Podcast Ep. 127: Scaling an Optometry Practice and Embracing Family Entrepreneurship with Tony and Kim Turin

[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.

[00:00:27] And thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate your time. On today’s episode, I am so excited to have onto the podcast, Dr. Tony Turin and his wife, Kim, in and we talk all about how this phenomenal husband and wife team, so intentionally cold started their first optometry practice, eventually growing from one location to three and all the different lessons they learned through that process.

[00:00:51] We talk about how they try to maintain culture and consistent patient experience across the different locations, what metrics they’re watching to make sure that their practice locations are financially healthy, and how they maintain a careful but important balance between business and family, even including a separate short term real estate business, as well as other franchises with their kids and so much more.

[00:01:16] This was a super fun conversation. I’ll put all of their contact information and resources and links in the show notes, which you can find at the Education Hub at my website, www.optometrywealth.com.

[00:01:30] And while you’re there, feel free to check out all the other articles, resources, episodes we’ve done and if you’re curious to know what it’s like to work with an optometry focused financial planner, you can schedule a no commitment, no pressure introductory call and we can talk about what’s on your mind financially and how we help optometrists all over the country. solve those same questions and more.

[00:01:53] And lastly, if you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts, always enjoy seeing that feedback on what you’ve enjoyed about the podcast and where we can improve it to make it a better resource for you without further ado.

[00:02:08] Here is my conversation with Tony and Kim Turin.

[00:02:13] Start of the Interview

[00:02:18] Evon: Welcome back to The Optometry Money Podcast. I am your host, Evon Mendrin, and I’m excited to have onto the podcast, Dr. Tony Turin and his wife, Kim Turin. Thank you so much for coming on.

[00:02:29] Tony: Oh, yeah. It’s an honor. We’re excited to be here.

[00:02:32] Evon: I am, this is the first time I’ve been able to have both husband and wife on together, both involved in the business, both involved in family life. So, this is a new format. Hopefully it goes well. Hopefully this isn’t the last time, but, I appreciate both your time. This is fantastic. And I want to learn today, and I, hopefully the listeners will learn today about both of your experience.

[00:02:55] growing your optometry practice and from one location to multiple and how your different roles have changed and, all of the different lessons you’ve learned along the way. I think your story is very interesting and I think there’s a lot to take away from. So I, I’m excited to dive in with both of you and, before we get started or as we get started, give us a little bit of a background, tell us about yourselves, your family and how you both got into eye care optometry and, and into ownership.

[00:03:22] Tony: Yeah, I guess I’ll go first. I mean,

[00:03:25] I’m Tony.obviously you introduced my wife, Kim. So, I mean, our story started, we’ve been married 20 years

[00:03:32] now. So we go way back. So we actually met in high school. Started dating. I proposed our, her senior year or her senior trip. And so we got married at 20 and 19.

[00:03:45] So there’s not much individual stories between us.

[00:03:50] Kim: 16.

[00:03:51] Tony: Yeah.

[00:03:51] Kim: When I was 15, we met him and then yeah, couldn’t date till I was 16.

[00:03:55] Evon: Okay. Okay.

[00:03:57] Kim: Dated for three years. He proposed my senior year and. We waited and shortly after I turned 19, we got married.

[00:04:05] Evon: So a, a, a separate podcast episode will be the secret to

[00:04:10] Kim: yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Certainly. Yeah.

[00:04:14] No, we feel pretty fortunate, but

[00:04:17] Tony: yeah. when I was an undergrad, I was going to school, kind of just a pre med route and didn’t really know exactly what specialty, what I really wanted to get into, but Kim got a job working for an optometrist. And she just told me she’s like, I, I think this is a perfect fit. I think you’d really enjoy meeting this guy. So why don’t you just come in and I’ll ask if you can job shadow on the days that I work. And so sure enough, I’d go in on Saturdays. And just kind of observed what the optometrist was doing. really, really liked him. really enjoyed the professional aspect of it. And then he was pretty instrumental in just helping me find my way into Pacific University and started optometry school right about a year after that. So it was a pretty quick turnover.

[00:05:03] Evon: So Kim got you into optometry. Kim, what, what got you into eyecare? What did you like about it? What got you into it?

[00:05:11] Kim: Well, I mean, it was just an undergrad job at that point.

[00:05:15] And Saturdays, at the. It was a Walmart. It was for, an eye doctor there and yeah, just applied at work with my schedule. So that’s kind of, Um, what got us started, but in working for him I really liked the doctor. He was great. And he, you know, just the, the hours that a doctor and optometrist keeps is, I knew for Tony, not wanting to be a surgeon, but wanting to do pre med, but not really wanting to do dental, um, and not really knowing a whole lot about optometry.

[00:05:46] I was also working for an attorney at the time. I was like, definitely. We don’t want to go that route. So. So yeah, the optometrist was, was great. And then, you know, it kind of came right at a time for applications. And, so it was like, let’s just throw it in there. He didn’t have all of his undergrad, credits, but Pacific does a degree completion program where your first year of optometry school, it will also, give you credits for your undergrad to finish your undergrad degree.

[00:06:17] So he had enough credits for that. But applied, got in, and yeah, it was pretty boom, boom, boom. And I decided then when he got in optometry school to, we, we had to move a couple hours to, you know, the school, but I just got another job, knowing that he was going to be in optometry. And I know not every husband and wife can get along in the professional world too, but we get along really well.

[00:06:42] And so, we knew that this was going to be his life.

[00:06:44] Tony: Yeah. So we kind of decided when I started school, she would learn all she could about the business side of optometry. So she started working for a really good private practice that was kind of in the local area of where I was going to school. And so she learned tech side of it.

[00:07:00] She learned kind of some of the billing and coding, the office management. That doctor still to this day says that. She was his number one employee to this

[00:07:09] day, and he’s probably been in practice for like 40 years. So just a testament. I mean, Kim is such a hard worker and very intelligent, very savvy. And so even when we started day one of optometry school, we kind of figured at some point we would start our own practice.

[00:07:24] And So we kind of learned, I learned the profession, she learned the business.

[00:07:28] And it worked out really

[00:07:29] Evon: from the beginning a little bit of divide and conquer there and

[00:07:32] Tony: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s a good way to put

[00:07:34] Evon: yeah, I do hear a lot whether it’s in these conversations or just conversations with clients. The reasons for getting into optometry and eye care is that, it’s healthcare. It’s fascinating, a fascinating field to work in, but without a lot of the, the terrible hours and the burnout of some other professions, not to say there’s no challenges in optometry, but there’s more room I often hear.

[00:07:54] There’s just more room for life outside of, outside of the clinic. and you have the opportunity to get into ownership and maybe have more, more, control over your, your time and, and the career from there. sometimes it’s just they, it was better than going to the dentist as a kid, so they decided to go into optometry and that’s okay too.

