Podcast Ep. 125 – Implementing a Strategic Planning Week To Level Up Your Optometry Practice with Dr. Chad Fleming

[00:00:00] Evon: Hey everybody, welcome back to The Optometry Money Podcast. Where we’re helping ODs all over the country make better and better decisions around their money, their careers, and their practices. I am your host, Evon Mendrin, Certified Financial Planner(TM) practitioner, and owner of Optometry Wealth Advisors, an independent financial planning firm just for optometrists nationwide.

[00:00:26] And thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate your time. and your attention. And on today’s episode, I am excited to welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Chad Fleming, and we dive into how to implement a strategic planning week into your optometry practice.

[00:00:44] And we dive into what it really means to work on your practice versus work in it. we talk about how to create and implement something like a strategic planning week or chunk of days, to help you and to improve your practice. We talk about time of the year that it makes sense to do this. how to prepare and to build an agenda for that planning session, who should be involved.

[00:01:09] And then we talk about how to implement those ideas, those changes once you get back home as well as how to measure what’s working and where to make adjustments throughout the year.

[00:01:17] And this was a phenomenal episode. And I think the main gist, the takeaway here is how important it is to step away from the day to day stuff, the day to day activity in your practice, and to take some time to intentionally look at how to, to intentionally plan and think through how to improve everything that happens in your business.

[00:01:38] And If you have any questions, please reach out to us. you’ll find all of the links and resources and Dr. Fleming’s contact information in the show notes, which you can find in whatever app you’re using to listen to this, as well as at the Education Hub on my website, www.optometrywealth.Com.

[00:01:55] And while you’re there, check out all the other resources, content episodes we’ve put together, and if you’re thinking through some of these things, and you’re wondering what it looks like to work with a, an optometry specific financial planning firm, reach out, would love to have a No commitment, no pressure intro call with you.

[00:02:11] We can talk about what’s on your mind financially, and I can share how we help optometrists navigate those same things all over the country. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Chad Fleming.

[00:02:24] Welcome back to the Optometry Money Podcast. I’m your host, Evon Mendrin, and I am excited to welcome back to the podcast once again, Dr. Chad Fleming. Chad, thank you so much for coming back on.

[00:02:37] Chad: Thanks, Evon. It’s good to have, good to be here and good to, communicate again and just visit about optometry and business. Thanks

[00:02:45] Evon: oh, it’s good to have you. There’s always a mic available here on the podcast for you. I want to dive into something that’s come up in our conversations, and that is this idea of a strategic week. in the practice and, why that’s important for developing leadership, for scaling up the practice. And I want to dive into what that is, what that means, how you’ve carried that out, maybe in your own business.

[00:03:10] But for those listeners who maybe don’t know you or haven’t listened to our past episodes, which listener you should, all the links to those will be in the show notes.

[00:03:19] Just describe your business. What, what does your practice, your business look like right now? And how has it changed over time?

[00:03:27] Chad: our business is the result of about three to four years of scaling up, buying practices, going from a one location, three doctor practice to a five location, nine doctor practice throughout the city of Wichita, and a surrounding, small town. And so it has, been a scaling up of chaos of risk of reassessment of finding the right people to put on the. In the bust and then getting the waters calm and establishing a firm base, allowing those to grow to change into the structure that they need to be for us to successfully continue to grow. So that’s what’s been going on for the last probably four to five years. Now we’re at a place where leadership and organizational structure is key to be able to scale to the next level should we choose to go that direction.

[00:04:24] Evon: And so it sounds like over several years you’ve put in the work to, to bring together these multiple locations and people and now developing leadership and really make this scale. And I, in a recent conversation I had with, Erich Mattei of Akrinos we talked about the difference between scale and growth.

[00:04:43] And I think a lot of times we sort of interchange those two, but there are differences. In your mind when you think about scaling the practice, what does that mean to you to scale?

[00:04:52] Chad: To scale means to enlarge in size and footprint in, top end revenues. growth in my mind is more a, non tangible because you can grow in how you’re developing people. You can grow in how you are. It’s just like a, it’s very simple, but how a plant grows from a infant to a mature tree or how a kid grows.

[00:05:19] We all go through the maturing process, so you don’t necessarily have to be big to grow. I think scaling up, people think of one location to three locations to five to ten. That to me would be more scaling up. Growth is a Defined measure of getting better in different areas of the practice and of yourself.

