Optometrists Building Empires

Dr. Rupe Hansra: [00:00:00] you know, what are ODs interested in?" And that really hasn't changed.

He said, "Staffing, staffing, and staffing."

Kerry Giedd: we've been trying to, to fill a position or two on and off a year or two, and, and the applicant pool is different. The, the. Just the, the capacity to, to manage things and multitask within the office. It's, it does seem like it's a different workflow, so, You know, we're, we've had to adjust accordingly.

we have done some, uh, You know, resourcing outside the office and, and, uh, You know, I'll give you a plug on that, on it. We've used my business care team and have a great virtual assistant who, uh, You know, helps us with a lot of different things, administratively that don't need to happen in our practice.

Justin Nguyen and Alyssa Pack: it's a great way for us to manage our patient or our staff because if someone calls out, then we still have someone to, You know, say, answer the phones and people aren't juggling having to see patients you.

That walk in and then answer the phones at the same time. So we think that's been [00:01:00] amazing.

This is Optometrist Building Empires, and I'm your host. I'm Kit Patel. Each week we'll explore the journey of practice ownership and leadership in optometry. Join us for insights and strategies from the top minds in our field. This show is sponsored by my business care team. My business care team helps your office increase revenues, reduce costs, and reduce staffing headaches.

Let's build your empire together.

Ankit Patel: as you were growing your practices, uh, what'd you run into that you didn't expect? Like, y- you know, uh, w- what was surprising like, "Man, this was not what I expected. It was harder than I expected."

Something like that. What was a challenge

Dr. Rupe Hansra: You know, w- many years ago when I was a young OD, uh, I had the pleasure of, uh, of writing a few articles for Optometric Management Magazine, and Jim Thomas, who was the chief editor back then, I said, "Jim, you know, what are ODs interested in?" And that really hasn't changed.

He said, "Staffing, staffing, and staffing." So, so, you know, you go out, you recruit, you find the best staff, you onboard them, [00:02:00] things are starting to hum. You got your people in place, and then the next thing you know, somebody says, "Hey, you know, I, I, I'm, I found another job," or, "I'm moving out of state," or, "I'm, you know, I'm, I'm getting married."

And so they wanna switch, and then you're starting all over again. And that, you know, I think we saw a lot of that during COVID. I mean, during COVID, you know, finding employees was at a premium, and you put an ad out in the paper, for example, or online, and people are ready to come in. You set the time, and they don't even show up for an interview.

Or they show up, they, they, you, you're ready to get hired, then they don't show up for the first day of work. It was, it was just an incredible time, and there was, uh, you know, the competition, uh, not only for, for staffing, but for doctors during that time was, uh, was at a premium. And so I think staffing is always unexpected, and you really have to have some thick skin.

And, you know, it is, it's a choice. It's a personal choice whether somebody [00:03:00] wants to work, uh, with you, and you have to be able to respect that, and you have to be able to create an environment that people actually want to work with you as well. But, but the staff turnover is, is always the hardest thing for me.

Ankit Patel: I can't tell you how many times I know that lesson, and I still have turnover, and I'm still hurt by it

Dr. Rupe Hansra: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: believe that." And I know it's gonna happen.

Dr. Rupe Hansra: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: natural order of things, right? Um, but yeah, it's al- it's never easy it seems like.

It, it always seems a little personal for me at least.

Dr. Rupe Hansra: It, it, it does feel very, very personal. And, you know, again, when I was a younger OD, I had a, I had a situation where I wanted to leave. And my, uh, my supervisor was an OD. He, he's somebody that I aspired to back in Chicago, Mark Jacquot. And I wanted to move to California. And Mark was, you know, "Roop, I'm sad to see you go, but at the same time, I'm really happy for you because I want you to, to, to chase what's out there and explore what else is out there."

And so, you know, that was a really good [00:04:00] lesson to me because it's, you know, it's, for a guy who's got a lot of drive and who's competitive- That's really not intuitive to my thinking. It's something that, you know, through mentorship, you have to be able to shape that thought. And I, I use that as an example, uh, for when, you know, for when doctors want to leave.

