Optometrists Building Empires

[00:00:00]

Ankit Patel: Today's guest is a good friend and someone who I think you'll love to hear from. He's an impressive founder, entrepreneur, and optometrist. He has combined his clinical expertise with a strong commitment to service while participating in Nash International Mission trips, offering exams for special Olympic athletes and supporting LO local organizations such as Lions Club.

He specializes in treating eye diseases, advanced vision correction, and co-managing ocular surgeries. He also founded Sherpa Consulting to [00:01:00] help coach dynamic teams to reach their full potential. He's owner and optometrist at Envision Eye Care. Please welcome Dr. Larry Golson. Larry welcome.

Larry Golson: Thank you an it's a pleasure to be here.

Ankit Patel: I'm excited about this conversation. You and I have known each other for a while and you're really a dynamic, uh, individual. So I think, uh, the audience is gonna get a lot of value from this conversation. Um, so what, what was the most important thing that helped you grow your empire?

Larry Golson: You know, early on I spoke with a good friend of mine, well, he became a good friend over time, but I was just, I just opened my practice. it was 2008 and I was thinking about hiring, um, a consulting firm that kind of helps practices soup to nuts, A to Z with everything from like exam forms. This is before the digital age, so I'm dating myself a little bit. But, uh, they, they help with, you know, from scripting and marketing and every, everything that practice would need. And I was talking [00:02:00] to my friend who's in the industry for iCare, and I said, you know, do you think I should hire these people? And he said, well, if you want a cookie cutter type of practice, then yes.

But if you wanna be unique and different, then it would make sense to find the best person for marketing. Find the best person for communications, and find the best person for finance and surround yourself. With a team of people that are expert experts in their own individual field, think about them as like a board of directors for you. we're a small business and we were a, a cold start, we didn't, certainly weren't big enough for any type of board. having that advice and thinking about it from a standpoint of can I call on, who can I ask that's smarter than I am more experienced and or um, could give me information that would help along the way. And if I can enter this into like a, with a beginner's mind, which is an Eastern concept with, you know, I've never done this before, which I hadn't in this case, but, um, how can I gain [00:03:00] information from others that would be helpful? And that's really what start me, started me on my path towards, uh, what I built today, this point.

Ankit Patel: Yeah,

Larry Golson: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: so. Tell me a little bit more about that beginner's mind. Like how does that, how'd that come into play? Can you gimme an example of maybe how it manifested in your growth growth cycle and how it made an impact for you?

Larry Golson: Yeah, sure. So the idea of beginner's mind, to expand on that a little bit, is to approach anything that we might do from, Hey, I'm new at this. I don't know what I'm doing. Let me be as humble as I can and seek advice from others. And so, so often, even when I consult with Sherpa Consulting. I talk to, uh, other doctors that run practices and they have these preconceived notions, or they have these ideas that, Hey, I know what I'm doing, I'm a doctor, um, and I know I'm doing it right, and they might be doing stuff that's, that's fine or great or not.

And either way, the idea of beginner's mind is that, [00:04:00] you know, you approach it as, Hey, I don't know everything. I don't necessarily have all the answers. The answers are out there. So let me be kind of an open, let me be open-minded to receive them.

Ankit Patel: Gotcha. Okay. Can you gimme a specific example in your business, how it affected like a concrete example?

Larry Golson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So I've been practicing optometry for four years before I opened my practice and. I thought I did a pretty darn good job communicating to patients, and when I opened my practice, I had, um, all day and I didn't have many patients on the schedule. So I would spend, gosh, I would spend like over an hour giving an exam, trying to be as thorough as I could, explain every detail. And at some point I had, uh, a coach, a dialogue coach sit in with me and he was taking notes. And throughout that hour long exam, he came out with pages of notes. And the first thing he said to me was, excuse me. The first thing he said to me was, [00:05:00] wow. Did you see how overwhelmed your patient was? And I was like, uh, no, I didn't.

What are you talking about? And he's like, well, you gave them so much information that by the time that they left your exam room, they really didn't, uh, weren't able to make any decisions and were kind of, seemed like they were overwhelmed and confused. And so I started watching my patients from that point forward and I realized he was onto something that I really did need to. Make my dialogue more succinct, more impactful. that's when I started really bringing my time down. Even though I still didn't have as many patients, I was just more impactful with each patient. And so being open to that critique. Now, this dialogue coach, he, he does a lot of work in the field and works with a lot of doctors and opticals and, uh, he basically gave me some really good advice on how I could. Changed the way I spoke to patients, and what I realized later is that we were never really taught. How to speak to patients. We were taught how to do a refraction, how to [00:06:00] look at the optic nerve, so on and so forth. But we were never really sp, we never really were taught how to actually use our words to find impact and the value of our communication, I learned was that the value of it is measured at the patient's ear, not at the doctor's, uh, voice or what, what words we use.