[00:08:13] So you, you

[00:08:15] Kim: Tony had never been to an optometrist prior to

[00:08:18] school though. So it’s just, he didn’t even know what it was actually. He has a few good stories about, misnaming. We won’t need to share the story on, online, but, you know, actually no, I don’t know what an optometrist was, but.

[00:08:31] Tony: Yeah, we’ll say I messed up an obstetrician and an optometrist.

[00:08:35] It took me a while to kind

[00:08:36] of figure those two out. And there’s, yeah, put myself in an awkward conversation at one point. It

[00:08:45] Evon: right? Right. Right.

[00:08:46] Why the Turins Chose Practice Ownership

[00:08:46] Evon: , so it sounds like from the beginning there was this interest between the two of you of getting into ownership. I mean, you could have gone all sorts of different directions with both of your careers, even separately, whether it’s working as an associate, whether it’s working as an office manager or managing a location somewhere.

[00:09:06] Why ownership? Why was that something that you were thinking about? Why did you go that direction? Mm.

[00:09:12] Kim: always actually on our.

[00:09:15] Tony: We weren’t on the same page right off the bat. I took a scholarship through the army. So four years after optometry school, I worked active duty with the army. And so during that time, Kim and I kind of would have pretty candid conversations of what was next. We moved

[00:09:30] Kim: from Oregon to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and that’s where he did it.

[00:09:34] And so we knew coming back to Oregon. What was our, you know, what was our plan for coming back to Oregon when he got out of the military private or with

[00:09:45] Tony: So Kim had figured I’d kind of get on with a practice and then maybe start something on the side. Um, obviously just for the security standpoint of having, you know, somewhat of a secure income, but

[00:09:59] Kim: We also had a one and three year old in the military and knowing that I would help run the business and I was being a stay at home mom at the same time. The idea for me to come back and also start and manage a business while he was the doctor there was a little over overwhelming with a one and a three year old at home as well. So that was a primary factor in coming home, you know, working for a doctor for two years or something while we kind of, planted. But he ended up deploying.

[00:10:31] Tony: Yeah. So the last year I ended up, having to deploy to Kuwait.

[00:10:36] And so we were separated for about five months out of that last year, five to six months. And during that time, I was able just to skewer that they had a library in a big business section. And so for about six months, I just. Put my mind to learning as much as I could about business. It was also pretty instrumental. I guess Kim came back to Oregon during that time and was able to kind of, you know, peruse the local area of where we wanted to be. she actually found the location if we were to start a practice. And so it, it kind of just started this, Last year of kind of discussing what it looked like if we were going to start something cold and just go all in. And I think it was on that deployment when Kim was home that she also just got the urge to just go for it. So we started a cold practice. fast forward, like when I got back from deployment, we, that’s when we really had the candid conversation of just starting our own business, going all in. On a practice, it was pretty much my hometown where I grew up.

[00:11:42] We decided to locate to, and so Kim moved back two months early before I got out of the military and just started the legwork of the build out, gosh, all the equipment. So we kind of, actually, it’s not even a joke. So the day I got off of active duty, moved back to Oregon, if I wanted to, I could have started seeing patients in my practice like a day after just because of the work she had done.

[00:12:07] So. Yeah, she, like I said, I mean, she, she knows how to get things done. Chop, Chop,

[00:12:11] get to work, you

[00:12:11] Evon: that is incredible. The intentionality you’ve both put into it. You’re on deployment, you’re learning about business, you know, preparing for this, Kim, you’re doing all this legwork, basically mapping out the, the business. So

[00:12:26] Kim: man. We had to read all day. The kids were, you know, but honestly, I mean, deployment is never fun. And the, I have, we were military, but not like true military. My best friend is in the military still. Her husband has deployed 20 plus times. She has four

[00:12:44] kids, like these people, like there is so much. Like, I have so much respect for our military

[00:12:51] and what they go through all the time, but our deployment, while it was not fun to be with a one and three year old, you know, without a spouse and all the things was extremely difficult, but it did allow for The change of heart for me to be actually able to come back, kind of plan and get ready and what he could do in the library, learning how to run the business from the startup gave me a little bit, actually a lot less stress of having to do that because that would have more naturally in our relationship fallen, you know, on me. Um, but it just allowed for that, like, okay, we have a place, we have, I got a contractor, I got, you know, I was able to do a lot in six months here with, while he was gone, while he was able to figure out the business and write a plan, applied for scholarship, like, there’s this whole Boots to Business program that the military, You know, for doctors or anyone actually getting out into the civilian world to get, apply for this really cool scholarship.

[00:13:52] He ended up taking third in this big old competition or second, second, second, sorry, sorry, don’t mean to discredit you, second, you know, got, I think 20 grand or something from the military or the small business administration to help

[00:14:04] Tony: jumpstart

[00:14:04] Kim: it. So there was just a lot that. You know, we have a pretty strong faith, but felt that the Lord just blessed us in, you know, opening the doors to be able to cold start our own practice that because of a deployment, which wasn’t fun, but allowed for, for that process to start.

[00:14:24] Evon: so your faith was a big part of getting you through that uncertainty, especially being separated at that time.

[00:14:30] Tony: Yeah, Yeah,

[00:14:31] Yeah.

[00:14:31] for sure.

[00:14:32] Evon: So the, the decision to cold start, I mean, when you, when you think about it and some of the conversations I have, there’s a lot of uncertainty there with the cold start with any new business.

[00:14:40] There’s a lot of uncertainty around, whether it will be successful, although the banks will lend you a hundred percent financing. So clearly there’s statistics are on your side, but, there are stories where cold starts aren’t successful or the uncertainty around how long it takes to get cashflow positive and then to be able to take an income from that.

[00:14:58] Um, On top of that, you’re managing a family and for many ODs now, especially the coming out, they’re managing a couple hundred thousand dollars of student loan debt and trying to figure out what’s the right way to handle that debt in light of that. So when you think back to that time, how did you both handle all of that financial decision making uncertainty around the family?

[00:15:18] What, what did that look like from your perspective?

[00:15:22] Tony: those were all questions we were kind of asking and that’s in a sense why, you know, the more secure route would have been just to get a job working for an optometrist while starting something on the side.

[00:15:31] But we also, we’ve always been, we call ourselves very frugal, but not cheap. Like we’re frugal in the fact like we only really tend to spend on things that we find of value. And so even in college, you know, we kept our debt as low as possible, the military. Obviously having that scholarship helped.

[00:15:51] Kim: And so

[00:15:52] Tony: by the time we had taken a loan to start our practice, Our business loan, honestly, was probably less than most of my classmates student loans. So

[00:16:02] Evon: Ah, wow.

[00:16:03] Tony: I think we, you know, even from undergrad, we were just hard workers, like Kim said.