[00:05:42] Differences Between Working “On” vs. “In” Your Practice

[00:05:42] Evon: interesting. And we often hear this phrase, work on the business, not in it. And, you know, we, I think we say that a lot. Sometimes I know I’ve done it where it’s like the smart thing to say, yeah, you know, you need to work on your business, not in it without really adding some context to what that even means.

[00:06:01] So when you hear that phrase, when you think about working on your business, versus in it, what does that even mean for an optometry practice owner? What are the differences between the two? What are some of the actions that are working on versus in what, what does that mean?

[00:06:16] Chad: Well, very easy to say that working on the business most likely means you are outside of the business. when I’m in the business, I am gathering, information. I’m gathering pieces that might be broken. I’m gathering the way our systems and processes are working. And then I get away from the business to really, Drill down on. How to, how to better systematize things, how to be more profitable. What, what are our areas of profitability? What are our areas of, negative profit growths? That’s, you know, what are we doing good? So I think a lot of times we make the mistake of working on the practice is you’re still in it. And most people will be a servant to the tyranny of the urgent when they’re in the practice. And they don’t, it doesn’t give them the opportunity to work on the practice. And I think that’s one of the biggest.mistakes or deceptions that we have in thinking we can work on the business and we’re right there in the midst of it churning in it on a daily basis.

[00:07:22] Evon: So working in it, you are in patient care, maybe in administrative tasks, you are a part of the processes that make your business work. You’re a part of the machine and so working on it is stepping outside of that so that you can look at how things are running, you can look at the financials. And, and work on ways to improve all those different parts of the business, how things are, how things are actually working without being on the inside of it.

[00:07:48] It’s, you know, the tyranny of the urgent. Is that just, you’re constantly reacting to things as they’re coming up? Is that, is that what that is?

[00:07:57] Chad: That’s the tyranny of the urgent.

[00:07:58] It’s just that takes priority over anything else. And I think most, most of us will take care of the problem right in front of us versus taking care of a priority problem, which isn’t right in front of us,

[00:08:12] because we don’t know how to get out of the problem because it usually involves other people. And so it comes across as being rude, and so we don’t know how to kindly excuse ourselves that says, hey, I appreciate that we’re having issues in this area, I will make a note of it, I will put down the details of it, and I will address it, at a later time, but I’ve got to get to our top priorities, for the whole. I think a lot of times we sacrifice the whole for the one. And that’s where we get involved in the day to day activities too much.

[00:08:47] Evon: I,

[00:08:47] And you got to have the right people. busy, but, it’s not those big stepping out of the business actions that really drive things forward and that we can kind of fool ourselves sometimes by, by feeling like we’re productive, feeling like we’re busy.

[00:08:59] but not really tackling the most important things that need to get done.

[00:09:03] Chad: Very true. I think that, are you, when people say they’re busy, I always think to myself, are you busy doing the right things?

[00:09:10] because I think a lot of times we, we do get busy doing the wrong things. and it doesn’t fall in line with our own personal goals and our personal values, and it doesn’t fall in love, in love. It doesn’t fall in line with our, business values either in the direction that we’re, you know, the end point that we’re trying to get to.

[00:09:28] Evon: Yeah. It doesn’t fall in love with the business values either. That’s

[00:09:30] Chad: Nah, it doesn’t fall in love.

[00:09:33] The Long-Term Impact on Your Practice of Not Setting Aside Strategic Time

[00:09:33] Evon: so when, when you’re not spending with, when a practice owner is not spending time to step back, look at overall how the business is running, how the processes are working, how the financials are working, like intentionally taking time to do that.

[00:09:48] What are some of the mistakes that come from that? What, what happens long term to the business or to the owner when they’re not able to step back intentionally and, and look at the business in that way?

[00:10:00] Chad: The business starts getting off course, and it’s the very simple analogy that, one degree of a ship. Over the course of, you know, multiple weeks, months, years is going to lead a ship way off a course, and it’s only one degree at a time. And so I think that’s what happens as you get this slow fade away from where you’re trying to end up and you’re trying to end up in a space that your business is, is not a hobby.