So we really need to think about and dissect. What we say, how we say it, and also watching our patient and their reactions to what we're saying. So I actually started recording myself in the exam room, and that was very illuminating because I realized that I really needed to work a lot on my, my dialogue.

Ankit Patel: Uh, so talk a little bit about that. Uh, how did that make you feel? Patients feel uncomfortable, or how did, how did that go?

Larry Golson: You know, when I started working on the dialogue, I felt uncomfortable because I was saying things that in a way that wasn't used to, it wasn't my habit. we all have like our go-to default scripts that we use when we start explaining something like glaucoma or something like nearsightedness. [00:07:00] And so I felt a little bit like a fish outta water.

I'm sure the patient registered that. I would, I would guess they did it initially, but eventually those kind of neural pathways started to form and I just became way more fluent with it and natural. And when I coach other doctors on their dialogue, 'cause I do this now, I sit in on doctors and listen to the way they talk to patients and, uh, give them, you know, advice or consult, consultation on how to maybe say it or consider it differently. Um, you know what, what ends up happening is it does feel very awkward for every, anybody at first. But if you think about the best Broadway actors or the best athletes, Olympic athletes, for instance, they all practice, right? They all practice. And do doctors ever practice how they talk to patients?

Normally we don't. We just go in the exam room, we give an exam, we don't really think about it. So, you know, it really led to this whole idea of me thinking about it. Trying it out being awkward at first, but then making it more natural. And [00:08:00] now I can just kind of like, you know, say it like it's me talking to you right now, and it just becomes natural.

Ankit Patel: Gotcha. I like that. So as you were growing, you're learning these new skills. What was something that you ran into that you didn't expect as you were growing your businesses?

Larry Golson: You know, I never really realized that when I opened, I, I had, it was me and two team members and they kind of did a little bit of everything. And as we grew, we got to about eight team members, we, to realize that my leadership skills were insufficient. And I always. Uh, I guess I never really understood the word leadership.

It's interesting as we go through life, we understand words in a different meeting as we have different experiences. And so what I started to understand is that my ability to to manage lead, to be the boss, uh, is, was insufficient, and I really needed to learn that as another skill. So, just like I was saying, I, I kind of learned how to speak to patients at [00:09:00] some point. I also learned better ways to communicate as a leader to my team. And so what I didn't read, to answer your direct question, once we got to about eight people, when little subcultures started to form because there were enough people to where these two people peeled off and had their own little conversations.

And these three people over here kind of saw things the same way. And so I started to realize that, okay, I needed to get better at. How I can be a leader to these people to offer the right amount of support and also the right amount of challenge in the right situation at the right time so that we held a high positive culture. We had a really good culture when we started, and it was easier when we were smaller, but as we grew, it got really hard to have a good culture unless we really nurtured it.

Ankit Patel: Gotcha.

Larry Golson: How to nurture that. Yeah,

Ankit Patel: That's actually a really good insight. Um, I, I like that. 'cause you don't think about, okay. All these subcultures forming, um, what, what did, um, what, what were some of the problems you [00:10:00] saw, like looking back on it, like, oh, I wish I would've picked up sooner. What are some things that you noticed now looking back like yeah, this was times of time, uh, or signs of the culture breaking.