[00:16:08] I mean, she worked two jobs in undergrad. She was also a collegiate volleyball player, All American, so I lived off her scholarships for undergrad. So I would say we’re, you know, we’re hard workers, but we’re also just You know, have always been able to live within our means while trying to expand our means. And so we knew starting a cold practice, like we didn’t have a guaranteed income. And so we actually lived with Kim’s parents, which, you know, how old were we? 26 at that time, 30, 26, 26. So we lived with them for about a year to save money. and then at that point, you know, the business did start to take off pretty quickly, which we were very thankful for.

[00:16:54] Kim: Yeah, anything

[00:16:54] Tony: to add?

[00:16:55] Kim: Well, I just, yeah, there was all, all little things that helped up, you know, getting the scholarship. So no undergrad debt was huge. No graduate debt was huge. And then in the military, you can save up, you know, paid leave. And so we took zero vacations, essentially for four years to save up two months or so of, you know, paid leave.

[00:17:16] So when he got out, he had two months of pay still from the military. In his, you know, being in, in Kuwait found out that Oregon does, like for, again, service members getting out, they will, give you six months of unemployment if you’re starting a new business within the

[00:17:34] state. So there’s just, a handful of little things that we were able to find to help in, just staying and then staying at my parents house. It just allowed for that first really eight months that we didn’t have to take an income. So we could just put everything back in to the

[00:17:51] business, pay the staff, pay back the loans and everything like that. So it’s, You know, we didn’t, Tony drove the same Toyota Camry he bought when he was 15 years old, all through up until really five, six, seven years ago,

[00:18:06] Kind of thing.

[00:18:07] So living, yeah. And I would

[00:18:09] Tony: also, I mean, say we, we, we would seek out the right people. Like a good example is when we went to purchase like all the equipment, which is definitely one of the biggest Biggest purchases of a cold start, you know, I sent off a few emails and calls to like equipment manufacturers and just asked, if they would have something that was very high end that patients would notice, you know, at the time, like automatic phoropters were kind of new and upcoming and it could connect with the lensometer and autorefractor like OCT, like really high end where patients actually will take notice, but then ask behind the scenes. You know, the back office stuff. If you could just, you know, create a list of used equipment.

[00:18:54] Um, so even our purchase price of things like that, we were able to kind of balance out and find the right person that really worked well with us. To kind of get us a blend of really nice new equipment for upfront, and then help us to save money on the back end with things that just needed.

[00:19:11] But no one really knows if it’s a $30,000 new, you know, security system or if

[00:19:18] we’re

[00:19:18] Evon: yeah. So you,

[00:19:19] you spent up, you know, on equipment, for example, you spent up where it would be most impactful. And you were able, you were willing to, to be a little bit more frugal on the other parts of that. and I would say it’s not necessarily frugal spending. It’s, it’s just intentional spending.

[00:19:33] You’re, you’re spending dollars on where you most value it. And, otherwise you’re, you’re not. And, you know, It sounds like you paired together your extreme worth ethic, work ethic, and the experience, especially Kim, the work and experience you’ve built up over the years with every opportunity you can find to get grants, to get scholarships, to, find any little, little advantage you can get.

[00:19:56] And you thought about the trade offs because not everyone would live with their parents

[00:20:01] Kim: Yeah.

[00:20:01] Or join the military.

[00:20:02] Evon: or join the military,

[00:20:04] Kim: the South,

[00:20:05] not my.

[00:20:06] Evon: I mean, one big trade off with a cold start or buying a practice too, one big question is should I, should I buy a cold start or should I buy a house? You know, that, that living situations often, a part of that trade off is do you want to prioritize getting into practice ownership first, building up the business, knowing that you’re going to be a little bit more lean on the, on the, the living expense side?

[00:20:30] Or do you want to start with the living side and then build a practice when you can? And so you, you thought about the trade offs and were very intentional about all of it.

[00:20:39] Kim: don’t think there’s a wrong answer. I think

[00:20:40] that’s just what fit us

[00:20:42] Lessons Learned Going From One Location to Three

[00:20:42] Evon: right, right, right. So, you, you were crazy enough to do a cold start, which is Mount Hood Eye Care, correct? And, and, and you got through that, and then eventually one practice location became three.

[00:20:59] Talk to me about that. How did that transpire? What, what became, you know, how did you get to from one to three?

[00:21:05] Tony: So, our practice in Sandy, Oregon, Sandy is a relatively small community, small city. And our practice grew to the point where we were losing patients just because I was booked out. Um, I was the only optometrist. The footprint of our office wouldn’t really allow us to expand and run two doctors. And so a big part of why we wanted to start a second one. was just to kind of get self referrals out to like another clinic and not necessarily lose that patient base. And I had a classmate who was a friend of ours that lived in probably the most adjacent town near us or city. And we had been on her for years. She worked kind of for a corporate entity, like a LASIK center. And we told her for probably three years, like, if you ever want to jump ship, you know, we will start something with you. We’ll help. You know, finance it will help with the business aspect. You know, you just come in, see the patients. And we’ll make it happen. And so it was actually during COVID.

[00:22:10] Kim: Yeah. She finally just, summer of 2020, we said, why not now?

[00:22:13] Broke the golden handcuffs

[00:22:15] Tony: of what they were offering her. They were working her too hard at the time. And so she finally said, let’s do it. So we started another cold practice, probably 15 minutes from our current, current practice. And so, you know, it essentially was, We just tried to recreate in a sense, kind of the same, structure and she would just come in and see the patients, but we use the same server, same, pretty much everything and try to recreate it. And so that was four years ago in April.

[00:22:49] Kim: Yeah.

[00:22:49] Tony: And we

[00:22:50] Kim: started it five, yeah, five years ago. Then, you know, six or seven months build out and all that. So, yeah. Just, yeah, four months ago or four years ago, April started. That

[00:23:00] Tony: practice has just taken off. And it was a, it was a testament, like Dr. Annie, we knew one of the reasons why we were on her so much.

[00:23:07] It was, we knew if she ever did it, I mean, any patient that would see. Come to see her, would tell 10 people, you gotta

[00:23:13] go and go to that practice. So she’s just an a rock star. Any friend of ours that went and visited were just like, I don’t know how you guys found her, but good job. So she’s actually a 50% owner in that location.

[00:23:25] That was also something we had never really thought we’d take on another partner. but she was just such a good fit. We trust her. She trusts us. and so yeah, that one, that one was kind of a no brainer. We just knew doing it once being that it’s a cold start kind of risky, but the benefits, we just thought outweighed all the risks. And then the third practice was actually a lot different. it was within the same year of starting that practice. We got a call from actually that very first optometrist that Kim worked for in undergrad. He called, called us out of the blue and he became part of like a, there’s probably 40 partners and a big entity down three hours from us that wanted to branch up into Portland and bought a practice.

[00:24:15] And all those partners were trying to manage this solo location from afar. And it just started to trickle during COVID.

