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Quarterly Metric Review: What the Data Is Really Telling Practice Owners in 2026 | Dr. Jason Lake
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Welcome to Power Hour, Optometry's biggest and longest running show. I'm your host, Eugene Shotsman, and today's episode is one of those metric driven conversations that always gets good reviews and every practice owner should probably be hearing right now. Jason Lake is back on the show with Metric of the Quarter. And this one happens to be a little bit of a wake up call because we get into what the numbers are really saying about Q1 of 2026. So we're seeing softer demand for eye exams, for example, rising patient interest and affordable options, more shopping behavior online and otherwise. And you know, these are trends that should be a little bit alarming to us and at least we should be paying attention. And then Jason also goes through other in office metrics that could be potentially contributing to some of the issues that we're seeing, which might be fewer exams and patients walking out without buying. So this episode is really about two things, getting patients to come in the door, and the other one is stop losing value when they're already in the door. So Jason and I talk about a variety of topics including staff hours, per refraction, reactivation, the right levels for specific metrics, exam only rates, capture rate, frame board strategy, simple operational misses that quietly cost practices a lot of money. If we just put it plainly. It's practical, it's definitely a little intense. And honestly, it's one of those conversations where if the warning light lights are kind of flashing the whole time, this is a good one because it forces us to pay attention. So if you want a clearer read on what's happening in the market right now, how to have a good 2026, and what actions really matter in Q2 before the year gets away from you. This episode is definitely worth leaning into. And before we get into it, quick reminder to make sure that you're subscribed on your favorite platform, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows, so that you never miss an episode. And as always, if you have feedback, questions or ideas for future topics, reach out to me directly@eugene shotsman.com or through the Power Hour website. Read those messages. I always enjoy hearing from you. And now let's go to the show. Dr. Jason Lake, welcome back to the Power Hour.
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So good to be back, Eugene. It's been a hot minute. How are you?
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Well, listen, we've got our metric of the quarter and we're kicking off. We're in the first early part of the second quarter and this metric of the quarter episode is typically anticipated by the audience. It's Also well received by the audience. So there are a number of, I think there are a number of learnings that came our way in Q1 and also kind of as a wrap up of 2025. But right now I'm deeply focused on Q2 and what can practices do better in Q2 so that the year doesn't get away from them. So, Jason, I, you know, you and I could probably catch up for, for a lot of time on the air, but I, but again, because these episodes are so highly anticipated, I just want to dig right into that first question. So what are some of the biggest observations that you're seeing when it comes to numbers from first quarter?
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I think as we look at first quarter coming in, I think demand is down. It's, it's a little softer than anticipated. When you listen to the economic surveys and you listen to a lot of the data, Eugene, everyone is really pointing for a solid 2026. And I still think that's in front of us. I just think there are a lot of pressures, whether those are global or whether those are right here at home because we're, you know, where I'm from, a price of gas goes up a buck a gallon. It's a big deal. So I think the one thing that if I could get your listeners to grab one thing is every patient is a precious commodity for the rest of 2026. And you need to be taking actions today to make sure that you are maximizing the potential of those patients and getting them in your door.
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And you know, it's interesting you talk about demand. My Q1 numbers that come from my team literally just hit my desk. So I mean, we might as well talk about them. I usually don't share them with the industry all that often. But what I'll tell you all is that the way that we measure demand is a little bit different. Oftentimes measures of demand are retroactive. So for example, when division council, we've talked about this on the show and division council published that exams were down 7%, exam volume was down 7% in 2025. That's a measure of demand in 2025 of how many patients came in for eye exams. But that's a retroactive measure. What we try to do is adjust in time measure. And the way that we measure a just in time measure is using the back end of Google data that we have available, which basically says to us, how many times in various zip codes across the country did patients type in various things that indicate that they're interested in getting an eye exam. And when we think about that, we kind of look at how many times do people type in things like eye exam near me, eye doctor near me, optometrist near me, all of those types of things. I'm not just saying, like, how many times did somebody type in Gucci glasses? Because that's, you know, I call that a middle of the funnel indicator of demand. I'm looking at bottom of funnel demand indicators primarily. And then we look at some of the middle of the funnel demand indicators. So here's the data, and this is. It's a little bit alarming, as far as I can tell, for the independent ecp. Again, I have not shared this publicly yet, so it's gonna be the first time. But the. So 2025 data was pretty keel even. With 2026, there were some. Or, sorry, with 2024, where, you know, there were some even keel, you know, ebbs and flows, so to speak. But it was relatively even in terms of a number of indicators of demand. People typing stuff into Google for the whole industry, that's medical stuff, that's glasses, that's eye doctor. But this year, we've already started, the first three months of the year, we started below 2024 and below 2025 levels, and we're about 9% below 2025 in terms of patients. So in 20, in Q1 of 2026, we're 9% below in terms of patients typing things in, like eye doctor and, you know, optometrist near me and that kind of thing. The thing that's interesting though, and this is where it gets really, you know, kind of a little bit alarming, is that the one place demand has spiked, the two places demand has spiked, is with affordable glasses or sort of keywords that we categorize to in the affordable category. So cheap glasses, budget glasses, glasses discount discount glasses, discount frames, discount lenses. Or so we track that category and that typically goes in the hands of, you know, or coupons for glasses, that kind of stuff. So we tracked that in the affordable category, and that is up by 50% year over year. So that demand is up. So the number of times people type that in and the other one that's up, surprisingly, because I, for three years, I stood on stage and said, listen, you know, what the data is telling us is that people flourished or people really went to online retailers during, like Covid so 2020, 2021, that was the spike of buying glasses online glasses online glasses online sales, buying glasses online, prescription glasses online. All those indicators of demand that spiked in 2021, 20 and you know, 20, 20, 2021. And then it sort of started the gradual decline in 22, 23, 24, and then in 25, right around September, it started climbing and climbing. And every month Since September of 2025, it has outpaced the previous year by a substantial amount. And so clocking in, in the first quarter of the year, we are 40% increase in demand for online glasses and online contact lens retailers for, in the, you know, this year over last year. So that's. So what I'm hearing or what I'm analyzing from this is that patients are, patients still want their stuff. They still want, you don't get close in contact, but they don't necessarily want the eye exam, which is consistent with the data that Vision council had for 2025. My point though is that in Q1 of 2026, that trend has not reversed. There is no magic genie that waved a magic wand and said patients are behaving differently in Q1 of 2026 than they were in Q4 and Q3 of 2025. Demand is lower for eye exams, demand is higher for online retailers and affordable products online. Which of course goes to your point, Jason, that when those patients do walk in the door, they are, you really can't let them walk out without buying something.