Larry Golson: Yeah, so I would say that. A couple things come to mind right away on Kid One is that I, I, when there was a interpersonal issue with two of my team members, I was managing a lot of that even though I had an office manager and I would pull one person into the room and I would get their story. Then I'd pull the other person into the room and I'd get a different story and I. I really didn't know what to believe. And so one thing that I learned was if there's an interpersonal conflict, is to pull both people in the room and to really, you know, of give it framing, give the conversation a frame to say, y'all we're all in this together. We all have the same objective, which is to have a cohesive, positive team. know, understand there's a concern. Let's, let's talk about it. I'm here to help. And how can we help? And [00:11:00] so from that point forward, I never, you know, got one story and they got a different story. It was always like, all right, there's an issue. Great. We're all gonna talk about it and it's gonna be uncomfortable and that's part of it and we'll get through it. And so that was one thing I learned. And another thing was I had a manager that was incredible. It's funny, I was talking about this, this, this morning with a, with a client of mine. She was incredible at the details and the administrative aspect of her role as office manager. What she wasn't as good with on Kit was, was handling these types of issues with people. She really wanted everybody to like her. And that spells disaster for a manager because we have to have hard conversations and we have to deal with conflict. And this individual, um, gosh, at one point we were just going through it with some people on our team, and she said she threw her hands up in there and she said, maybe I just shouldn't be managing people. and had I had the insights that I have now, we would've talked about that and said, well, let's talk about [00:12:00] that and let's, let me, let me ask some questions to you and we can decide. I definitely want you on this team. I just don't know if this is the best seat for you. So let's figure that out together.

Ankit Patel: Did that person stay with you or it just didn't work out? I guess.

Larry Golson: Yeah. I didn't have the, the leadership bandwidth or skills to be able to understand how to manage that at the time. And eventually our team got to a size where it just was not the right fit and she ended up resigning

Ankit Patel: Gotcha. And, and so what I'm hearing is, is like you had a lot, you saw more conflict and conflict kept arising, so there was like interpersonal conflict that kept happening, and it happened more often as you started getting subcultures.

Larry Golson: Yeah, absolutely. And it's not, it's, it's not only the subcultures and interpersonal, it's also, well, I want to get a raise. How do we handle that conversation? Um, hey, we need more, um, medical assistance. How do we decide if we need more medical assistance? And so as a whole array of, uh, concerns that, that, that arose that.

I, we just weren't really, [00:13:00] skilled enough to, to handle. And so, you know, one of the things, going back to the, really, the initial part of our conversation surrounding ourselves with, with experts was I started to look for other ways to learn. I started reading more books about managing people and managing a business. I hire consultants. You know, I, I've hired a lot of consultants in my career and, uh, and just, you know, learn how to do these things. Gosh, I wouldn't be able to help others, uh, if I hadn't have done that. And I, I mean, it helps me in my own practice still to this day, and I get to have the privilege to help others as well.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. so, so now you, you have the, the Sherpa Consulting. Which helps other optometrists and other businesses, uh, similar challenges with scale and growth. And do you still, uh, tell us about, uh, are you still practicing at Envision as much or is that more of a hands off thing for you?

Where do you spend most of your time now?

Larry Golson: Well, at this moment of this recording, I had [00:14:00] just moved

Ankit Patel: Nice.

Larry Golson: And we moved from about 4,000 square feet to about 6,000 square feet. we're, uh, I'm like outside my window right now watching them landscape our, our yard outside, which is really a cool time for us. So I've been very involved. I've been very involved with the day to day. I have a doctor on vacation this week, so I'm seeing patients. if you had, if we'd had this call maybe three months earlier or three months later, I really don't see that many patients, if at all, maybe, you know, just to keep my skills up. And at this point when I'm, my next kind of phase is to allow my general manager to run the practice and for me to step back and be a true owner. And what that means is I'm really not involved in hiring decisions or get, you know, any type of hr. simply collecting information. I'm helping when she needs, uh, support from me. manager and she is really running the show. And so my, my goal is to really spend more time, uh, in my personal life and to [00:15:00] free up more time to do Sherpa Consulting, which I just really love.

I'm very passionate about helping other private practice owners succeed because, gosh, it's hard these days. You can't just be like, you know, hang your shingle and expect to be successful. You really have to know business. You have to know how to lead. You have to know how to do the financial aspects to, to remain profitable.

Ankit Patel: So let's talk about that a little bit. A lot of folks are having challenges with managing reimbursements, being stagnant or going down and staffing. Um, can you talk about those particular two challenges and how one, you face them and deal with them and two, what are you seeing other folks do? 'cause you work with a lot of practices.

Larry Golson: Yeah, sure. So as far

Ankit Patel: Oops.

Larry Golson: Aspect, uh. I have a lot of practices that do it in-house and they have a person that, that bills and all of their, uh, medical and vision plans. I have clients that outsource that to a third party. And so, uh, you know, there's really, those are the two models that I'm most familiar with.

