we'll match this price. At one of the online leading retailers, they'd spend more, but they're not going to spend infinitely more. You're going to have to run the business side of it. And those practices that ddg, I was looking at our bigger practices in our groups. They're not having this bad of a first half. They're doing pretty well and it's because they run their business. And I'd say that's one of the things the people that are listening to your podcast and, and that little book you got there on your shelf behind you, of all the things I've read, you didn't even ask me for this. But I. If you don't have a copy of that, get on Amazon, get a copy and sit down and read it and have your office manager read it. And honestly, if you want to do that on, on Books for Tape, I would, I can do a James Earl Jones and read that thing. It would be fantastic. It would be.
- [65:52]
A
You know, Jason, if you're volunteering to do the audiobook of I Care Boss, you know, I, I don't know how I can say no.
- [66:02]
C
I, I've got it, Luke. I can do a really good James Earl Jones. I could. I just need to work on that.
- [66:08]
A
But once the audience, if they, if they want to hear Jason Lake narrate the 436 pages of the Eye Care Boss, you might. Absolutely.
- [66:18]
C
They'll be lucky if they can make it through the 62 minutes of this podcast at this point. But jokes aside, when's the last time you read a journal? When's the last time you put the time into it? That is as good of meat and potatoes. How to run an Office. It is. I have read everything that I have ever seen. There may be stuff I'm not aware of, but if you want to know how to run an office and do that stuff, take that book, break it down chapter by chapter, have a training with, do 12 trainings with your staff, take them out for pizza. It just simply by paying attention to it, it's going to get better. And this is actually an instruction manual and gosh, it's all available. There's nothing fantastically new that you have to do to win, but you got to do something. You know what? I'm 54. I got to work a lot harder now in the gym than I used to be to maintain some form of a shape, but I haven't yet to figure out a way to get in shape sitting on my butt watching TV like, it doesn't work like that. You got to move, you got to do something. You got to run your business. You really do, or it's going to run you and you're going to be miserable and you're eventually going to bleed it out.
- [67:25]
A
Yeah. Jason, always such a pleasure to have you on the show. I bet we. So we're going to keep a close eye on these numbers, and we'll circle back in a few months and see how. How the industry is doing or how the independents are doing. My. My impression is that we'll get a lot of feedback from this episode for people who are doing some of the basics but want to do them better. And so let's probably some of the things we'll come back and talk about in a few. In a few months when we revisit what the numbers look like for the industry.
- [67:58]
C
What would be great is if they let you know the things they want to hear about. And I think we could probably sit down and take two or three per episode, hit the quarterly numbers that we agree that we're going to talk about, and our stuff will be out here pretty soon. I would love to start trending. And by the way, the reason we do groups, if you don't want to
- [68:16]
A
do our group, do any group.
- [68:18]
C
But when you sit down with people and you have structured conversations that are backed by analytics, you're going to get better. But again, you got to do something. You can't just sit around. It's not going to fix itself. It just won't. At least I've never seen it do that. Maybe it does. I mean, you have to see if something fix itself in that regard.
- [68:36]
A
Are you allowed to talk about your new thing yet, the new perks you guys just launched?
- [68:41]
C
We did. We launched Perk Plus. Uh, that's been a lot of years in the making. You know, Dr. Golden did a great job launching Perk. A lot of the principles that we have discussed today are kind of the meat potatoes behind Perk Plus. We have a little bit narrowed vendor assortment. And one of the things we're promising our customers is that we know that when you reduce your vendors, we see, on average, a 4 percentage point drop in cost. Of goods. And I don't mean 4% lower. I mean like 30 to 26. The magic is that you narrow them down, you lean in. And when you lean into less vendors, you in turn get better rebates, better refunds. And when you have the right partners, every partner we have, we know we have the best deal in place in our space of low and no cost alliances. And we are vigilantes about making sure our customers get that and our vendors lean back in. They, they're very happy with that. So, again, part of that process is if you want to come take a look, call our people. We'd love to talk, but it's, it's been. Been a lot of years to get it ready, to get everybody aligned. But for those folks who want to lean in, we will absolutely have a positive effect on their business. I have zero doubt. We've done it over and over. We just formalized it finally.
- [70:01]
A
That's great. Well, congratulations. We'll post some more information in the show notes on that as well. Jason Lake, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. And I'm, I'm grateful that you were able to pull, pull some time away from the marina to, to join us to talk about these numbers hot off the presses.
- [70:18]
C
I. Nothing's hotter than an hour at the power hour, buddy.
- [70:23]
A
Thanks, man. All right, Jason.
- [70:25]
C
Thank.
- [70:35]
A
You.