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I think if you look historically back, you know, in our meetings this week, so I've had a chance to go look all the way back to 2019 and our specific groups, you know, we saw average frame sale capture rates, everything really peaked about 22, 23. And that makes sense. You had a consumer that had some money in their pocket. I think if, if you ask our patients who they want to see, they want to go to their independent IECP because quite frankly they are happy there. They, in general, they keep coming back, they pay more. We are just at a point in time that I, I think last year the Vision Council gave one of the more interesting statements from their data people. They said when they surveyed people for consumer sentiment in our category, people do not want to spend more than $100 more out of pocket beyond their vision plan. And I have not seen the reiteration of that. I haven't talked to the team over there, but I. That really absolutely goes dovetail with what you're saying is you get somebody who is outside of your office, they are looking for the same things because you don't have a choice, you have to see. Right. But they're looking for a more affordable way to do it. They're saying, well, let Me put off the really good stuff. Let me look at a lower cost or a higher value alternative to the consumer. Now, that patient may not actually see that, but I actually think there's a lot of stories to be told in our metrics that tell a really good story about that. So my practices are in a rural area, we're just outside of Kansas City. And one of the things about that area is we don't have a huge influx of people. It grows 2 or 3% a year. And as long as I can remember, we have been fanatical about our recall. And we've done that simply because we don't have a huge influx. When those people don't come in, you've lost them. You know, there's not six, you know, if you're in Austin, Texas or Miami, these booming areas, maybe it's different for the vast majority of the country, particularly rural areas, particularly cities that aren't growing as fast as they were. When that patient comes in, number one, you better take care of them. Number two, you've got to spend time and effort to get them to walk in the door. And I really. The metric of the month or the metric of the quarter, that tells the story to me, Eugene. And I think we can derive a lot of stuff. I know you've got some really interesting demands on this. To me, it's about staff. So we look across and we say, okay, exam data for the industry as a whole, volume is down about 7, 8. You said up, down 9% for Q1. When we look at our groups, it's probably a plus 7 or plus 8. But these groups are doing some very specific things differently than probably the industry is. And number one, and we use you and your services a lot for this. It's the way that we reactivate patients. And I know you had some really interesting data, Eugene, on the average life cycle, or what should I say, a buying cycle of a patient, how soon do they come in and what happens when you do that? Can you share that with your listeners? Are you allowed to do that?
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Well, yeah, we can talk in generality. So here's what we did. And this. I actually looked for this number last year. I was looking for this number and I was like, somebody's gotta have this number. And what I wanted to know is in your database for all non new patients and all patients who have come back. So not just one time patients, but all patients who have come back in your database, who, what is the average time between exams? And again, you know, not your medical patients, not your glaucoma patients. But like for your, for your typical refraction, what is the average time between exams? And I was looking for that data and nobody's like, there's some, you know, there's old studies that kind of reference a number that, you know, some consultant said at some point I was like, I just, we just don't have that data. So what I tried to do is initially I was like looking for third party sources and then I said okay. So last year in the fourth quarter, our data team pulled a rabbit out of a hat and they analyzed all of the data that we have for all the practices that we work with in this capacity. And what we learned was that on average, and this is, you know, we could kind of classify some of these practices as on average practices that we have data for. So they're not all clients, but practices that we have data for have a typical, the typical, the average number of days between exams is 561 days. So those are just 561 days between days between exams. And that number seems to be edging up. Now our data is a little bit flawed, Jason, because I then also took a subset and said all the people who use the strategic reactivation number or the strategic reactivation tool that we have, what happens to them? And it's actually really interesting what happens to them is the first thing that happens to them is that that number get. Because when they turn on strategic reactivation for the first three months that number actually gets bigger because patients from five years ago start coming back in, right. And then all of a sudden the number like kind of blows itself out of the water. And then over time it starts getting shorter and shorter. And practices that have a mature strategic reactivation program have, are much closer to about 400 days or 1.16 years between exams. And that's a, you know, and I think when you think about the financial impact on the practice, when you have a 561 days versus call it 5, 410 days between exams, it's a massive, massive difference.
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I'll give you a fun fact. And you know, like you, you've got the science behind it. I've always thought it was roughly a little less than two years. If you don't really do recall, right. If you do, it's about 12 to 14 months. But one of the things, and I don't know if we've talked about it before, but when you look at a practice that is not doing good pre appointing and good reactivation, I know that if you insert that into the practice. One year from then, you're going to be up 20%. I have tried it over and over and over. It never fails. I've had doctors go, well, you don't understand. I'm different. No, you're not. It works 100% of the time.
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It's funny you say that. It's because it's one of the biggest levers that I know that people have given you a lot of credit for this, is that when people go to buy. Well, no credit, because when people go to buy a practice, one of the things they say is, I'll just use the Jason Lake trick, which is pre appoint and reactivate. Those are like the two things that people. Because people are like, oh, they got room on the schedule, they have a decent database, and like that. And so like when they're evaluating a practice, like, oh, I know I can get a double digit lift out of this practice if I do the Jason Lake trick, prepoint and reactivate.