And then there's a hybrid model [00:16:00] where they have somebody on the team who does know how to do it, who kind of watches and manages the third party who might bill for that practice. It might step in on certain claims, and that's the model that we're going to, 'cause we've done both actually. And at this point we're gonna outsource it to a third party, but we're gonna have somebody watch it because it, it becomes such an important aspect to cash flow. And if certain claims don't get billed or rebuild in time, they get lost. And so we're end up doing some of our work for free, basically. So that's one aspect is to, you know, really think about. Setting up a system to review your, uh, accounts receivable and make sure that we are billing, regardless of which way we're billing, that it's timely and that we're getting reimbursed and there's not too much falling into that 120 plus day category. As far as staffing, I would say that, the number one challenge that I hear over and over and I can say in our practice as well is staffing. And it's, it's a really hard thing to get people [00:17:00] who are passionate about. What the purpose and the values are of a practice, and to also live that out day to day in their behaviors. And to also try and balance things like the payroll expense with revenue and how much we are spending on our teams. And so, you know, one of the ways that we have evolved in our practice, and I try and help other practices as well, is this idea of hiring slowly and firing quickly. And the simple fact of the matter is, is we want the highest and best for anybody that works in our team. if someone is falling in their performance, then we're gonna do what we can to help them succeed. And sometimes helping them succeed means to invite them to go work elsewhere, which is really hard thing to say. But you know, if they're not succeeding and doing their highest and best work in our practices and we want for them, we want them to go find another place that they can do that.

And so it kind of reframed it in our minds. 'cause [00:18:00] we hate the idea of letting somebody go or having somebody resign. But at the same time, really learned how to help people find if this is the right fit and how to succeed even. lot of times they're in the wrong seat on our bus and we put them in a different place and then they start to thrive. And so that's one aspect of it is really learning how to have those, you know, a lot of people are like resistant to conflict and in my opinion, conflict is a hundred percent necessary to have a healthy culture. There's a way to do it in a positive way, and there's a way to do it in a not so positive way, but it needs to happen.

Hard conversations need to happen. And so,

Ankit Patel: So

Are you fully staffed right now or is that, is that.

Larry Golson: we have had, we, I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and uh, it's getting more and more expensive. We had a hurricane last year and it's getting, it's an expensive place to live and so we have had a couple of team members leave recently to live closer to their families in the eastern part of North Carolina. And so we have a couple of positions that we're filling right now. [00:19:00] Um, and that being said, our core team is super strong and everybody that's here, uh, wants to be here and has earned a place on this team and continue to each day. And so when we do have a situation like we have right now where we're looking for more team members, we do put ads on Indeed. We also look to our team to say, Hey, if y'all know of anybody, that would be a great team member. You know the idea I kit and birds of a feather flock together. Good, good team members know other people that might be good team members. And so we get our best, actually. We get our best team members from referrals from our existing team. And they're looking at our patients day by day and saying, Hmm, that three o'clock patient was pretty awesome. I wonder if they'd make a good optician. And so we incentivize our team heavily. Uh, I think we offer them like $500 if they refer somebody to the practice that we end up hiring. And if that same person is still in our team six months later, then they get, that's, that team member that referred [00:20:00] gets another a thousand dollars.

So they can make, you know, a good bonus if they refer somebody. it's so expensive to deal with. it's been set at, you know, cost anywhere from half to a whole year's compensation to lose team member. So if you're paying an optician, let's say $50,000 and you lose that person, it'll cost the practice another $50,000 to replace them. So we're really, you know, kind of lasered in on hiring, slowly, hiring the right people, and then working on their development over time.

Ankit Patel: Okay. Excellent. Um, so what do you do in the short staff times? Like you're too short. Like you just say like, Hey guys, we're just gonna work overtime. And kind of work through stuff. Like how, how do you manage that? Because I, I feel it's real reality a lot of offices are facing right now.

Larry Golson: Yeah, most, most practices I work with are understaffed

Ankit Patel: Yeah.

Larry Golson: Uh, I always encourage people to overstaff and also build their bench

Ankit Patel: Hmm.

Larry Golson: When we do need to call upon somebody to hire someone, it's nice to have several people that we, we've met, that we are interested in. [00:21:00] And as far as what we do. At times like these is number one.

We accept the fact that we're going to, um, not be as profitable or not drive revenue during those times. We just know that's gonna happen and accept it. And then number two, sometimes we reduce our schedule. To accommodate the fact that if we have a low amount of opticians, we're just not gonna be able to see that many patients or the doctors know to tell the patients, Hey, you know, glad you're here today.