[00:10:30] It’s actually a very lucrative, profitable business because it’s a for profit business. And so there’s, many doctors, the way they pay themselves, look at what they take home and think, wow, I’m doing good, but they’re doing good as a doctor in the clinic and the actual profits they’re making are, are not worth the time or investment that they’re putting in because if they’re not making profits of north of eight to 9%, then they might as well take their money, sell their practice, and put it in a, a gift to their investment advisor because they’re not getting the benefits of owning a business.

[00:11:09] They’re getting all the headaches, but they’re not getting the, the benefits of it

[00:11:13] Evon: In other words, they have a really well paying job that happens to have more stress than most other optometry positions out there. And that’s such a good point. And there are sort of these. I mean, the way a lot of these benchmark measures are taken in terms of what practice owners take home, this, this figure of practice net or whatever it may be, you know, a lot of times it doesn’t account for the appropriate compensation of the optometrist.

[00:11:41] And if you’re not accounting for that, especially if you are in certain practices that are taxed as sole proprietors, that are taxed as partnerships, you literally aren’t paying yourself a wage. For partnerships, there might be guaranteed payments, things like that, but you’re literally not paying yourself a wage.

[00:11:58] So if you’re not accounting for the fact that, okay, there is a doctor that needs to work in the business, there is a cost to that, whether it’s you as the owner, whether it’s another doctor that you hire in, that’s a true cost to the practice. And then if you’re not accounting for that properly, you are potentially dramatically overstating the profit of the business.

[00:12:19] Meaning what are you as the owner? actually returning for the ownership of that business if you were not the associate doctor or if you were not the doctor seeing patients. And it can, it can overstate the pay that you’re paying yourself where you could just be earning the same amount in another optometry position.

[00:12:39] with a lot less responsibility and stress and headaches. So, you know, do you have a well paying job or do you have a business that is actually providing a return on the equity? I think it’s a great question to look at. And sometimes you have to sort of ignore a lot of those benchmarks and to really look at your own business and account for that properly.

[00:12:57] Because business to business, I mean, there’s such a wide range of what practice owners will pay themselves, a lot of it for tax purposes, right? So it’s, it’s not always going to be apples to apples when you’re comparing your practice to, to all the others.

[00:13:11] how do you, outside of this like strategic week, how do you, how have you over the years arranged your time so that you’re making sure that you’re, You’re scheduling time in your weeks or your months to step back and to look at the overall business and improving it rather than just working in the day to day.

[00:13:30] Chad: I would say that I have, improved in that significantly in the last couple of years. I was getting very frustrated, in leading the company in regards to, What we were doing in a year, what we were choosing to put emphasis on, what we were choosing not to put emphasis on, really defining what I was doing.

[00:13:50] I felt like I was putting more fires out or I was just being busy to make myself feel good. Because I needed, you know, I needed to be doing something. So if you have somebody who’s like myself that likes to build things, if you get bored, what do you do? You break them. You break them so you can build them again. And it’s just this cycle that is great for me because I like to build, but it was not good for my team because I was really throwing them off course every time I wanted to break something and build it back up. So I said, this has got to improve. So, one of the things I decided to do through, reading, if you look at what, what are the top three things a CEO should do, or Harvard Business Review wrote a, a number of articles about leadership and about leading a company, and it talked about, they interviewed hundreds of CEOs to figure out what they spent their time on, And walking through some of those,articles, I realized that 25 percent of a CEO’s job is to sit away from the business and really sit and process and problem solve away from the day in and day out grind of meetings and running the company.

[00:15:08] So I said, you know, I’m going to take a week. Away where I leave, the city, I, I go to a place, a Airbnb and just have a plan to map out the whole next year. And I sit and map out the whole next year in October, so I can go back to our board, which is made up of our, owners and go back to them and get approval for the next year.

[00:15:31] These are the things that I want to carry through as our CEO.and so did that the first year, and I had to hate to say this, but my other owners are like, we ain’t paying you to go sit in a, a cabin for a week and just stare at the wall. And so I said, I, I tell you what, I’ll pay for it myself and I’m just telling you what I’m doing. And so I said, all right. They kind of chuckled and so went away and ran this process for one year, came back, got approval, had mapped out, on a, basically on a, what do you call those, charts? It’s like a Gantt chart. It really wasn’t a Gantt chart, but it was like, had mapped out of all the timelines of what we were doing, when we were making the changes. And they loved it. And we gave the managers this. And so the managers were excited. To me, it was boring because I just now had the next year mapped out and it’s like, what am I going to do? Just twiddle my fingers now and just kind of watch the wheels turn. But it ended up being extremely impactful, extremely successful, and we had a really good year.