[00:24:24] And so he called us out of the blue and said, look, we’re probably just going to close this down. There’s no such thing as a low ball offer. If you and Kim want to come in and kind of, you know, pitch any sort of offer to us, we might be willing to kind of just part ways.

[00:24:40] And so we, just kind of

[00:24:42] Kim: offered for the inventory more or less. And yeah, we

[00:24:44] kind of bought that

[00:24:44] Tony: practice just for theinventory of the glasses and the doctor there wanted to stay on. And so that was also a big key component was. You know, to have a, a good staff optometrist that wanted to keep that job.

[00:24:58] And we would just take over running the business kind of made that one test, just kind of a no brainer as well.

[00:25:05] Evon: So you, with the second one, you took basically the blueprints of the current practice, knew you can apply all the same systems, processes, maybe all the same technology,

[00:25:16] Kim: vendors,

[00:25:16] technology. Yep.

[00:25:19] How They Chose Where to Place the Second Location

[00:25:19] Evon: it to the next one, knowing, Tony, that you weren’t going to have to handle the full bulk of the patient care in both locations, and, you know, Talk to me about deciding the location of that.

[00:25:31] You mentioned it was, I think, 15 minutes from the current location. Talk to me about that. How did you plan where to settle down for that second location?

[00:25:40] Kim: Yeah. So Sandy proper, Sandy as a whole is kind of a, secluded community. So

[00:25:49] Tony: it’s a pass through city. It’s a

[00:25:50] Kim: pass through. Yeah.

[00:25:51] I don’t know if you’ve ever been up to Oregon or, you know, kind of at the base amount hood, but Highway 26 goes through our town and then basically there’s nothing between our town and the next town over which is Gresham and so within our community there is another optometrist but they’re just very part time so we’re the pretty much the only optometry in Sandy so we didn’t want to start anything again. in Sandy because it would only, you know, we’re already here,

[00:26:18] but we knew we wanted, and then the Gresham, which is the next town over, which kind of fades into Portland. It’s just this huge, you know, kind of conglomerate of all, all cities, but we knew that we wanted to start branching into Gresham, but not wanting to lose anyone in Sandy. And so if someone can’t get into our office for six weeks. The next closest optometrist to them would be, you know, at the, at the edge of the next town. So our 15 minutes away is right on the border of the next town. So all of our, you know, overflow, we could get them in there a lot quicker. If they can’t get into our office, they’re going to find out who’s the next closest to our town.

[00:27:05] And it’s again, us. but then also being able to draw from a whole new pool of, of, you know, patients. So that was really our, and then within the research and looking through, you know, city records and all the things in this particular location, we learned that a Chick fil A was going to be developed within the next year and a half, in our parking lot of, and so that was, for me, You know, primary marketing right there, you know, like free marketing, they

[00:27:35] literally have to drive by their store. So that was the biggest thing. And during COVID, while it was not ideal time, obviously, cause you never know what the world was going to do,

[00:27:45] Evon: Yeah.

[00:27:46] Kim: you know, rent prices, like everything started, you know, going down. And so for us, we’re like, well, let’s. Try and capitalize on this because optometry seems to still be holding steady. Um, so we got rent for a great deal. We could negotiate pretty low, um, for a longer term as well. So I think all of that, while it wasn’t, you know, like, yay, things are flourishing right now. We, we knew that COVID would end eventually,

[00:28:17] Evon: Yeah.

[00:28:17] Kim: try to get in at that right time.

[00:28:19] Evon: So you, it was far enough not to cannibalize the first location, but you close enough to still send overflow to the other location and you knew you were going to get access to the other markets in the other city or the other

[00:28:33] Kim: That was the plan. Yep.

[00:28:34] Evon: And, How do you, so you’ve applied that template to the second location, the price was right by the third location, right?

[00:28:42] How To Keep a Consistent Patient Experience Across Multiple Locations

[00:28:42] Evon: So you essentially can treat that as a cold start or a fixer upper depending on how you want to look at it. It sounds like they’re separate entities but under the same brand. So all under the Mt. Hood Eye Care branding. How have you been able to make sure that the, the, the patient experience is consistent across these three locations?

[00:29:05] Knowing you may not be able to spend time at each location all the time, you’re not, maybe you’re not there all day long. How have you been able to make that work?

[00:29:15] Tony: I think a big part is just the culture and the people really, I mean the people we hire, you know, I always said that we want the friendliest, You know, staff, the friendliest practice you can have in optometry. And so I would say from any of the front desk receptionists, all the way up to the doctors we have, um, we really just try to hire just on a very warm personality basis. And so I think that’s a key thing. you know, Dr. Annie, Dr. Bong, they work for us, Dr. McAvoy, very patient centered approach to how they care for, um, their patients. So I think, I think that’s a key one is just the personnel and then just the culture. And I think that goes hand in hand with the people you hire is again, we, you know, we always from day one said like a motto of ours is we’ll never sacrifice long term relationships for short term profit. And I think that’s just been kind of key is if patients come in, you know, be in private practice, we might charge a little bit more, but that’s not what we’re about. We’re there to kind of make the patient experience as best as it can. I think it hopefully shows.

[00:30:25] Kim: Yeah. Not, not running patients through super fast,

[00:30:28] but a little bit slower pace, but it brings, you know, Tony.

[00:30:33] So all, all doctors, we don’t do any techs. All the doctors see the patient from beginning till

[00:30:41] Tony: end.

[00:30:42] Kim: And so

[00:30:43] Tony: for the most part. Yeah. Like I’ll, I’ll go up front and bring the patient back and just start some of the pre testing while shooting the breeze. And I think that, I mean, it takes an extra minute, but it’s It’s so valuable to the patient.

[00:30:55] I think our biggest competitors in the area are kind of MDOD conglomerate practices where the opposite happens. And it’s, you know, there’s a reason for it when they have five technicians and then The doctor spends, you know, all three to five minutes with them. We just tried to do it a little bit different, where we, you know, try to provide more time with the doctor.

[00:31:15] And I think all of us, you know, work pretty hard. It does, you know, by the end of the day, you’ve spent a lot of time talking.

[00:31:23] And so it’s kind of taxing, but

[00:31:25] Kim: it’s also fulfilling. Definitely things that some of the staff do, with some of the pre testing for glaucoma workups and stuff like that.

[00:31:31] But for the most part, the doctors are the primary with the patient. And again, it’s not, it’s not always, we, we don’t always say like, we do it the right way or the best way, but it, it works for our town. We’re small, everybody talks, everybody knows each other, you know, so it really helps in the long term growth to have that relational, part with all the patients.