We're gonna need to reschedule you to come back to look at glasses. And we work to reschedule the patients. And so we do internally change the way that we operate to accommodate a lower staff because working overtime and overworking our existing team is gonna cause burnout over time. And it's gonna damage the culture. And so there's a balancing act and I think as, leaders, we all have to think about discernment and when can we push the gas and when do we need to coast and [00:22:00] when do we need to push the brakes?

Ankit Patel: Gotcha. Okay. Um, yeah, I think those are the realities of the situation sometimes. Uh, and you know, it's interesting you say you, you encourage folks to over hire, even in like the, the mar thinner margin type, Medicaid type practices. Uh. If you work with any of those folks, I know that's, that can be a little bit more difficult.

'cause it's like, Hey, you gotta see patients, you gotta execute over staffing though they might lose some of the margin that they're, they're they're doing, especially if they don't have the volume. Um, is it kind of generally good across the board from what you see? Or like Yeah. Tell us about some insights around that.

Larry Golson: Yeah. You know, I, I know some Medicaid practices that are more profitable than mine and it's a different model. And that's, that's a really good point that you bring up is that, this is not a cookie cutter solution for everyone. 'cause sometimes there are thinner margins and the practice can't afford to overstaff. And so it really depends on what the financials look like at a given time and what the cash reserves look like at a given time. you know, for [00:23:00] my Medicaid practices, it's all about throughput. And, you know, my practice is, is very different than that. It's, it's more of a mid to high end practice, very high touch, um, you know, very nice optical and everything. Medicaid practice. I, I know a practice in Louisiana, and he is so good at getting people through his system. He takes great care of his patients, but man, they are, they're, they're just like fast and so totally different model than mine, but it works and it, it's profitable. So, um, you know, it overstaffing for him works because he knows that he has, he delegates a lot to his, his tech technicians and medical assistants.

Ankit Patel: Interesting. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I won't name him here, but we'll have to get him as a guest too, if he's willing. So.

Larry Golson: Yeah, it'd be a great guess for

Ankit Patel: Yeah, he would, he would, he'd be a fun guest. Um, excellent. So now let's, um, let's talk about what you're excited about. So you get a unique opportunity to kind of see a slice of the industry 'cause you work so many, you speak.

Um, what are you excited about for the industry in the next [00:24:00] 5, 10, 15 years? Like, what do you see as trends? What do you see things as you're personally excited about and for the industry? What are you excited about?

Larry Golson: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. The first thing that comes to mind has to be ai. I mean, gosh, there's so many applications and the more I talk to colleagues, well, gosh, like you on kit, uh, who are on the cutting edge of technology, uh, the more applications I see that my mind didn't even think of as an opportunity. So I think that there's a tremendous opportunity for us to become more efficient. Maybe, uh, be able to have less of a team, you know, with still being high performing and, delivering great service to our, our patients, but also to be, uh, less numerous and so that way we can help with payroll expenses pay our existing team members individually more. Another aspect that I'm really excited about is the dry eye and aesthetics world because, uh. know, personally, it's [00:25:00] hard for our, I, I believe it's hard for our industry to continue to see our reimbursements drop. And I know there's, I've heard that like VSP is opening their own brick and mortar stores and,

Ankit Patel: Oh,

Larry Golson: at buying.

Ankit Patel: vision. Vision, uh, works wasn't enough for them. They want via branded ones, I guess. Yeah.

Larry Golson: Yeah. I think that they're gonna continue to do that. And vertical integration is a, a reality. And so as, as small practice as small business owners, we really need to think outside. The bun here and look for ways to differentiate ourselves. So specialty contacts, vt, dry eye, and aesthetics all come to mind that I'm, I'm excited about the, the last two I mentioned in my practice we're really passionate about those aspects. But I do think that our opticals need to be differentiated. I think that we need to not be carrying the same thing that they can get very easily at some of the. outfits or, um, online and, you know, like these frames that I have on now, uh, they're, they're a company called [00:26:00] UDM Unique Design Milan.

And, uh, to my knowledge, you can't really find them except for, you know, in our practice. And of course, you know, I'm sure you find anything if you look hard enough online, but to differentiate so that they. They look at our opticals differently than they would other places and, uh, to offer services that maybe not be covered by these insurance plans. That allow us to be more profitable with the same amount of time. I think that those, those things are what I'm really excited about. I think that there's a ton of opportunity and I, and I hear a lot of, oh, this, you know, private equity or, you know, um, you know, online eye exams and all this stuff, but I, I just feel like there's just such a need for great eyecare, but we have to be different than the other options available out there in the community.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, that's a con constant theme I hear on the podcast is expanding scope. And practice to the full scope that your state allows. And some states allow a lot. So, so some folks are, you know, they're doing like laser treatments and it was like, wow, okay. But they, you know, they're like the only optometrist or [00:27:00] doctor in, within 200 miles or something.