[00:16:36] Less staff turnover. There wasn’t as much chaos going on. We had a plan, so people were more comfortable. Most people like to be in a very comfortable setting, so they don’t like a lot of change, and so I mapped that out, and then the owners about August of the next year said, hey, you’re going on that strategic planning meeting again, and I said, so you want me to go park in a cabin for a week and just do that? Stare at the wall and they’re like, absolutely. And so that began that process ’cause they saw the value in what I brought back to the table in doing that. And so now it is a line item for us. It’s extremely important that we send me. to do that. And that’s away from a conference. I don’t, I literally do not go to an optometry conference, do not go to a business conference, nothing.

[00:17:24] I sit there with a mapped out plan of what I’m going to do. And you might say, well, what do you do for like three or four days? And good resources to read. So I read a lot of business books. I read a lot of Harvard Business Review articles. I look at what others are doing inside the company, outside the company, and then I, just work through different scenarios of answering questions and answering problems that we have, and then come back and some of that’s doctor compensation, some of it’s the way we’re paying staff, some of it is the way we are generating new patients, and And the technologies we’re using, so I’ll review different technologies we’re using.

[00:18:09] Is our EMR the best that we should be utilizing for this next year? On and on. So, I’ll pause with that and see if there’s any direction

[00:18:19] Evon: Yeah, so this

[00:18:20] Chad: overwhelm our

[00:18:21] Evon: of that strategic

[00:18:22] How to Implement a Strategic Planning Week for Your Practice

[00:18:22] Evon: This is the genesis of that strategic week for you is, is realizing that you need more time to step away and to think about what’s going on in your business and where to see improvements. And, it can be a cabin in the woods. It can be somewhere at the beach.

[00:18:36] It, it sounds like it just needs to be away from the daily workspace. Is that right?

[00:18:42] Chad: It needs to be away from the daily workspace and it needs to be away from the pull of the family, pull of the other things that get you, you need to go to a place you’re going to be bored because if you don’t, you will find every reason in the book, to not to get distracted. So, last year you might say, well, that that’s a really good excuse to get away.

[00:19:06] And then there’s other things of, well, what are you going to do with your time? I actually, this last strategic meeting, asked a, one of my best friends who runs a very large church in Kentucky. And I told him of the idea and he’s done a number of these, on his own prior to me doing them. And so we actually met together. and we, you know, we had a little conversation in the evenings, but most of the time was filled with just, you know, we were accountable to each other that, you know, we were honoring with our time and we were doing what we said we were going to do. And it turned out to be a really good week for both of us.

[00:19:45] Time of Year to Hold a Strategic Planning Week

[00:19:45] Evon: And it sounds like you do it in October. Is there a particular time? Specific time of year that matters sometimes towards the end of the year, or is it just what’s best for the business to give yourself time to implement? What, does the timing matter?

[00:20:00] Chad: Timing matters. absolutely. So our, business calendar, our fiscal year ends at the end of the year. And so it’s like, you’re kicking off a new fiscal year. Not a new vision, but I always feel like the beginning of the year is kind of a kickoff of what we’re going to be focusing on this year, what we’re going to be looking at, how I’m going to be leading, what are the things that are going to be instrumental to our, growth and our patient care for the year, and so October allows me to come back and start introducing it. So that I can assess the pushback I’m going to get, assess those who are going to buy into what we’re doing, and get everyone on board, because I, that way, January 1st hits, we hit, I hit the ground running with things that are going to, we’re going to move forward with.

[00:20:47] Evon: Work out all the kinks and make sure it’s running well in January. I think a lot of us sort of wait till December, maybe just before the holidays to get that end of year planning in. So that, that makes sense. Get that thinking a little bit earlier in the fourth quarter. Give yourself time to introduce it, work out some of the kinks or maybe good ideas versus bad ideas and then hit, hit January, hit the ground running.

[00:21:11] Who Should Be Involved in a Strategic Planning Week?

[00:21:11] Evon: And who should be involved in this?

[00:21:13] If we’re thinking about different practices, different sizes of practices, listening, who should be involved in these, these types of strategic weeks?