[00:31:55] Evon: Yeah, that’s interesting. I think you would hear a lot the, the owner doctor especially would want to delegate the non essential tasks to a tech, you know, so the optometrist can step in and do the, whatever’s the highest and best use of their time. But you’re saying, no, you know your, your patient demographic, you know who you’re serving well and you want the optometrist to spend more time with the patient and build, build a relationship a little bit more and, and I’m sure that extra time, even if it’s, if it’s slight, compounds over time, I mean that relationship, is probably critical.

[00:32:28] You do a great job with that patient, that patient tells who they know about your, your practice, new patients come in, I, I’m sure it’s a, a huge plus for, for the patients that you’re serving.

[00:32:39] Kim: We consider it our marketing and advertising expense. You know, the little bit

[00:32:43] the doctor spends every day because we don’t pay, we’ve

[00:32:46] Evon: Yeah,

[00:32:47] Kim: paid 0 for any of our practices in marketing or advertising.

[00:32:51] So, yeah, we rely heavily

[00:32:53] Tony: on word of mouth and that’s a good way to put it is that extra five minutes.

[00:32:57] You either pay for it in marketing or I hope that five minutes buys you the marketing from that patient. So,

[00:33:03] Creating the Ideal Role in the Practice

[00:33:03] Evon: Yeah. How, what is your, your current, what are your current roles in the practice? Sort of on a, like a day to day, week to week basis? What, what does that look like right now?

[00:33:13] Tony: so I just, hired basically out most of my patient care days. So we hired a really young, um, competent, awesome doctor that works in our Sandy location. Just this last summer. We hit

[00:33:27] Kim: our 10 years mark. And so, yeah, we hired a doctor. So

[00:33:32] Tony: I’ll see patients on Thursday and Friday and then the rest of the days. Just try to focus on more big picture kind of executive level decision making. Um, I heard a quote from Jeff Bezos basically stating that he pays his executives to make three or four key decisions a year, not to make a thousand decisions every day.

[00:33:53] So I’ve tried to remove myself from kind of a lot of the day to day decision making and put a lot of that on, you know, either the doctor and especially our managers work in a niche location. And then just try to strategize for, you know, should we get a fourth practice? Should

[00:34:09] Kim: we?

[00:34:10] Tony: Well, this last year we’ve completely pivoted and started a whole different

[00:34:15] Kim: adventure.

[00:34:16] Tony: We started a

[00:34:17] franchise this last year. So that was also, I kind of needed some bandwidth, but Kim actually, she has more, you know, I, I, I always say there’s like a, you also, you always need like a good leader and a good manager in a business.

[00:34:30] And a leader to me is. You know, always looking at like a five year big picture kind of sets the direction and then the managers are, okay, how do we implement this? How do we do the day to day things extremely well to get there? And I would say I’m much more of a leader. I don’t like doing the day to day things.

[00:34:49] I’m not good at it. I forget. task after task. If it’s not right now, whereas Kim is like, she can be so methodical and her day to day is just boom, boom, boom, boom. And so efficient. So she definitely has more on her plate day to day.

[00:35:05] Kim: If it was up to Tony, we would have about 2000 businesses. I’ve shot down so many ideas, primarily because, yeah, I mean, Tony is an awesome leader and the big dreamer, like the big aspect of, of everything. So in everything, and I’m grateful for it, we like make decisions together because even optometry school, it’s like, you’re doing the work, but like, you’re going to school. but I’m helping with the work, you know, like everything’s been a team aspect, but post school, you know, I’ve essentially started the businesses with, you know, the state, the feds, like I’ve kind of have gone that road.

[00:35:43] So he’s like, let’s see this. I’m like, no,

[00:35:47] Tony: if it requires like a certain level of details, Kim’s definitely the one she was. So she keeps our books. She, you know, our, you know, every year our accountant just mentions how much our books are a dream to work with because she’s. Again, she just kind of keeps things in order and that makes it, in my opinion, so much easier to scale as long as your foundation is set and you kind of have a system that works. It’s so much easier to add on to something that’s solid. So I would say early on, like just the work that she did and kind of having a firm foundation, it’s just allowed us to grow so much. So.

[00:36:22] Kim: Yeah, I’m

[00:36:22] Tony: pretty thankful.

[00:36:23] Kim: And I think you need both. Like he needs to dream, like, how do we want, he’s like, here’s where we want the practice.

[00:36:29] So like, okay, I’ll, I’ll get us there is kind of the, and of course he helps in, in doing that too. But you know, usually there’s a lot of paperwork and admin that get you to be where you need

[00:36:40] to go.

[00:36:41] Evon: yes. There

[00:36:41] Kim: And so like when he, you know, all the staff gives him a hard time. So when we bought the third practice, he’ll like, he didn’t do a whole lot in the transition at all.

[00:36:50] And he’s like, that was the easiest one we did. I’m like, okay. Yeah, it really was, wasn’t it? You know, and all the staff, I had come over and like help move and do all the things that paint and get all those systems or like, you know, punch them in the face because

[00:37:03] Evon: This is, this is why it’s good to have both of you on, because if it were just Tony, he’d be like, oh, it’s the easiest thing ever.

[00:37:07] Kim: Oh yeah, easy. Anyone can do it, Yeah.

[00:37:10] Evon: Yeah.

[00:37:11] Kim: really, I mean. All of our staff at all locations. And another key element that I just want to throw in here too, is when he got into optometry school, my little sister, um, was also just going into her undergrad and all the things and was like, what should I do in life? And I was like, well, here’s our life. You should get into the same life. So she, when Tony got into optometry school for eight years, got a job managing an optometry practice. And so then when we moved back from the military, she moved, you know, to us and started our practice with us. and really made that, that was huge. She had eight years of all experience of all things, all the vendors, all the people.

[00:37:53] She did that. She helped with the cold start of the second one and the third one. So without her, and now she’s our insurance biller and coder from afar, because she has kids and family and all that too, so. You got to have some key, crucial people that are, and our managers at each location are very, you know, strategically placed and we could not do it without them in any way either.

[00:38:21] So I just want to make sure that they get

[00:38:23] Evon: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:25] And if anyone’s familiar with the EOS operating system or the book Traction or the book Rocket Fuel, like they call it a visionary and integrator and they’re critical, critical to the practice, right? One person is looking into the future, thinking about good and bad ideas and, and maintaining big relationships.

[00:38:43] The integrator is the glue of the business, the one that actually puts things into practice, executes, and whose important job is to swat away bad ideas. And, and, it’s, it’s, it’s critical. And both of those combined are where the magic happens. And it sounds like you’re both very aware of where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are and how you complement them.

[00:39:05] each other and how your, your team compliments you and all the things that they do.

[00:39:10] How to Maintain Culture in Multiple Practice Locations

[00:39:10] Evon: And a couple of questions on just how you manage it all in a number one, how do you maintain, you talk about this culture, like how do you maintain this culture across three locations? What, what does that look like in interacting with the team and, and keeping that culture in place?