So, um, I wish we had that opportunity here in Georgia, but you know, it's a little more restricted here. Uh, but you know, it's interesting 'cause uh, you're right about the niche is I'm, we're actually, he's a future guest. Uh, he's coming on later. I was talking to him. He was saying they started an after hours model for optometrist specific needs.

I was like, that's brilliant. And so I'm excited to talk to him about that. But there's so many creative ways that hey, we can expand the scope of optometry. And it's interesting 'cause I want to touch on one thing and get your thoughts on this. We've learned that there's different personas that like different things, and even side, like vision, vision therapy, there's individual personas.

So you've got the, the mom who is a, a like big heavy researcher and then there's other folks who may be more, uh, impulse like, oh, you know what? I just heard about this. We gotta go. And so, uh, even with our shoppers, like for our retail side, sometimes it's a fashion oriented client. Sometimes it's a budget conscious person.

So understanding who we are [00:28:00] relative to who we serve has been important for us. How do you see that balance out? 'cause you're your, like you said, your office is a little bit more, I'd, I'd classify it closer to the higher end model. Um, you know, it's not like super high end where you have like, you know, extremely high end like you see in some of the cities, but it's pretty up there, especially for your area.

Um. Talk to us about the, your, your, your personas, your target. How do you think through that? How do you see offices work through that? Do you see people trying to be everything to everyone, or is it better, like, hey, you kind of know who you are and you know, talk about how you do that and how you see other people do that?

Larry Golson: Yeah, sure. Well, the first thing that I think of when I think about who we wanna market to is our target market list. And this is a concept. I know you run EOS with traction in your office as well. And we, you know, we started running traction in 2019 and it's been transformational for us. And if you're not aware of what I'm talking about, it's a book written by Gino Wickman.

I encourage you to read it. Uh, it's one of the things that we help practices implement with [00:29:00] Sherpa. But either way, our target market is 30 to 75-year-old females that live within 35 miles of our practice, that are health driven style conscious, that appreciate a high, level And so that is whenever we go to market our practice, who we focus on. And if we ever step out of those guidelines, I'll remind my, because I have a marketing lead now, uh, someone that's devoted on my practice to marketing our, our practice in the community. And I'll have sometimes, every once in a while I'll have to remind, Hey, listen, what is our target market list? reset.

She'll be All right, Dr. Goldson, and she'll reset the thing that I just said. And I said, all right, so this, this particular ad or this particular thing, you know, that you went to is this in our target market? And she's like, well, no, not exactly, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I have to kind of remind her this is really what we're after. And I think it's really important that we know who we market to and, [00:30:00] and what niche in our communities that we fill. I think that's wildly important. we can't be everything to everybody, nor should we try. really three. that we can compete its service and its price and its quality. Pick your favorite two. And so in my practice, we, we decided not to compete on price. 'cause it's really hard to compete with the Walmarts and the, you know, uh, vision Marts and all the other, you know. Uh, zeni opticals that you, you know, people buy from. So we compete on quality and service, and those are the two areas that we focus our, our hard work on. so, yeah, knowing who we serve, knowing who we market to, and who we now, we will serve anybody cradle to grave. I mean, we, it's not just that we only see those patients, uh, in our practice, but if we're gonna go to the efforts of marketing and we're gonna. know, go onto the community at these different events and, and, you know, hang our banner and say, Hey, we're Envision Eyecare. Those are the, those are the events that we look for. [00:31:00] And, uh, it's, it's really, in my opinion, a mistake to try and be everything to everybody

Ankit Patel: Hmm.

Larry Golson: Just, you know, try and do like a shotgun approach because there's just too much, uh, competition out there for that.

Ankit Patel: Yeah. Yeah. It, it's tougher two, um, you know, the, I was doing an industry study. Um, the, it's interesting, optometry's a really unique business 'cause it's really like two or three businesses in one. If you look at just the services side, it's pretty fragmented. There's not like a dominant player necessarily, right?

Like no one really has more, like, I think I, my eye doctor, at least at the time, who was the biggest player around 20% market share. But if you look at the retail side, that's like, okay, Luxotica Sr. Luxotica owned like the majority, right? They're, they're the big behemoth. It's consolidated. It's a premature industry.