[00:21:23] Chad: Strategic Weeks is really your, who’s leading your, practice. So, Very seldom do you have, multiple captains because multiple captains is going to sink a ship. So I would say already, if you’ve got multiple captains, then you’re most likely going to be locked and you’re not going to be able to go anywhere because you just, you can’t, you got to have a quarterback on the field that has to be established first, who’s going to be the leader.

[00:21:49] And that’s not the tyrant. That’s not the monarchy. That is the person who’s going to lead with the other leaders. What, what does the group want as a whole? And then they’re the ones who are going to carry that out. So that must be established first. And then after that, that’s the responsibility of a lot of these, a lot of these, you know, private equity, bigger companies call it a practice director versus a CEO.

[00:22:16] You can, it’s basically who’s going to lead. the practice as a whole. So that has to be established because there’s young doctors who are anxious to do this and they’re like, Hey, I hear you. This is great. We need to prepare for the future and we need to have good systems in place, but they’re ultimately not the ones who are making the decision.

[00:22:37] They don’t have 100 percent support.

[00:22:38] Evon: Gotcha. Okay.

[00:22:40] very often it sounds like it would be the majority owner if there’s multiple owners in the practice, at least for a single doctor practice.

[00:22:47] Hey optometrist, it’s you.

[00:22:49] Okay. It’s,

[00:22:50] it’s pretty easy there. I’m fortunate to work with some husband and wife teams that, that own and run practices together.

[00:22:56] Okay. That makes it a lot easier too. Although, please draw the line between vacation time and, intentional strategic time in that getaway.

[00:23:05] How Practice Owners Can Prepare for a Strategic Planning Week

[00:23:05] Evon: it sounds like there is a specific list of topics or things that you’d like to address during the week. Do you come into it with an agenda? or very specific things that you’ve thought about throughout the year that now you’re going to take time to address it.

[00:23:19] How do you approach it? What do you gather to make sure that this is a really productive use of your time?

[00:23:27] Chad: Oh, I have a, page in my notion that I dump everything into. And so throughout the year, I’m just dumping in, hey, this, this is broken. This is going to need changed. I see a vision of this staff person is most likely going to retire in the next year or two. I need to have a transition plan. Hey, we’re paying this person too much. How are we going to solve that? Or we’re not paying these people enough. We have way too much turnover. I mean, it, it evolves throughout the year of me just dumping stuff in.

[00:23:59] Hey, our vision therapy part of our practice is not profitable. I continue to hear that, you know, we’re not running a good system there, or patients aren’t paying, or we’re taking off too many write offs. I just dump it. It’s just collection bin, in, on that page, and then I go back prior to the time I get away, just make sure I’ve covered everything and see if there’s anything that’s left over, and then when I get away, I organize all of that and prioritize of, you know, what what needs to be addressed? And so usually when I’m looking at what’s in that list, that’s also helping me to define what resources, books, journal articles, those types of things I want to collect and review, podcasts, great leaders, what are, how are they solving those problems, those types of things. So I might look for them. 5 to 10 podcasts on my drive.

[00:24:56] I make it so I can drive to and from the place I go to, and then that way I can listen and digest, different ideas. So I might collect and throw in there and just have a list of podcasts I’m going to burn through. We’re

[00:25:08] Evon: Gotcha. So throughout the year, you are aware of what’s going on in the practice. You’re just dumping ideas, questions, difficulties, challenges, whatever it is, into your, your list. There could be Notion, could be a Google doc, whatever that is.

[00:25:21] And then, you’re organizing that, getting that ready for, for this getaway.

[00:25:25] And then you’re preparing articles, books, whatever resources you need to sort of tackle these, this list. You’re, you’re bringing that with you.

[00:25:33] Examples of Big Challenges Solves with a Strategic Week

[00:25:33] Evon: And, what are some of the, I mean, what are some examples of big questions that you’ve solved that you felt like have made a big, a big difference in your business?

[00:25:42] Like what, what are some examples of things you’ve worked through on some of these, some of these getaways?

[00:25:47] Chad: That’s a great, that’s a great question because it’s very practical. Having a plan when you have a senior doctor that’s going to be retiring, having that mapped out, what that looks like. Doctors who are looking to retire are scared. They’ve never been in this place before. They don’t understand what it’s going to look like.

[00:26:08] They’ll say, hey, yeah, I’ll retire at the end of this year. And then about a year, about, 3 months ahead of that. It’s like, Hey, I think I changed my mind. I’d like to retire a little bit later. Getting all of that kind of mapped out, is good. Moving, if you’ve got, especially if your business is growing, you’re going to need to raise leadership.