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It is so tried and true. I just, it's comical. And so one of the things I talk to our customers and our clients about is one of the things that you can think about is recall. And good reactivation is a lot like farming. Good marketing is a lot like hunting. And you got a hunter gather, right? You got to do both. You got to have the baseline. So when the tough times come and they come, you've got this reactivation system that at least gives you a chance at the plate. And to use a baseball analogy, when you're doing these things and those patients, and we know it's best for eye health, I mean, we're not stretching things here. But when they do that and they come in, you've got a great shot. But in a time like this, when demand drops and you have that great relationship with your patient, it covers up a lot of sins. And that's why our customers are still doing better, is because they're taking these basic building blocks, running their business and doing it. I, I was laughing the other day. I had a. I have a generator on my house, a whole house generator, Eugene. And I was on the phone with this lady and I thought, I got to hire this lady. She said, well, Dr. Lake, you know it's going to cost you XYZ to come in and we're going to change the oil on your generator. If you'd like to join our comfort club, we'll just set you up annual visits. We'll go ahead and put that on the calendar for next year and we'll come out and change the oil and the spark plugs on your generator every year. She's trying to explain this. I start laughing. She goes, there's something funny. I go, no, I. I'm an eye doctor. We've been doing this for 15 years. And she goes, you know, we just learned if this really works. And I go, yeah. I mean, apparently it's now. I mean, if you don't get a text from somebody in your life telling you to come in from your oil change to your groceries, something's happening. And the reason is it works because life gets busy and we forget. And it's, you know, above all things, my generator needs an oil change. If I can certainly get an oil change in my generator annually for something I rarely use, thankfully, I probably ought to get an eye exam. So that's a big, big part of it. So we've spent 10, 15 minutes here chatting about that. I think there's a back end of this, though, Eugene, is. Let's say you get them in the door. One of the things that I see, when you look at that Vision Council data, it's really fascinating that we talk
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about
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dollars are up. So translate that to your listeners. Private practitioners in the independent, they said, well, I did a million five last year. I did a million six this year. Must have been a great year. I feel really good about it. Well, maybe, but you also raise prices on your contact lenses, you raise prices on your frames, which are really the only two things you can control in a heavy vision plan environment. So it's a little bit of. When you're thinking about that, this sounds simplistic, Eugene, but I think sometimes the independent's a little bit shielded from the reality of the industry because they. They may have seen less patients, but the dollars look better. They don't even realize the erosion that's happening because they're not tracking their complete exams. At the end of the year, they get their tax return back. And right now, it's tax season. I know you all are doing it. They look and go, well, yeah, gosh, that was just as good or better than last year. Must be great. You're not going to rate. You're not going to get that second price raise this year from tariffs. You're not going to get it. The tariffs ended up being a nothing burger. Right. I don't think anybody's given back the price raises from what I can see. And so it'll be interesting this year when those things level off because it was a good call out. People hadn't raised prices in years. I think it's going to be a really interesting time because it's really going to show up this year if they're not heavy in reactivation.
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And I think, Jason, I am sitting here and like, as you were saying it, and I had the realization, and I have this realization, like, every time I think about this data. But, like, I got chills because I am like, man, like, there's alarm bells going off. Like, if I was in some, like, I don't know if I'm some sort of secret spy building, there should be like, you know, red lights flashing or something like that as I'm, as I'm sitting here. Because the reality is, let's just think about the basics, okay? Fewer patients came in for exams and we made more money. What does that mean? We raised price. Okay, great. What does that mean for the next visit? Well, look, I'm telling you what the data is telling you with number one, the next visit, the number between visits, that number is growing. The number of days between visits, that number is growing. Okay, that's one indicator. 50% increase in the number of patients going online to try to find glasses and 50% of increase or 40% increase in the number of patients going to try to get cheap or affordable contact lenses and glasses on the Internet. You guys, like, I mean, it's right here in front of us. It is like every warning sign possible to be like, take action now, because if you don't, you're not going to have another opportunity. And I will also, maybe I'll ask you this question, is that as we're looking at that process problem, like clear, flashing red lights, why aren't people taking action?
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I think couple reasons. And I think the reality is sometimes we need a crisis to make us move because you have kids and families and things get busy. The biggest reason I think, Eugene, is though, beyond all that, we work with our customers a lot. And I would tell you the number one thing that just makes me insane is they don't look at the data. And the analogy I use is like, well, I appreciate that when you drove your car in this morning, you probably looked at the speedometer and I hope you maybe looked at the gas gauge. Do I have enough gas to get between A and B? But what was your oil pressure reading driving over today, Eugene? And what was your temperature reading on your transmission? And so on and so forth forth. It. It often takes most people who are not disciplined at looking at their metrics, the speedometer has to drop to zero because the engine just blew up. And no One even noticed why? Right. Like it's, it isn't that the warning signs aren't going off. The warning signs aren't going off for people who aren't looking. You know, remember the three monkeys, Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. It's just a. Well, it's just blissful ignorance. And, and I don't mean that to be a derogatory statement but, but if you are not diving into your data, the downturn hurts much worse because you could have stopped it a year ahead of time. But what ends up happening is you almost have to bottom out the head back up. People in practices, really smart ODs that watch their data have far less capitulation month to month. So if you are not doing strategic reactivation and clever marketing, you'll find that the, if you graft out your patient visits over the course of a year, the capitulation could be 20%. A properly ran practice that has good reactivation, good recall, good marketing. You'll see it's probably less than 5 or 10% now. Certainly there's days of the month that vary and things like that, but if you stack it up to prior year the variance will be much lower. And secondly, I think it really leads to an interesting question. Twofold question number one, what we call the Jamie Rosen number. Not only are exams down, but let's just talk about the ones you get when, when they come in the door because this is the other warning sign that's going off. A lot of patients still love you because you take care of their eyes and you take care of their eye health. But the problem is they're not buying anything from you. So there was a disturbing trend that we saw to me exam only if you only had to look at one other metric, like you know, I'm a nerd, like I like my 25 metrics and I could spend hours because apparently I'm a geek. But if you only looked at one other thing, I'd look at exam only because that tells me two things. Did I, what's the money? Did the patient come in the door and then what did I do when I got them there? If you force me to pick three, those are the three. An exam only has a very disturbing trend right now and I know you are the only person that actually has a way to track that. Could you share a little bit with your scene in trends and I'll tell you what I'm seeing in our groups.
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B
Yeah. So first of all I agree with you because I think if you earlier you said If. If new marketing or if marketing is like harvesting or marketing for new patients is like harvesting or is. Is like hunting. Right. And then your. Your reactivation is like farming. Right. To me, exam only what you do with the exam, that's like harvesting. That's like reaping the benefit of the. Of the hunt. Right. Like, and you can just leave the, you know, I guess leave the game on the side or you could never, never whip out the. The machine to harvest the. The actual thing that you farm, or you can actually take it in.
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I love the machine. Like, you've. You're really resonating with rural America right now. We appreciate it.
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Listen, hey, I'm talking to a guy in Kansas City. I got. How can I. How can I not bring out a tractor analogy?
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Right? Get those later. I'll try to work something out.
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Yeah, please. I mean, this is way, way better than cats with a cotton ball or whatever we were saying before. So. So listen, the. The data is pretty clear on this, on this side as well. We started 2024 across, and we looked at this for approximately $1 billion worth of collections. So the data is a sizable portion
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of the United States market, by the way. And then the end, when you start using a word with a B in it, that's a pretty nice hunk of business there. So this should be validated data. It's not a small sample size.