[00:39:24] I

[00:39:25] Kim: what got a lot harder as you expand. Like, that’s the difficulty of it. And that’s where I felt Tony started feeling the pressure as being the primary doctor in one, but not being able to keep up with the culture that we want. Annie is awesome, and she, but even with the, like, dynamics between different offices, you don’t see each other every day, how are things going, blah, blah, blah, like, it does get really hard.

[00:39:49] And so that has been Tony’s primary role, probably in the last six months, hiring a doctor so he can be at all of them. To make sure that everyone’s always on the same page, because when you’re not, you’re not, and you know you’re not, and things start falling through the cracks and stuff, so he’s really taken an integral part in that aspect of the practice, just to kind of be, not even an overseer, but like, yeah, an integrator. And,

[00:40:16] Tony: In no way would we say we’ve arrived at, like, the perfect formula at this point. We’re still trying to navigate it. but I would say one thing that’s hard, but it’s pretty key is, being that our Sandy location is 11 years in, you know, it’s pretty easy for us to kind of go in and try to implement everything. But also we want them to have some autonomy and kind of make their practice seem maybe a little bit different. so it’s kind of that fine line of, you know, you kind of want a system that’s, always going to be repli,

[00:40:49] Kim: repli,

[00:40:50] Tony: replicatable, um, but not so, I guess, stagnant that they can’t implement like our, you know, frame selection at our Gresham location as higher end, more unique. And therefore like it kind of fits their demographic, but a lot of the systems are the same. So I guess it’s kind of finding the right trade off of like, These things are non negotiable. Like we’re going to do them. This is the reason why, because it just works very efficiently, but yet you can be very free and you can kind of make some selections, the design, the decor and that location is very different. but yeah, it’s something we’re just trying to figure out as well ourselves.

[00:41:33] Evon: It sounds like it started with at least one of you freeing up more of your time to spend more time at each location and to be more involved in the team at each location.

[00:41:44] What Metrics Do They Watchin In Their Practice?

[00:41:44] Evon: And what metrics are you watching and looking at to track sort of the health and ongoing growth and performance of each location?

[00:41:54] Tony: Yeah, so we just started quarterly we get together and there’s kind of three things I look at One is the amount of just doctor hours seeing patients at each location The amount of paid patients per hour that each doctor seeing And then the third one is just the average revenue per patient at each location. Cause I think those are like key revenue drivers. You know, if we’re booked out six weeks and we only have 20 hours of available doctor time at that location, that’s a huge miss.

[00:42:30] And so we try to like navigate, okay, if this practice doesn’t have as much, you know, patients per, um, on their books, we’ll pull that doctor and maybe add more hours at our

[00:42:42] Gresham locationSo that’s a big one. The amount of patients, paid patients per hour is kind of the key one, because if you really push that, I feel like the quality of care goes down. But if you’re only seeing one patient an hour, you’re not going to pay the bills. So we, we try to find that right balance. And right now I’d say it’s just at about, if you can see a patient, you know, two paid patients an hour, I would say it’s kind of our sweet spot.

[00:43:09] Kim: 2. 4 or something like that. That’s getting up there. 2. 4. Cause you

[00:43:13] Tony: got walk ins, you got a lot of stuff. So,

[00:43:15] Kim: yeah.

[00:43:16] Evon: This is somewhere like 20 minutes or so. per, per appointment and something like that. Okay. Yeah.

[00:43:23] Kim: Yep.

[00:43:23] Evon: that’s, that’s an important one. What else are you looking at on a regular basis? Yeah.

[00:43:29] Kim: cost of goods.

[00:43:31] Tony: We keep, you know, our opticians, I would say they keep track more of sales.we check what we call like the walkout rate. If a patient has just their routine eye exam, how often they purchase their glasses and their contacts from us. Yeah. that’s a huge revenue driver and I, I would say ours is, you know, well within the average if not better than the average, which is awesome.

[00:43:56] It’s a huge testament to our opticians and managers. So that one’s a, yeah, that one’s always a key one. Um, but we don’t track that as much. We, we let our opticians, we kind of bonus them. If they sell more than one pair of glasses, they get a bonus for each second pair. So that’s, I think what you track you kind of, or what you reward, hopefully you get more of.

[00:44:21] Evon: It’s interesting. You’re the first one that you mentioned. It sounds like you are to try to maintain a, like a, a good, revenue per OD hour. You’re managing sort of capacity. Like if you have too much capacity at one location, okay, let’s bring that doctor over to, the other location and free up more capacity there because there’s more patient demand.

[00:44:39] There’s more patients on the calendar. So it sounds like you’re able to, to move around doctor capacity, doctor hours as needed to make sure that you’re maintaining a pretty reasonable revenue per OD hour and meeting the patients where they need to be met. That’s, that’s maybe a, a pretty big benefit to have multiple locations all within an area that doctors can travel, you know, back and forth to each location.

[00:45:03] Kim: Yep. And it’s, and it’s helped a little bit, even in the last six months, With Tony having more time off at our primary location with other doctors that have either had to call in sick or like family emergencies where normally we would have to have, you know, canceled the whole day, called patients out.

[00:45:20] He’s been able to, you know, bounce around and or go back into our primary office to cover And stuff. So that has helped a lot in that way as well. So we haven’t really had to lose any patients in the last six months. We’re in, you know, years past the era of Tony’s sick, like no doctor’s

[00:45:36] cover kind of thing.

[00:45:37] So.

[00:45:38] Tony: And it’s been really helpful. So like our Gresham location, we built that bigger than any of the others. knowing at some point we’ll run at least two doctors simultaneously. And so I’ve been able to go there and kind of test it out. What does it feel like? It’s like

[00:45:53] Kim: once a week to get the staff

[00:45:55] Tony: prepped for

[00:45:56] Kim: it.

[00:45:56] So

[00:45:56] Tony: how many staff do we need if we bring on two full time doctors there? So in a sense, like I can be the Guinea pig and, you know, get bombarded with the equipment’s not working. It’s like, okay, we’ll figure this out before we hire someone on full time. So yeah, we really. Like where we’re at and the fact that we can, kind of be creative and, um, it’s, you know, I can fill in the time and it’s not as costly to, you know, try to find one doctor that’s willing to kind of grow with us.

[00:46:26] Evon: So you’ve, you’ve gone through this through, dividing and conquering from the very beginning. You very intentionally cold started that first practice, grew from one to three locations, have adjusted your own roles in the business to, to meet basically to create the, the life, the ownership life and the family life.

[00:46:44] I’m assuming that you want. Yeah. What has surprised you about growing from one practice to three? What’s challenged you the most?

[00:46:54] Tony: What’s interesting to me and I don’t know if Kim would agree, but I always feel like it takes the same amount of effort and energy to run something small as it does something big. So I would look back even the first year or two in business and even though we were seeing, you know, five patients a day the first year, I would, I still feel like it was just as much work as what we have now. Um, and I think it’s a testament just we’ve grown a team that I think works extremely hard. So not all of it falls obviously on our plate. So I’ve been very surprised that, you know, growth done well isn’t doesn’t need to be as taxing.