[00:26:29] And so we, I’m a firm believer in raising within. So, we’re usually have somebody in leadership training all the time who’s going to be our next leaders to fill in positions. Those transitions can be difficult and they can be culture breaking if you don’t address them

[00:26:46] properly. So, that will be addressed. how we’re compensating our doctors, right now. We probably pay our doctors too much, and that sounds funny, but if you look at the bell shaped curve, I’ve been in some meetings with networks of other doctors who own practices and have associates, and we’re on the side of the bell shaped curve. We need to adapt. with that, so I had to come up with a whole compensation model. So we look at how we’re compensated. I changed how our, our, upper end, leadership was compensated and changed a little bit, how our opticians were compensated to help drive more sales in the optical. All of that planning was lined up at the strategic meetings and so, or strategic planning time.

[00:27:35] Evon: These

[00:27:35] Chad: Is that answer, was that specific enough

[00:27:37] to, for the

[00:27:38] Evon: these are, these are big questions to tackle, right? And if you’re not giving yourself the time to think through these and to plan around them, I mean, these are big business altering decisions that you need to think through.

[00:27:51] How to Implement Ideas Into Your Optometry Practice

[00:27:51] Evon: And you talk about going through this planning week or planning time, and then at the end of the year, it gives you some time to introduce them, go through them, work, work them out a little bit.

[00:28:04] And then January you’re hitting the ground running. Okay. So you, you’ve gone through that, right? So the, the listener has planned out that week, they’ve gotten their list of things they want to go through. They brought the resources, they’ve planned it out through the week. It’s been really productive. Then they go home.

[00:28:21] Okay. How do you make sure that you, you know, what steps do you take or what do you do to make sure that you are implementing the things that you’ve planned? That you’re not just going home and then it’s just life as usual. Like you’re, you’re actually taking the time to implement and introduce those things.

[00:28:38] Chad: Bye bye. It depends on, you’ve got to know yourself. If you are a disciplined person that is good at execution, then you know you’re going to take it back and you’re going to do it. If that’s an area where you. You’re really good at planning, but not executing on anything. You need to be self aware and say, I better hire a consultant.

[00:28:58] I better hire an accountability person. I better have somebody in the organization who will not let me be passive about this. Because I can tell you, it’s very easy to be passive about it because it, It’s more work to have to make change, so you’ve got to want the desired outcome more than you, avoid the pain of the current moment. And so you’ve got to have people in place to hold you accountable, unless you’re just, you’re that 3 percent that, you know, is highly, highly self motivated and is great at execution and will execute until it’s, it’s the problem solved.

[00:29:39] Evon: Got it. Knowing yourself, that accountability for a lot of things is, is critical, right? And you mentioned at times, you had an accountability partner during the week to make sure that you are being productive during the week.

[00:29:51] Very often in the business, sometimes you’ll hear it called, if you’re using, EOS or, or Rocket Fuel, you’ll, you’ll hear it called an implementer or an integrator, right?

[00:30:00] You’ll, that’s someone in your practice, that really executes on things

[00:30:05] that is sort of the, the gatekeeper towards bad ideas, that person that really puts things into action. And, that accountability sounds like it’s a big part of that. And, you know, you might get this sort of thought that, I can’t step away from the practice for that long.

[00:30:23] Or I just can’t take time away from seeing patients. I can’t afford to. I think patients will be upset not being able to schedule in that week. What do you say to that, that sort of hesitation around taking that much time? I mean, we’re, we’re talking about a week or even if it’s shorter, to dedicating that time to stepping away and doing that, that type of work.

[00:30:45] Chad: that’s a great question. Because, I think that’s real. I think that where I’m at right now, is allowed because of the size of our practice and because of the The, the way our practice does run and it is profitable. I would say you start with a day and then let it expand from there. but I don’t, it’s hard for me to say that that that time’s not worth it. That’s like saying that I’m going to go be a professional athlete, but I’m not going to take the time to do game film because that’s not pumping out widgets to make me stronger, faster on the field. We’re not working on catching passes. We’re just studying. To say that, I think there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen. So, it’s, you’ve got to be tired of where you’re at, and you’ve got to see the light at the end of the tunnel that you’re probably going to burn out. if you just hit the ground and see and let the patients run your schedule, don’t let your patients run your business. If you’re worried about, well, I won’t be able to see the patients.