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So it's 55% is where we started in 2024. And that was growing from before, as you said correctly. Like, the truth is, it's been ever since 2021, 2022, exam only has been on the rise, and we've been kind of. I think that in my opinion, this is iCare's biggest problem. But we've gone from 55%. We ended 2025 with 59%.
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Yep. Let's talk.
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That is 59% out of a hundred walk out the door, or 59 patients out of 100 walk out the door without buying something. And oftentimes we're not realizing it because it's masked. This is why I like exam only over capture rate, because exam only is a metric that you can use to measure a very specific behavior. Capture rate is a diluted metric because capture rate, and Jamie Rosen taught me this, is that capture rate includes your multiple pairs, includes your outsider X's. And, you know, they could be practices that are really good at multiple pair, or the practice with a really great, you know, street location or has got a great, great relationship with an ophthalmologist. Who is driving patients in for the optical. But the truth is, if you've got six patients out of 10 that are walking out without buying something, you are average in the United States right now. Now, what's best in class? I mean, again, also something Jamie Rosen taught me. Jason, what's best in class? You're 30.
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You're world class. 30, 35.
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Jamie says 20. He said that he, he was able to get his practices and others like him to 20%. And, and we actually got 20.
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A
They'll put a statue of you somewhere. I mean, that's unbelievable. 30 is like attainable. 20 is. They speak of you in hush tones and conventions. I mean, there's, there's the person. Um, but I, I think, let's talk about that. I think it's twofold. And these are two really interesting metrics I'm talking with our customers about this week in our meeting. I think it's, it's twofold. Number one, I think it's a people problem. And number two, I think it's a product problem. And which one do you want to hit first?
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B
Let's do the people problem first, people.
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A
Okay, so I was pulling up some data and again we go back to 2019 with this staff expense ratios. And these are, by the way, customers that are blowing it out of the water, right? Four times the industry average or greater. Well, quite a bit more, I guess, if you're negative and these customers are showing a significant drop in staff hours per fraction. And so two things I think your listeners are going to want to know, especially if they're new. Number one, we talk about exam only. So if you got 100 exams and your exam only rate is 30%, that means 70% of your customers purchased either glasses or contact lenses. Okay. When we look at staff hours per fraction or staff hours per full examination, it's the total staff hours worked. It's divided by the number of exams. And I will tell you, if that number strategically drops below a four, I will promise you you will see a corresponding drop in capture rate. And I don't have the metrics. I would be willing to bet, Eugene, that this is the first time in eight years that I've seen averages at the 3.9 range. It has been trending down from 4. 5 to 44 to 42 to 4 1. All of our groups are averaging just under 4. When you don't, when your team doesn't have time to properly explain product and testing and do their job, capture rates are going to drop. You've already got a Customer who's saying, I'm looking for a cheap and affordable option, right? That's what demand data tells us. And then we don't take the time to explain to them why that maybe our product is a little. Why is our technology better? What's different about our product? And when you don't have time to do that, you're going to lose. On average, I see Capture rates dropping 5 to 7% because of staff. On average, when they drop down, I see. I see some of our customers around three to three and a half. And I'm like, we did an experiment with a large customer in the Northeast, and they had several offices. And I said, I tell you what, take three of your offices, and I want you to staff them up until you can get that staff number to 4.5. And I said, I want you to run it for six months and tell me what happens. CFO calls me back and says, lake, you're not going to believe it. He goes, we've. We've raised our capture rate 10%. And I said, and that increase in capture rate, does that pay for your staff? And he just started laughing. He goes, well, yeah. I mean, at that point, it's 50% margin because you paid for the staff, you paid for the. You know, it doesn't. The rent's paid. Everything else is paid. He goes, this is genius. And I go, it's not genius. You didn't have enough people. But every time you hire a person, people think, well, it's 40 or 50 or $60,000 to hire that person. And admittedly it is, but you're also probably walking away from 3, 4, $500,000 worth of sales that you're leaving on the clip. So that's part A.
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B
Wait, wait, hold on. Let's not go to part no, we're not going to part B until after the break. I got questions for you on part A. So when you say staff hours per refraction, and you said the right number is higher than 4, what are you including in that total numerator? Is it like, is it your scribes? Is it your doctors? Is it your.
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A
No, no, no, no.
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B
Good call out.
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Good call out. For the most simplified version of it, the bigger you get, you do get some differentiation with text and front office, but for 98% of your listeners or watchers or however you're enjoying this, it really comes down to that number is the total hours worked, not vacation hours, not pto. What was the hours that your team, not your doctors, were in the office actually working? And if you get really diligent, Eugene, and start tracking it month to month. The busiest months will actually usually be your lowest capture rates because you simply don't have enough time. So what happens in the summer? You have a back to school rush and your staff actually wants to take time to be with their family and go on vacation, which they earn and deserve. The problem is you're already running at 4.3.9. What do you think's going to happen in July? You're going to drop into the threes. You're going to see a capture rate plummet in those months.
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B
Well, logically it makes perfect sense. A patient walks down to the optical, the optician is not available. They're like, yeah, yeah, I don't have time to wait around. I'm going to.
- [32:52]
A
Let's, let's just play with it for a second. Like let's take the hottest thing going. Stellis lenses, myopia control, contact lenses, my side. Can you explain that in three minutes? I mean, no. It is a complex treatment that by the way, is standard of care now that is so easy to operate and use. It's so easy to implement your practice and you. Oh, hello, Bob or Sally. This is Mrs. Jones. If you could take her out front. I really want to put her in the Stella's lens and da, da, da, da. And it is a little bit more expensive, but it's a unique lens. And if you don't take the time to explain that because by the way, the doctors are going too fast. They don't have time either. Mrs. Jones is going to look at you like, yeah, I, I'm just going to take, let me think about it. And that. Can I have my script? Let me think about. And by the way, the good ones at least have the common politeness that go to the front desk and ask for the script. You know, it seems like people are at least, you know, they like you, they're gonna, they're gonna hide it from you because they're a little ashamed. But if you don't connect, it's a problem. The same goes anti glare. The same goes for photochromatics like transitions or why would I get a premium progressive career, right?
- [34:04]
B
Like second pair is pretty, pretty low right now.
- [34:07]
A
You know what's bizarre? The one thing we haven't seen, we are looking at a roughly similar number, a second pair, which is terrible. It's about 6 to 8% depending on the practice that hasn't declined. And that one's got me scrambled.
- [34:18]
B
Which by the way, with your customers it's higher than industry average because industry average is, is about 5%.