[00:47:36] Kim: No, I mean, I would agree. I, I don’t sit still very easily. And so if I didn’t have things like with kids and, you know, all the things, like if I didn’t have stuff going on, I would be very bored.

[00:47:50] I don’t sit very well, without having something to do.And so for me, it’s always something, you know, new and exciting. There’s always something, something to troubleshoot something. And so the more practices, I don’t know if we do, this third one was not an intentional we won’t even pretend to be like, we’re going to go for more.

[00:48:13] This one just,

[00:48:13] you know, kind of Fell into our laps. Cause I mean, just as a little bit of a side note too. We also have another business where we buy and sell real estate and I own and manage, we own and manage for short term rentals right now as well, but have bought and sold within that a couple times.

[00:48:35] Like you mentioned, we Just franchise this last summer with our kids, a Jamba and Annie Anne’s here in our local town as well too, just because it’s something new and exciting. I don’t know. We’re probably crazy, but we like to challenge ourselves, I guess.

[00:48:51] I like to

[00:48:51] Evon: So A practice with three locations, a separate business, running short term rentals, which is enough work in itself. And another franchise. I, this is a lot

[00:49:03] Kim: it’s a lot.

[00:49:04] Evon: a family and,

[00:49:05] Kim: and we have awesome kiddos that are, you know, my dad was a, an accountant and a, for a major company. And I dunno, just, I grew up kind of with numbers and how to manage it all. And then Tony grew up in an entrepreneurial family as well. And our kids have kind of taken, to liking it too.

[00:49:25] So for the most part, Our kids have been pretty involved in our, our business ventures. And so this franchise was our son’s idea. Um, he took a business class in, you know, his freshman year of high school and really wanted to open a Jamba. So we’re like, okay, let’s open a Jamba. And so, involvement in the family, we would never do all this without the right people, without our kids wanting to be involved also.

[00:49:47] Our son is very dynamic. He actually at the school day, he would probably pop up in here and chat with you the whole time as well.

[00:49:54] Tony: yeah, cool example. Like, just kinda, like she said, I was raised in an entrepreneurial household. Well, our son, he came to us probably about two years ago, a year and a half. And he just at the dinner table mentioned, he told us how much he appreciates Seeing where we were at, you know, 10 years ago to today and running our own business. And he’s like, but the problem with you guys is you didn’t start anything until you were 30. So he started the

[00:50:22] conversation of like, well, I’m 15. What’s keeping me from doing something today. So in another 10 years, I could kind of be where you’re at. So we told him, I want to

[00:50:32] Kim: do what you’ve done by the time you guys were 35. By the time I’m 25, I’m like, okay. The fact that

[00:50:37] Tony: you’re asking that question, we told him that’s a great start. So

[00:50:41] Evon: What was I, what was I doing at 15? I

[00:50:43] Tony: I know. Yeah. He’s,

[00:50:45] Kim: but he’s always out to make a buck for instance. I mean, yesterday he was at the Goodwill bins all day. Like. Buying just stuff and then, but he sells it all online. Like he just, he is always, you know, I don’t know, figuring out how to make, he’s a fun kid. Buy, he builds computers and sells ’em.

[00:51:01] He taught himself during Covid in sixth grade and he is bought, built probably, I don’t know, eight or so computers in the last four or five years. And so he just has that desire too, which kind of drives us to be like, okay, I can’t let my 15-year-old son. All right. I’ll let him

[00:51:19] Tony: surpass us. That’d be cool.

[00:51:21] Evon: I think that’s, that’s such a cool idea. There’s a lot of ways to help kids. We talk, you know, just in my conversations with clients, you go on any of the online forums, there’s a lot of ways to help kids, whether it’s financially through school, 529 accounts, Roth IRAs, just building up investments for them, helping them, buying real estate so they can live in it and then renting.

[00:51:42] I mean, there’s all these sorts of ways, but, Man, the direct experience of helping them to own a franchise and work through that and the business owner experience is, is awesome. I mean, that’s such a cool way to get them involved in, you know, they’re seeing everything you’re doing, but for your son to then get involved and get the hands on experience, I think is so cool.

[00:52:04] I’m going to keep that in mind. That’s, that’s on my list of things to look out for, for my kids.

[00:52:09] How to Balance Busines and Family Life

[00:52:09] Evon: that’s a good transition. I’d love to ask you about. Family life. I mean, you’re both involved in your businesses. I mean, you’re all involved in the business in some way, right? You’re even, your son’s involved in the, in a business there.

[00:52:20] Where do you draw the line between what are the boundaries between business and family life? when you get home, do you draw the line to say, okay, we’re only talking about personal family stuff, or is it, is just, is it all intertwined in all your conversations? You know, what, what’s that like mixing those two together?

[00:52:38] Tony: I would, I would definitely say for us it’s intertwined and

[00:52:41] I feel like none of us have a problem with that. Like we all kind of enjoy the conversation. I would say we do draw the line. If, if we’re getting phone calls or getting text messages after hours, we’re not doing it right. So

[00:52:55] most of the time I say digitally, like the outside of our core family dynamic, like we don’t really have after hour business, unless there’s something like if there’s a true fire that’s going on.

[00:53:08] Which does happen in the

[00:53:09] Kim: NEN oven.

[00:53:10] Tony: Yeah. So

[00:53:11] stuff like that, we will

[00:53:12] Kim: take

[00:53:13] Tony: on after hours. but yeah, I would say just as much as we’re intentional on, you know, costs we talked about, I say we’re just as intentional on Keep in a balance like we all have, I would say, particular hobbies that we enjoy doing, whether it’s together or individually, and we support one another in those. Our son is awesome at football. that’s is like, that’s right up there with just about everything else. So even when we, Mentioned starting a business like, Hey, you know, we kind of expect you to help run it. He’s like, I will, but not during football

[00:53:50] season,like come into summer, like my priorities. So we understand each other’s priorities, expectations, um, and we try not to cross those.

[00:54:00] So we supported him more in football during the season than we did his business venture. Carry the weight of it during that time.

[00:54:09] Kim: Well, and the beauty of like my role in all the businesses is that I can run pretty much everything. from home and I can have a very flexible schedule. So I don’t go in and work at any of the offices of any kind.

[00:54:22] I mean, like the Jamba and Annie Anne’s starting this last summer, I did a lot for like two weeks. My son was there too, actually told me he was there washing dishes

[00:54:30] very frequently. I was like, forget your day job. I need dishwasher over here. Cause it was so busy, you know, starting out. So, you know, his motto at that point was like, you kids too working here, you too can go get your graduate degree and wash dishes, you

[00:54:44] know, But, um, but I’ve been able to have a very, very flexible schedule.