[00:31:55] They’re going to be frustrated. They’re going to be upset. I can tell you, I’ve done more than enough things to upset patients and yes, they’re going to be temporarily inconvenienced. But they’re going to be much happier when they have a successful practice that’s been growing, that can take care of them, that many doctors can add associates. they just don’t, they don’t take the risk of the investment of adding a one day associate or two day associate. And maybe that’s the first step is, you know, get somebody to come in and, and see patients for a day. It’s hard though. I talked to doctors that, you know, saying it’s one thing, pulling the triggers another, because

[00:32:33] it’s like, it’s an investment and people, people don’t like change.

[00:32:40] But I say, you, I say you can’t help you. You can’t not work on the business.

[00:32:46] Evon: I would agree. And, and it’s interesting, we think of the investment as dollars spent, like you’re going to take dollars you’ve, you’ve, you’ve received and, and buy something or spend it on something. That lost potential revenue for you not being in the practice those few days, that’s an investment, right? And it’s a necessary part of, of growing and moving the business forward.

[00:33:07] And

[00:33:07] I wonder if a lot of the things that,

[00:33:09] that make us feel like we are, are overworked or burned out, or that we’re so busy, we can’t leave the practice. I wonder if a lot of those issues that, that put us in that position can be solved by taking time away and being able to improve. If we’re feeling like we don’t have time because we’re so busy seeing patients, well,maybe there are scheduling issues. Maybe there’s flow issues from patient walking in through pre testing to seeing you, or maybe there’s hires or delegation that needs to be done to make sure that you as a doctor or owner are being able to do the most important things in your schedule. So I wonder if a lot of those things that make us feel that way can actually be solved by by stepping away and looking at how the business is running and looking at ways to improve it.

[00:33:56] Does that thought feel like it’s, it’s a possibility?

[00:33:59] Chad: Well, my thought went to what is a couple percentage improvement equal out? so say you can’t, say you work on your business and you improve by 2 percent on your profits, Which I think is very easy to do, especially if you haven’t scrutinized your business on a, a yearly basis and you improve by 2%, what is that, $20,000 for every million that the practice is doing, and so it more than pays for itself. And so now, instead of having to generate more and more patients, you’re just keeping more of the dollar that’s coming in. and so that’s, that’s what you gotta do.

[00:34:37] I don’t, I don’t see there’s another way around it because I’ve seen a, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot as you have P&Ls of practices and there people are working really, really hard to keep, you know, 10 cents on the dollar when they should be keeping, you know, 18 cents on the dollar, 19 cents on the dollar.

[00:35:00] How to Measure What Changes are Working or Need to Be Improved

[00:35:00] Evon: Yeah. After that end of year planning session is done, January comes. What do you do throughout the rest of the year to make sure that you are reviewing all of this stuff you’ve implemented, all of these ideas and changes you you’re working on and checking and seeing if they’re working or if they need to be improved.

[00:35:20] What, what’s happening month to month from there on out, to make sure that things are working and moving along.

[00:35:26] Chad: Well, you’ve got to measure. What your changes are. So if you’re going to change things in the optical, and you’re going to start paying incentives to your staff, and you’re going to have to prove that there’s you take the people who are doing your finances, and you’re going to say, hey, this is what we’re I’m making some significant changes that’s going to potentially increase the compensation of my opticians. I need to know, is the optical growing? Is my cost of goods going up, going down? And usually you can measure that, that it, well, you should be able to measure that. It’s not going to happen overnight, but that’s what your measurables are going to be. I mean, I can measure specifically when we went to incentives. Sales grew 25 percent year over year from when that day that we started in doing, doing the incentives program. And so that was a very valuable, decision that we are continuing to move forward with. So you’ve got to have the measurables. Right now, I’m in the middle of spending a ton of time revamping our Vision Therapy Department, and there, I’ve got measurables as far as capture rate, as far as signups, as far as money in the bank versus money written off, that we’re looking at those numbers, and that’s going to be my, you know, win or loss of the efforts that I put into that, because that’s one of our big items that we’re addressing for 2025,

[00:36:58] and I’m responsible for carrying that out.