So it's almost like, Hey, where do you wanna play and how do you wanna play? Um, and, and where can you make the most biggest impact? So if I look at that. Yeah, I wanna play on the fragmented side where I have more leverage and control, even though I'm not a doctor, but I'd want my doctors to practice the full scope.

Let's do some dry eye, [00:32:00] let's do myop, opiate control. Let's take a look at treating glaucoma. Whatever you feel comfortable treating, let's treat that here.

Larry Golson: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: Because that side is so fragmented, uh, retail. Yes. We have to find where we can be competitive with the big boys 'cause it's not gonna be built and they will come.

It's a competitive market there. Um, which is super interesting 'cause I think that's been a hell of a philosophy for us. And similar to what you said. Can't be everything to everyone. It's hard those days.

Larry Golson: Well I really appreciate our conversations, uh, in the past about this because you do have such a wide birth of knowledge and different industries and you know, see things. You might not be an optometrist, but you've, you've had experience in these other industries and you can apply that to eyecare.

And so, you know, when you speak up and we've been in our different mastermind groups and different, uh, conversations we've had, when you speak up about this type of things like that, I really start to listen because, you know, really and truly, and I, I'm not just trying to like flatter you, uh, smoke, but I, I, I feel like. When I speak about surrounding yourselves with people who are more experienced or have, you know, are [00:33:00] smarter than I am, you're one of those people on Kit because you do have that, you know, just kind of all these different, um, experiences and, uh, knowledge in different industries that you apply to iCare, which is really cool.

Ankit Patel: Cool. I appreciate it. Larry. Checks in the mail so.

Larry Golson: perfect.

Ankit Patel: Uh, so let's, uh, I wanna shift gears a little bit. Let's talk about you personally. You have a really unique approach to the business. What made Larry, Larry, like, give, give us a story about a formative moment for you could have been when you were younger, could have been a few years ago, but something that really impacted you to say like, this is who, why I am who I am today.

Larry Golson: Well, let's see. That's a, a great question. There's been a, a host of them. Um, and I think that for me, what. I guess I could tell the story of how I ended up becoming an optometrist. And you know, the Cliff note version of that is I entered University of Georgia as a business major and [00:34:00] I was taking my first kind of like conversation with the consultant that tells you what classes to take to fulfill your major. as they were looking up something on their computer, I turned and I saw someone walking the business school with a suit and tie on. And I just had all this vision. My dad's a financial advisor. I had a vision of him walking every morning. Uh, into breakfast wearing a, you know, a tie and a, you know, wearing a suit every day.

And I was like, I don't wanna wear a suit and coat every day. So I actually just because of that one image switched my major to biology and I was gonna be a veterinarian. And, uh, I loved animals, I loved science. I was like, all right, well this could work too. And I worked for a few veterinarians, one in Atlanta, one in Athens, Georgia, and both were actually pretty miserable.

And, uh. Uh, veterinarians I have tremendous respect for. It's a, seems like a very hard, uh, field to be in for lots of reasons, but I also realized it wasn't for me. And so I started looking at other medical disciplines and I started looking pretty hard at optometry and chiropractic and chose [00:35:00] optometry. And it was a formative moment because, uh, I remember being in a, a optics physics class in college and I had this really sweet, he was a, a short Japanese. Uh, professor and he just loved optics. And I don't know if you've ever studied optics

Ankit Patel: Yeah.

Larry Golson: Kid, but it is not the most exciting subject. But this guy, for whatever reason, he was just like bananas about it. And that I caught some of that, uh, excitement. It was contagious. And so I, I ended up applying to optometry school. And the most formative moment was when I went down to Costa Rica with my AVAV group, and that stands for Student Volunteers of Optometric Service to Humanity. And we'd raise money throughout the year to buy flights, and we would go down to a third world country. And back then, uh, I guess Costa Rica was considered more of a total country than it is now. But at any rate, we would give eye exams and eyewear to, uh, some of the impoverished communities and that went to my entire first year of optometry [00:36:00] school studying pretty basic science, still not knowing if optometry was right, even after a year of optometry school.

But when I went down to Costa Rica and I had my first interaction with real people in that setting of patient doctor relationship. I loved it I was like this, this is awesome. You get to help people see, you get to help them. Like it's almost like instant gratification to go from like not seeing to seeing. And also it's a, it's an area of, of fashion, so you get to help people feel better about the way they are seen. it's also really cool dorky science stuff, which I love. So I would say that what made me into an optometrist was optometrist was a series of events, but that I remember that moment in Costa Rica being a aha moment.