[00:54:51] And even with starting the businesses, like the kids were like my son, our son was at kindergarten age and our daughter was at three. So I was still home with them, but like work hours didn’t start until after school. So he was in the, With the mornings, you know, and then he could drive them to school on his way to work.

[00:55:08] So we just made that a thing. And it always has been a thing. He has always been home in the morning and, you know, in the afternoon I’m home, I’m picking the kids up from school. So I’ve been able to, we have been able to be very involved with the kids, like you said, for football, we’re at every game, we’re at everything, you know, so we, we’ve just, While all the businesses do take up time, it’s not sacrificed time.

[00:55:36] It’s time, you know, utilized when we’re not doing stuff as a family, I

[00:55:41] guess would be.

[00:55:43] and of course there are those emergent times it’s, it just happens. But, for the day to day, yeah, business discussion will always be a topic, whether it’s our current businesses or future businesses or anything.

[00:55:56] That’s just the way our family kind of. Our daughter is far less, caring about any of the businesses, but she’s a different, yeah, she doesn’t quite have the desire to yet. She will eventually, but

[00:56:11] not yet.

[00:56:12] Evon: Gotcha. Gotcha.

[00:56:14] Final Advice

[00:56:14] Evon: And as we start to wrap up here, any final bits of advice you’d like to leave for the listener that’s either maybe considering cold starting or Thank you very Thinking about that transition from one location to, to the next, anything you’d want to leave with a listener there.

[00:56:30] Tony: I would say, you know, you brought up a question, if anything has surprised us, I would say one of the surprises, just the fact that optometry really can be very lucrative. I mean, whether it was. One practice or three, or if you’re an associate doctor, like you’re going to do well. so I guess you got to find a way to kind of enjoy the process as well as the proceeds.

[00:56:55] know, it’s great having a, whether it’s a really high income, but if you’re working 60 hours a week, is it really going to be worth it to you? So it’s kind of finding, you know, You know, enjoying the ride along the way, which I would say we always have, whether it was, you know, the first few months of a cold start, you know, if we’re not making a single thing, were we okay with that?

[00:57:19] Were we still enjoying life? And now with three practices, like, is it too much? Are we still enjoying our time together?

[00:57:28] Kim: So

[00:57:29] Tony: yeah, I guess just find some checks and balances.

[00:57:33] Kim: Yeah. And just to, to touch on that, I know not every like marriage couple like could work together and that’s fine, but we are also huge advocates of marriages working.and so if you’re not in communication with your spouse, All the time, that would be my biggest thing of advice, and for every business we’ve started, or everything, you know, whether business or not, if we’re not in it together, then it’s probably not worth doing. If he’s like, I’m doing this, I’m like, I don’t want to do this, and he does it, then I’m going to hold a grudge against him if it fails, you know, so every business we’ve started, or, or vice versa. It’s like we’re in it together, we win together, or we fail together, but it’s always together, so. Maybe aside from business, no, like just make sure you’re right with your spouse before you do

[00:58:31] anything.

[00:58:32] Tony: That’s very true. Yeah.

[00:58:33] Evon: No, I, I’ve always thought the same as well, whether it’s cold starting, whether it’s buying in any, any form of practice or business ownership, the spouse has to be on board. I, I’ve felt that way, even for my own business, because there’s no quicker way to resentment and, and not communicating when, when both spouses aren’t on board.

[00:58:49] Cause it’s hard. I mean, there, there’s nothing easy about it, especially when you’re starting from scratch. And if everyone’s not on board, that starts to compile and compound that sort of difficulty and, and resentment. So I, I think that’s such good advice from both of you.

[00:59:03] What They Are Most Excited About For the Future of Optometry

[00:59:03] Evon: and, and now for the final question, when you think about the future of optometry and, and for this conversation in the context of, of, private practice optometry, what are you most excited about?

[00:59:14] Tony: there’s lots of things. I don’t know. It’s just, it seems like such a good time to be involved with optometry. I, I think. past, you know, there’s kind of the ODMD kind of dynamic. How’s it all going to fit in? And right now I just feel like we’re positioned to just take the bulk of eye care. I think ophthalmologists really value just the surgery component.

[00:59:38] So there’s more patients out there than I think any of us could handle. And so therefore I think private practices. really can just position themselves to be the go to facilitator of good quality eye care. So I think as a, as a profession, and then just also from a business standpoint, yeah, I, I think it’s a great time to go into private practice for yourself or. There’s also probably a lot of older ODs that have been in practice for a while that might be looking for an exit, and so come alongside them, you know, introduce yourself if you’re a young OD. If you have any aspirations of buying into a practice, I think it’s also just a perfect time, as a lot of ’em might just want to transition out of it.

[01:00:24] Kim: Mm-hmm

[01:00:25] Evon: Well, I, I’ve really enjoyed this. I love hearing the story. I love hearing the intentionality from day one of just what you’re building towards both of you together, how you’re spending your time, how you’re creating your roles in the business to, to meet the business needs and family needs. there’s a lot that I’ve even been able to take away from.

[01:00:43] So I appreciate both of your time for coming on today. Where can people find and follow and just learn more about what you’re doing?

[01:00:51] Kim: that’s him. I don’t do social media. Yeah, we don’t do much

[01:00:53] Tony: social media. I think I have a, I have a LinkedIn

[01:00:55] profile. You can look me up. Um, that’s why

[01:00:57] Kim: we have time for other things. Yeah.

[01:00:59] We don’t do much.

[01:01:00] Tony: That’s probably why we’re happy too, is we don’t spend a whole lot of time. Um, but no, I would, I, I think I would like to transition more into kind of more of a digital footprint, so. Yeah, if there’s any opportunities, if you have any questions for us personally, LinkedIn, you could put my email kind of in the comment section if you want. That’s a good way.

[01:01:19] Kim: He’s also taken on, so part of this last year in transitioning now of being the primary doctor in the office, uh, you know, PECAA you heard PECAA he’s the regional rep now for that as well and taking a role within VSP. so trying to get

[01:01:36] Tony: Yeah, I’m a VSP ambassador, so you could kind of look me up through there. Or in PECAA as well.

[01:01:42] Kim: Kind of transitioning into like the bigger picture of private practice optometry, optometry to make sure, things stay and get better in some of those areas. So you can find him, in that aspect as well.

[01:01:56] Evon: Well that I will put all that, links to all that in the show notes. So for the listener, scroll down on whatever app you’re using or go to the education of our website. But again, I really appreciate both of your time. This was a lot of fun for

[01:02:08] Kim: Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah,

[01:02:09] Tony: it was our pleasure.

[01:02:10] Evon: great. And, for the listener, really appreciate your time.

[01:02:13] We will catch you on the next episode. In the meantime, take care.

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