[00:37:00] Evon: knowing what you’re working on and what measurables are important to that thing essentially, and then just having accurate data to be able to watch that as, as the year unfolds. I think this has been great. I think the, the, the idea that we need to step away from this, the day to day work and just take time to think

[00:37:21] and okay, say, okay, what’s, what’s working, what’s not, take ourselves out of the processes and say, okay, what’s working, what can be improved?

[00:37:28] How can we improve it?

[00:37:30] I think that thinking time is so important. I even think on a daily basis, I mean, we do so much. We fall into that trap of like consuming stuff constantly. I mean, consuming content. every part of our day and just not taking time to think. And, I’ve, I’m in that trap all the time.

[00:37:47] And I just on a daily basis, just taking that time to step away and just think. How are things working? How can they be improved? I think it’s so important, but taking that time, certainly as you’ve been talking about, to intentionally dedicate it to thinking and improving the business, it seems so important.

[00:38:02] And what are some just final thoughts you’d like to leave with, with the audience in terms of either planning out this strategic planning week or just intentionally taking time out of their lives on a daily basis or weekly basis to, to improving the business?

[00:38:17] Chad: There’s a number of different things that That I would want to repeat and want to say, and I think it sounds simple, but it comes back to, what are the, what are your core values? Where, where are you headed? you’ve got to know the destination that you’re wanting to end up in personally. to be able to implement professionally and be motivated to meet those professional goals and then have professional destinations and then you can map out how I’m going to get there and then head in that direction.

[00:38:53] So I think it’s a matter of you being intentional yourself of Knowing what you want, and I think a lot of times, you said something that was beautiful. We’ve got so much noise with all the content we consume, with all the things that we look at, with all the things we try and keep up with, that we’ve lost focus. And I think that the biggest thing to take home from today is, don’t lose your focus, figure out what your focus is, and then be intentional about, heading in that direction. And I think that the margin in your life will increase, your relationships with the people around you will improve, and you’re, you will all around, be a more fulfilled, individual.

[00:39:35] And I think that’s what we ultimately all would like to have is enjoying the journey. You got to enjoy the journey,

[00:39:42] or else you end up in the destination and you’re just completely burnt out. And there’s a lot of people that are on the verge of burnout right now.

[00:39:49] The Final Question – What Are You Most Excited About for the Future of Optometry?

[00:39:49] Evon: Yeah. I love that takeaway. I appreciate those thoughts. when one final question, as we just wrap up, the whole conversation is that when you think about the future of optometry in the context of this conversation, private practice optometry, what are you most excited about?

[00:40:06] Chad: Wow, long pause for,

[00:40:09] dramatic effect.

[00:40:11] Evon: right.

[00:40:13] Chad: What am I most excited about? Man! Evon, I think you stumped me.

[00:40:20] Evon: Good. It worked. Now. the listeners probably realized every podcast by law has to now include this deep, deep final question. So we

[00:40:30] got him.

[00:40:30] Chad: think that was good. Thank you for the time. I think the thing that’s come into me, and I was trying to say it in a way that didn’t sound like I was completely oblivious to how we are at this point, but I think that with pain, with difficulties with an industry that, you know, there’s a lot of different areas that we look like, hey, things aren’t going well. It’s just your mindset. There’s a lot of opportunities out there. So when I see things of what a difficult, healthcare environment, I say, Hey, there’s a lot of opportunities. I just need to figure out what those opportunities are. And so, yeah, those are probably things I’m most excited about the future is that with a lot of pain points, which I’m seeing, there’s a lot of opportunities and, and solving those problems is, is what excites me.

[00:41:25] Evon: I appreciate that. Yeah, there, there are a lot of negative opinions about the future of eye care particularly private practice. So I appreciate your thoughts on the opportunity moving forward with, with optometry and the exciting opportunities you see there. So, Appreciate your time, Dr. Fleming. Appreciate all of your thoughts in this conversation.

[00:41:46] I’m certainly taking a lot away from it, and I think the listeners are as well. How can people find and follow and learn more about what you’re doing?

[00:41:53] Chad: just email me, chad@pipgpo.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, I’ve got a number of things that I put up on there. but yeah, you’re welcome to contact me and, we can talk.

[00:42:06] Evon: Perfect. I will throw your contact information and links to our prior episodes in the show notes, and for the listener, really appreciate your time and attention, and we will catch you on the next episode. In the meantime, take care.

[00:42:19]