- [34:25]
A
Yeah, but so maybe these people are just determined to buy two pair anyway. And there's all these new computer and reading glass. There's so many driving glass, so much cool stuff. Maybe these people are just great customers and they're just going to come in because everything else, we are not doing a good job of selling at all. So selling is doing your job. And whether it's how the doctor makes the handoff, whether that, that I always tell our doctors the 90 seconds you spend handing off the patient to the optician is the most profitable 90 seconds of your day. Because it's called doing your job. Telling the patient what they need, explaining why they need it and putting in an order not. Yeah, they look pretty good, just clean and we'll see em later. And you know what? That optician's thrilled when you said that. You know why? Because I got three people stacked up out front and that patient walks and we just Talked about for 20 minutes how hard it is to get somebody just to walk in the door. And then you got them there and then you got them to do the exam and then you just let them walk. It's insanity that we don't take the time, as hard as it is to get them in. And we've proven that we are doing a better job with that with our customers, but we are still seeing a drop in their capture rates because they don't have enough people to execute the strategy.
- [35:41]
B
Well, that's a really, really interesting point. I think it kind of fits into, because last time we talked about refractions per OD hour and I do want to point out, and I'm curious what you're seeing in your data is that I think exam only, if exam only is going up, chances are people are doing more refractions per OD hour, which means that the doctor is not spending more time with the patient explaining the recommendations or recommending multiple pairs of glasses and is not really talking about the stylus lenses or whatever, whatever it is, whatever the flavor of the month that needs to be, or I guess really like a standard of care that needs to be implemented. And you know, I think there's a world in which the lifestyle questionnaire goes to the, you know, goes to the wind when you're backed up with patients. And you know, I just, I'm just doing, you know, bare minimum at that point.
- [36:38]
A
I sat on a panel and I really was enjoying the interaction because I had a very large retailer that was with me that was four or five hundred offices and I had somebody who was doing a very low number of exams. And the reality is, is it, is it Goldilocks, you know, it's too hard, too soft type of a deal. I don't think you're ever going to build a really big profitable practice by seeing one exam an hour. And you're right, if you're doing one exam an hour, you can probably have three staff and do great. I think it may feel good, it may be a good lifestyle. I think that practice is almost always going to be in danger of lack of profitability because there's just a certain amount of things you have to do to pay the fixed expenses every month. On the flip side, the patients for the independent eye care provider are coming to you because they expect those things. They expect time. Maybe not 30 minutes, but maybe six to seven minutes of eye to eye conversation, not you banging away on a keyboard, not paying attention. There are ways to see more people. Virtual scribes. I mean heck, we're going with AI scribes now, Eugene. But you have got to got to gata. If you dedicated three to four minutes to look the patient in the eye at the end of every exam and a proper handoff. I said it was 90 seconds. That's the handoff itself. I think you'd see your Capture rates rise 10%. And to your point, on exams per doctor hour, the number is indeed rising. And when that rises, we can't get enough doctors. We've got these other issues. You don't. I, my number is personally about a 2. I don't run a scribe personally. I just, most of my patients, I've seen them forever. I've seen doctors do really well at 232 4. Most doctors are about 14 to 1 6. They can't talk fast enough, they don't click fast enough. So unless you're willing to get to scribes and a lot of people aren't, it's fine. 14, 16 may be your sweet spot, but if you track that monthly. Eugene, we've, we've got a dozen doctors in our practice and I would tell you it is an absolute truth that there is a point that a doctor sees too many people. Again, just like short staff, you'll see the capture rate drop because the doctor doesn't do their job. They just fly through it and go to the next one. I, I think that probably those folks who are not monitoring to that detail and using a system to monitor it monthly and really spending time with it, they're the ones that are that are really going to take the biggest hit, Eugene. And what's going on now? You say we had to take a break. So I don't want to go to part B yet. There's a whole part B to this that goes to marketing. So we'll wait.
- [39:17]
B
We're going to talk about part B. I probably, if we have time, we may circle back because I wrote down a couple other things I want to talk to you about stats. But right now we got to take a break. We'll be right back with Jason Lake on the Power Hour. 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. You've heard the story of ICARE 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 eye care 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 per patient, people problems, leadership, AI and technology, specialty growth ethics, 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
- [40:34]
A
growth as you are.
- [40:35]
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. I invite you to apply right now. And we're back on the Power Hour. I've got Jason Lake in the studio with me. So we've hit so many data points so far, but I think the way that I would summarize what we've talked about so far is that if we were sitting in some sort of building with red alarms flashing around us, we're kind of, because we're seeing patient demand heading to sources that are outside of the ECP's office. We're seeing a lower number of exams on that trend to continue into Q1. And we're seeing an increase in exam only. We're now starting to talk about other indicators that you are set up correctly or incorrectly in your office. And so Jason, you started with staff and you gave us a concrete number of four, which is hours for staff hours per refraction, which I think everybody can go calculate. And there's systems and tools that do that for you, but you can go figure that out. And then you said you also wanted to talk about product. So give me a little bit more on that topic.
- [42:08]
A
Yeah, I was pulling up some data and I let's talk frames and we kind of beat contact lenses up a little last time. And I'll say a couple sentences, then we'll leave it alone because it's been said but there is no more commoditized product than contact lenses. And that doesn't mean that the contacts aren't super great technology. It is the one that our patients know they can go online for the quickest. And if you are not spending the time to look at gross profit dollar and to look at how contact lenses stack up in particular, one of the things that I think is interesting about contact lens companies, I saw a study a few months back. There are contact lens companies of the big four. Some of them are much more over indexed and online than others. There are contact lenses that are absolutely more shopped online than other brands are. And figuring that out and some of it could be demographically driven. Like I know if you got a Costco across the street. I've heard a lot of people say that. I think Costco tends to, you know, do things based on what they're doing. I don't, I don't think it's quite that driven. But I do know that when you look at those companies and studies, I want to work with a contact lens company that is not over indexed online. And I think it's something that's important to look at. And I, I want to dive into, I can't name names because I want to dive into the research. I want to make sure it's valid, but it's looking pretty valid. So when you, your responsibility as a doctor on contact lenses is to make sure a, that you are competitively Priced B. Your patients are going online whether you want it or not. You can't just charge whatever you want in a vacuum. So you've got to look at that. So that's kind of my contact lens thing.