Like, is it, I've arrived, this is what I wanna do with my life.

Ankit Patel: Nice. That's really cool. I, I really like that story. I think I've had, there's been a couple other people I've talked to, I've had similar like, oh wow, this is, this is it for me. 'cause they've helped someone to do a mission trip or something like that. [00:37:00] Um, appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. I didn't realize that.

I didn't know that about you.

Larry Golson: sure.

Ankit Patel: Um, so let's back it up. So you, you hinted at optometry school a little bit and uh, by the way, I won't hold it against you that you went to Georgia. I went to Georgia Tech, but it's okay.

Larry Golson: Oh man. We'll have to talk about that after the show.

Ankit Patel: Well, for those of you who don't know, it's a, a, a rivalry, but I don't really count it one 'cause we haven't won anything in years. So it's not really a rivalry when the other person doesn't think you're rival. But, uh, but, but regardless, I'm curious, what advice would you give to your younger self coming right out of Optometry school, knowing what you know now?

Larry Golson: Yeah. Knowing what I know now is. The advice I would give is, is like, you know, take your time figuring out what you really wanna do with your career. Because, you know, I was fortunate in the idea that I got to work for a lot of different practice modalities to kind of understand the good, the bad, and the ugly with our field.

I worked for ophthalmology, I worked for commercial, I [00:38:00] worked for other doctors. I worked for. Independent opticals. And I really got to see, you know, the soup to nuts of our field in that way. And, you know, I would say that getting out of school, I think for, for younger ods now, they come of school oftentimes with crushing debt. And I think that's really hard. You know, it's for, we're fortunate to be in optometry where we can repay that debt. I know a lot of. Students come out of college and post-college studies with, with degrees that they can't really afford to pay their student loans back. So we are fortunate in that sense, but also, you know, to find the balance of what type of practice do I want and what feels right and, and sometimes you just gotta work in different places to get that right of passage to know. then I would say to people who are thinking about practice ownership. To really make sure that you, you wanna do. Practice ownership. 'cause if you're, you know, I've talked to [00:39:00] optometrists, they're like, maybe I wanna start a practice. I'm not really sure. And I usually advise those people not to start a practice because it really is.

And as you know, running practice is yourself on it. It's a, it's a labor of love. I mean, there's great days and there's great, you know, opportunity with it and flexibility in some cases, but it's also very easy to become a slave to it. And I remember working 70, 80 hours a week for the first year or two of opening my practice from a cold start. And I will never do that again. I mean, I would never choose that again. I, I was, you know, in my early thirties and it was fine at the time and I'm glad I did it. also part of my motivation for wanting to delegate pretty much everything in the practice to other people is to create freedom. And I think that it's a, it's a maybe a misnomer that, know, you, you own your own business and therefore you get to be your own boss.

You get to be free because it can easily go the other direction. And so I like to. You know, have a conversation about that with people when they're, we're thinking about it.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty cool. I like, I like that insight. Uh, and if people want more insights [00:40:00] and they wanna reach out to you, where can people find you?

Larry Golson: Yeah, sure. Um, well, my email is dg@sherpaconsults.com and they can message me there. Um, my, if they wanna learn more about my practice and vision eyecare, it's my Envision Eyecare. com and so they can, they can find more about our practice in, in Asheville if they go to that website. But either way, um, you know, feel free to reach out to me 'cause I love to, love to help and I, I really enjoy talking to optometrists across the country and I have a, a, uh, client in Canada as well and it's really cool to see the differences between the two countries. Um, but yeah, I think that. In my personal opinion, private practice is the best way to deliver care and it's the best way as a patient to receive care that's available. And so I really wanna see us thrive as small businesses and small practices and, uh, be able to be relevant in for years to come.

Ankit Patel: That's awesome. [00:41:00] Well, and we'll put those in the show notes for folks so they can reach out to you.

Larry Golson: Awesome. Thank you.

Ankit Patel: Thank you again, Dr. Goon, for being on the show.

Larry Golson: Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Ankit Patel: Yeah, and thank you audience for listening. If you learn something today or laugh, tell someone about the podcast and YouTube channel. And thank you again, Larry. This has been another exciting episode of Optometrist Building Empires. We'll see you next time.