- [43:49]
B
On the contact lens thing though, can't you say in your office that, you know, by the way you can use your managed care benefit here in your office to get a significant. It's like can I at least educate the patient to give myself a chance? Because the second and this is like, you know, this is becoming way more commonplace is that. And I've heard this both in surveys. I've also heard this directly from, I've seen this in terms of patient behavior. But I'm literally imagining a world that happens in people's offices right now. And again I've heard this from some of our clients is a patient is sitting in the office and the doctor says I'm going to prescribe you the following brand, the following modality, whatever. I'm not going to say anything either. And the patient literally the second the doctor turns around, walks out, leaves the door or and even in the optical, you know, there's the nice patients who will like kind of do it in a hushed place. There are some patients who will, who literally do it in the optical in front of the optician which is how I've learned about it is that literally they say hey, AI research assistant, you know, Chad GPT or Gemini or whatever, how much is a box of blah blah, blah, you know, 30 day dailies, you know, whatever. And, and they literally, literally there's a, there's a whole thing. Right. And when you do, by the way, this is where I personally think we should invest some time in the, for, for the staff that are seeing those interactions. The thing is that the, the numbers that AI gives you will generally lie because there's a sponsored when, when you type that in do do the search yourself and you will see why it's a lie because they'll sponsor because the sponsored result in the Google Shopping results which pretty much four out of the five models, the four out of the five AI models reference right now is they'll look at the Google Shopping results and the sponsored shopping results will have a box but it'll have a box with the first time joining discounts of joining a particular online platform or whatever. So it's not going to be a real number. And also you can't use your managed care benefits there. So your optician should know that your optician should have the opportunity to at least Compete with that. And if they know that, if they understand that, if you got collateral in your office, that explains that you got a shot. Otherwise you don't have a shot. Especially if you're carrying those contact lenses, Jason, as you said, that are very, very commoditized online.
- [46:24]
A
So I'm sitting here looking. I pulled up the data while you were kind of talking and we did rally a little at the end of the year. But I'll give your listeners something that should give them cold sweats. 10, 15 years ago, we used to tell people that 80 ODs, private ODs, their exams, their fit rates, not other people's, their fit rates. They captured 80% of the first six months and 20 or 30% of the second six months based on exactly what you said, Eugene. They used their vision benefit plans, they leveraged them.
- [46:56]
B
Great.
- [46:57]
A
That number has now dropped into the mid-50s. And we saw double digit drops in contact lens sales in the Vision Council data. I think they're over wearing contacts. I think the problem, a little bit of the problem with the Vision Council data is it's not equivalent what that means for your listeners. If I'm wearing Dalish, total one, that's eight boxes and I move to a total 30, that's four boxes. So it looks like a 50% decline. It isn't. I just switch modalities because again I'm, I'm a bit budget conscious. So I will tell you, fits have trended down over the last two years from our data. Not tremendously, but maybe a couple percent. And I will tell because I think sometimes contact lenses are an extra. Your patients may look at it that way, but once we do the fit, we're barely, we're not hitting 60% of the capturing of any contact lenses. It ideally it's 60% of the, of the first six months. I don't know what we're doing on the second six. Like no one has that data. I know you're working on trying to figure out how to capture it for us, but I talk to people all the time. Well, I probably do 80 or 90% of my contacts. Like, oh, how are you tracking that? I'd love to see that. I've stood on a lot of stages like you, Eugene. I have yet to see anyone who can tell me this data other than. Yeah, well the staff's got a post it note up front and they're hand hashing it. And we both know that number tends to be very manipulatable at times, especially when bonuses are involved. Not suggestive that people are naughty. But I'm just telling you, I've seen it happen. So that's 50% of our problem. Let's talk about the other 50%. I have two marketing jokes for your, for your gropes.
- [48:35]
B
I mark marketing jokes.
- [48:37]
A
Marketing jokes to the marketer. First time we met, I told you one of them. I said only 50% of marketing works. The problem is nobody knows which half it is. And you actually found a way to track roi. So I can't tell that joke anymore. Although it was one of my favorites. But this was more of a statement that you market to the masses and you sell to the classes. And what that means for your listeners is number one, I'm seeing a very discouraging drop in marketing dollars. I saw a study commissioned one time that showed almost a 10 to 1 return on investment for marketing dollars up to 5% total spend. So if you made a million dollars, you could spend up to 50,000. It would get you significant ROI I think is what that's saying. But what I think is really interesting is that's one of the areas that are first cut. I don't think people market smart sometimes. I think part of marketing is reactivation. So I'm very passionate about that. I also think you don't, you know, nobody buys yellow pages anymore. It's Google AdWords being strategic. So let's, let's just think about that for a second. We, we are cutting back on marketing. But when I say we market to the masses, when that patient walks in, it's marketing inside your office. That's really what I'm talking about today. So I continue to read journal articles. Well, I only use independent brands or I only sell high and eyewear. And I think that's a really good model for somebody in a very specific demographic. But that's 5% of the 5%, Eugene. That's not the majority. The single greatest profitability opportunity in our dispensaries are our frames. And we don't do them right. You have to have A brands, B brands and C brands. And an A brand is a name brand. It's Oliver Peoples, it's Ray Ban, it's Oakley, it's Tom Ford. It's names that you recognize because they're great names. B brands are really great products. But maybe the brand doesn't resonate as much. But it's a really high quality Italian made frame, USA made frame. It's really good. And then there's C brands. They're discount frames. They are frames that are maybe selling. You have to have Something in your lineup that a patient can purchase by using their insurance and benefits. They have told you I do not want to spend more than $100 more than benefits. They're very clear about that. And yet most dispensaries I walk into have just a ton of 200, $250 frames. They don't have anything that the opticians can step down. I have yet to come across most offices that are really good or very good at stepping up.
- [51:16]
B
Eugene.
- [51:17]
A
Very few, the elite, the rose and eye cares of the world with that, that exam only number those folks are elite at stepping down. That ability to read that patient and go, hey, you on a budget? No shame, no problem. They're just not buying it from us anymore. That's a major. They're just walking out the door to go buy it online because they don't want to hassle with you over $100 framing lens compound. They're telling you, yeah, I'm not going to get anything. But let me see my prescription. I like to carry it in my wallet. That's my favorite. Like really? You're walking around with like just in case, like, all right, what they are telling you and it's not even a code word when they ask for that and you should be given the script anyway. It's the law. But when they specifically are pointing it out like you were going to give it to them anyway, when they specifically say that they're going online, they're not carrying it in their wallet. Maybe they are, maybe one is. And a lot of it is, is the expectation. When they walk into our office, we don't have the ability to step down. Sometimes a $150 frame and a package AR single vision lens, you can get them out the door for 170 to 200 bucks. That's just what the doctor ordered. People go, well, I don't like that margin. And I'm like, well maybe that margin percent is not as good. But I don't know about you, Eugene. I haven't bought a lot of stuff with percentage points lately. I buy a lot of stuff with dollars. And when you let that customer who really is a value minded customer, and there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with it. When you do that, you let them walk. Our customers are screaming at you, Eugene. Screaming, literally. You call them red flashing lights. I want value. And yet we don't put value in our dispensers. I'm not saying you don't have trays in the back. I'm not Saying that isn't where you start. You can still sell luxury, but there is a certain, I'd guess 15 to 20% of your patient base that wants a value product that you should sell them or they will just go purchase it online.
- [53:16]
B
So, two comments, and I'm going to ask you the pro. Let's go with the first question, and you kind of addressed it just now, but I want you to elaborate on it, please. So when I put a budget frame on my frame board, what happens? And this is, I'm giving you the contrarian view. What happens is that that's the one that patients gravitate to. And somebody who is going to spend 200 on frames is now spending $79 or, you know, $99 on. On a pair of frames. So, you know, you just cannibalized all my sales, Jason.
- [53:55]
A
Yeah, I did. Because, you know, we put these tiny tags on there, and I, you know, there's. I like to call these fun facts. In my 50s, I now care about the quality of my mattress. Things hurt more than they used to. And price tags on glasses are in, like, three font. Like, I couldn't see them if I didn't have my glasses. No one is looking at your price tags. You know what they're walking up to your board and do? Well, number one, they shouldn't be shopping by themselves anyway.
- [54:21]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [54:22]
A
Ought to have somebody with them curating the experience. But, you know, I'll give you 50 bucks if you can set 10 foot back from a frame board and tell which one's 79, which ones do they all look good? It's how they feel, and that's not what they're going to. So if you really think that that's a big problem, trim up and put them in the back and in. Teach your opticians to be enthusiastic. Go. Hey, you know, Dr. Schassman said you're on a budget. Hey, we have an awesome line. It's the Shatsman frames, or whatever you want to call them. You know, there's, you know, it's all this great, you know, for Modern or whatever company you want to say, we've got this great line. Let me, Let me go grab them for you. We really like this line that we'll get you a great product and in a very reasonable frame that's in well within your insurance, that should happen 10, 15% of the time. But they're going to, they're going to give you a very clear signal when you go get them the $500 frame. That is gorgeous. They're going to go. I love it. I, I, I want to stay within my benefits. And they're very clear with you. Go get them something like it.
- [55:27]
B
I like the, keep them in the back because it makes it feel special. Let me get something that's, yeah, kind of just, just for you.
- [55:34]
A
Don't bring them out in a broken plastic tray that looks like you ran over it in your car three times.
- [55:40]
B
Get it in a garbage bag. Here's some stuff.
- [55:42]
A
Somebody dumped some of these, this Walmart bag on the table and I see it, I'm like, okay, I understand you don't want them on your board. You could. I'd listen to the contrarian argument. I, I think it's nonsense because you're with them the whole time. No one runs across the board to go. That one looks 79 bucks. They don't do it. I think it's, hey, oh my goodness. We've got this second pair value system. It's $109 for single vision. And you're right, the margin's not as good. I don't care. Like it's, it's a sale, it's something you made. And maybe next time they can move up in a class. But I, I think there is way too much chatter among my brothers and sisters that are optometrists that if you don't sell the $700 independent frame line to every person that walks in again. I wish I had a practice like that. That sounds really cool. I've seen maybe five of them in my life. Eugene, I'm going to tell you an interesting factoid and I'm not going to use the, the, the owner of the clinic. I have a friend of mine that has a really unique business model. He does a high, a high, high level of state Medicaid. We call it Medicaid in Missouri. It's called something, you know, 10 care, whatever your, whatever wherever your state may be. That particular person also is one of the largest sellers of Gucci per door. And it goes to show you we prejudge what people value. They're, they're holding on to a thousand dollar cell phone. They will pay for something they see value in, but they will not pay for it. When you do not take the time to point that out or you do not show them that or sometimes they may not value a brand name on a, on a pair of glasses. Totally cool. We've got some options here that we can help you with. Not all people value the same things. I would go back to a flip phone if I could pull it off. I can't. I hate it. I'm just like everybody else. I'm glued to the darn thing. I just bought a phone the other day And I paid 8 or 900 bucks. And my wife, Dr. Susie Lake, said, why do you buy three model? You use it all day long. You buy three, three models back the, you know, the iPhone 12, not the 14. Like they all work the same to me. She just looks at me like I got a hole in my head. And the vat. The thing is that she actually uses her phone like that. I don't. I answer calls, I text. I do, you know, pictures, chat, GPT, of course, Super Google, as I like to call it, which is how most of our patients use it. But that's important. I would also never be caught dead in a pair of eyewear that didn't fit me comfortably. And so there's, there's value points for everybody. But when I said market to the masses, sell to the classes, you did all this work to get them in the door. You did the exam and you get them there and then you fumble the ball at the goal line because we're either too proud or just simply not there. There's a whole. I think our next one ought to be about static frame board because there's a whole other thing here about, you know, differentiation on your frame boards, about when you don't use static frame board. Your best sellers are only on the board 13 to 16 weeks a year. That's another reason they really walk. I know we don't have time today, maybe we'll schedule that one. But I know when you look at that data, and again, we'll give Jamie some credit, he's the one who tracked it all to begin with. But when those bestsellers aren't on there, they're. They're going to go somewhere else. It just is baffling to me that when I walk into an office and I see tons of empty slots on a frame board and poorly displayed, poorly lit, a minimal investment.
- [59:10]
B
Eugene.
- [59:10]
A
And a really a clever quarterly inventory with monitoring of your turn rates. Hey, maybe that's something we ought to talk about next time. Is a static frame board, how to monitor your inventory, what that looks like, how you get through that process, what are some resources that maybe we can help them with to get those things set up. But I'll give you an example that when you go to a static frame board and static frame boards, by their nature, by the way, have a couple things in common. Number one, they use best Sellers, they, they should be using scientific data. Our 25 best sellers are what we're going to say. Do you know why they're bestsellers? Because that's what the people want. And so when they're on your boards and they're there moving. When we put static frame boards and we saw a 10 jump in our capture rate for two reasons. One, we have bestsellers on the board. Number two, we have more bestsellers. We had things our customers and our patients wanted. And when you do that, things work. So you have to have A, B and C, I recommend you do a static frame board. And there are, we could totally knock 10 or 15 points off an exam only we can't control demand that's out there and that the consumer wants a value product. We can meet them where they are and bring in value products for those 15% of people that are going to walk. And we can make sure the best selling ones are on the board and we could sit literally two or three quick actions could, I bet we could take an exam only rate 10 or 15%. You, you have a, you have a. We won't use his name, but you have a great customer. What did he drop his exam only? How big did he drop his exam only rate?
- [60:41]
B
The one you went from 59 to 40 to 40 in a matter of four months by following a kind of a four step program.
- [60:51]
A
Yeah. And if, if you think about that for your listeners to say not everyone's going to do as well as this doctor did. But let's say that 20% if you had the average practice is 50% retail, 50% professional. So the average million dollar practice does 500,000 in retail. If you bump that up by 20%, that's, that's a hundred thousand dollars. Right. You know what's unique about that hundred thousand bucks, Eugene? Different than any other dollar you made in the first million.
- [61:17]
B
The margin, 60% profit, 65% profit.
- [61:21]
A
50. Yeah, let's just call it 50. So the average practice change your exam only 20%. Just like that customer of yours did. They just put $50,000 in their pocket. Like that's $4,000 a month. That's a lot. That's a college education. That's a fine European car. That's a down payment on a lot of stuff, Eugene. You can have a lot of fun and have money saved, saved onto the side. So I think the other, the other
- [61:49]
B
thing I would say Jason, because you, you talked about your market to the masses component is that the data is very favorable from a marketing standpoint. Right now, because I. It is on sale. It's. It's. It's on a better sale than it was a year ago and a better sale than it was a year and a half ago. What we're seeing is that cost per acquisition for regular general eye care search campaigns was $8.22 per acquisition across the country. Now, does that mean it's the same in New York City as it is in, you know, Los Angeles, California, as it is in Warrensburg, Missouri, where you are? No, that's different in different parts.
- [62:35]
A
But I'm just saying across the media hotbeds. So I understand that it could appear on this.
- [62:40]
B
Yes, I can tell that. Yeah. Warrensburg, Missouri, is actually the. I hear it's something like the Paris of the plains, but.
- [62:47]
A
Yeah, but no, I think. But if they're not strategically, I think sometimes when we get excited in these podcasts and your listeners are listening and they're like, oh, my gosh, I don't even know where to start. Start with reactivation. Goal one.
- [63:00]
B
100%. Yes, 100%. I totally agree.
- [63:04]
A
Get the butts in the chair. The Bic. Number two, make sure you have enough staff.
- [63:09]
B
If you got no number two, you got to answer the phone, which could be enough staff or just use. Or use AI to answer the phone. I don't care which one you do, but just answer. Make sure your reactivation is in order. Then answer the fricking phone when it rings. Whether it's with technology, whether it's with humans, it's the most basic thing. This is the bottom of the funnel. People want to do business with you. They literally can't. The 25%. This is still a very real stat. 25% of those calls during business hours go unanswered. Just answer the phone. I don't care if you do it with the machine. I don't care if you do it with a human. That. But if you. If you want to reverse the trend in your office or if you want to just make more money, answer the phone.
- [63:49]
A
And I think the third step. I don't even know. I mean, some of those, like, reactivation is a step. Answering the phone is just like. And make sure you breathe when you walk in. Like, it just seems like I shouldn't have.
- [64:00]
B
No, but we're not doing it 25% of the time.
- [64:02]
A
So, like, like, don't.
- [64:03]
B
Don't put on your shoes when you walk out the door to go to the office. I don't know.
- [64:08]
A
Have a goal to start looking at your data. If you're using the right data system. My favorite is up. You should have a way that you could look at all these things we're talking about every month, every week. And if you. I'm going to spend an hour a week or two, excuse me, two hours a month, being CEO of my own entity, king of my own kingdom or queen of my own kingdom. And you learn those basic things, you, just by looking at them, you would turn those numbers almost instantly because then you're going to learn what's normal. For me, sometimes people get so discouraged. Well, my capture rates, you know, 30%, not 45. And I'm like, that's awesome. Why? Because you got nowhere to go but up. Like, think about. I mean, that's like a layup. Like the worse the number is, the better it is because you're going to be winning awards at the next, you know, Cool kid Congress because you started doing better in your office. So I. The problem is, is we don't look at the data. And my final thought would be this. Dear ods, if you are not going to look at the data or answer the phone, which you're not, if you did, one thing would be create a champion in your office that you. Or hire someone that will look at the data. Anyone that is, can Google up, ChatGPT, Claude, whatever. All the information's there. You could do basic reporting and teach your staff one or two metrics. They'll track it for you. But you've got to start looking because I'm going to tell you the three monkeys we had to get a Eugene T shirt with three little monkeys with hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. You can't be that way or the alarm bells are flashing. Not to say I still think we're going to have a great 26. I'm still super bullish, but you're gonna have to go get it. It's not like it was. This isn't free money. 2022, 2023 people are coming in going, you know what I do want the fancy schmancy pair. The opportunity's there. It's going to be there for the people that I. Our customers are continuing to go out and get it and grow darn near double digits. I think the industry it. For those who do not choose to act, it's going to get harder and harder because just like we said that those optical sales, that magic a hundred thousand where it was 60% profit. What happens when your sales drop 50,000? Well, all of a sudden everything gets more expensive and you're losing money at the exact same clip going the other way. So I, I'm sounding the alarm for you Eugene. I'm going to get maybe get a get one of those dinger bell things like a fire alarm bell that will
- [66:43]
B
I'm going to see if our editor can just for this whole episode can put in like a little flashing red light for us and something like that.
- [66:51]
A
Thank you. Let me come on today buddy. I appreciate it.
- [66:53]
B
It's always fun. It's always good to talk numbers with you. Thank you so much for all your insights and I'm glad your members are doing so well and we'll post all the information for how people can get in touch with you in the show notes.
- [67:06]
A
Yeah and I if you do one thing folks reactivation learn your data. Next time we'll talk maybe static frame boards. That'll be fun. All right.
- [67:16]
B
Thanks Jason.
- [67:17]
A
Appreciate it. My man. Be good.