Um, you know, my goal is, is I, I-- when I hire folks, I try to develop them. So I have a quarterly develop- development program. So maybe we start with situational leadership, we go into fierce conversations. But every quarter, you know, we have, um, almost-- it's almost like getting an M- an executive MBA. You know, we, we got a core group of doctors.

Um, we, we have, um, you know, a, a, a focus. There's a-- typically, there's a book or some leadership principles. We tie that back to what's actually happening in the practice, the behaviors that we want to change, and then tie that to a measurable result. And so they go through this probably for about six quarters.

I [00:05:00] think that's where I feel very, very comfortable that they, they really understand the philosophy that I'm trying to build, but we're actually building leaders. So when then they just-- when they just say, "You know what? I, I feel like I've, you know, I've hit a ceiling with you, Roop. Like, what else is there for me?

I, I'd like to get a-- either I'd like to get a piece of the action, I'd like to do a role that you're doing," um, or by the way, there's a private practice that, that is down the street that I used to work at and they're selling. And the-- you know, what the most satisfying thing for me now is to say, "You know, go ahead, spread your wings, fly away."

But when they come back a year, a year and a half later and they said, "You know, Dr. Hansra, we doubled the optical the first year I got it," that has happened to me, I can tell you m- more than a half a dozen times, and that to me makes me feel really, really great that like, this is what it should be about.

Like, I picked the right person. This person is [00:06:00] self-motivated, they're driven, and they're, they're sustaining this, this concept or this philosophy. And so I, I couldn't be more happy for their success.

Ankit Patel: I love how your focus to scale is the people, people first

Dr. Rupe Hansra: Yeah.

Ankit Patel: I think a lot of times we think like, "Am I offering the right things? Do I have the right equipment?" Which are, those are all baseline things you need, but your path for growth was all around people focus and sys-system focus secondary with people first.

Kerry Giedd: We went through COVID and we were really fortunate. Like, I feel like we, we had this great team, You know, we, we really bonded through COVID. We didn't fire anybody or furlough anybody. Nobody missed a paycheck. It, and it just was. A terrible time that we weathered that storm pretty well as a business.

And, and, and then, You know, as the Great Recession came and just, You know, life, life happens, You know, working as a tech and optometry practice is a, is a bit of a dead end job. You know, there's not a lot of room for growth and, and opportunity. So people. You know, pass through and, and move on. So anyway, You know, as, as the [00:07:00] years have followed since COVID, I, I think we, there were, we were a little bit of a delayed, realization of these challenges that people had been facing a little bit sooner than us.

But, it's hit, You know, we've, we've been trying to, to fill a position or two on and off a year or two, and, and the applicant pool is different. The, the. Just the, the capacity to, to manage things and multitask within the office. It's, it does seem like it's a different workflow, so, You know, we're, we've had to adjust accordingly.

we have done some, uh, You know, resourcing outside the office and, and, uh, You know, I'll give you a plug on that, on it. We've used my business care team and have a great virtual assistant who, uh, You know, helps us with a lot of different things, administratively that don't need to happen in our practice.

and that covers things from filing, insurance and vision plan claims, uh, or, or apply applying EOBs, managing appointment requests online. Um. A lot of patient [00:08:00] communications through email or, uh, text. and, and, and we can just delegate whatever. I can send her a task through my EHR, and say, Hey, just can you do this for me?

And, and, and she'll do whatever. And, that's been been a great thing. We're still building her skills. I, I do think, You know, as, I don't need to tell you, but for people that have been on that path with. Virtual assistants and are considering it. I think you have to realize, like you, you have to put the work in.

They don't come in knowing, You know, how your practice operates and they have a foundational knowledge a lot of times, and ours did, and she's great with the English language, even though it's not her first language. And, and that's all wonderful, but it's. They're, you have to pour into them a lot. And she's not in our office to see our culture daily.

And so, so there's some work on that. But, but for the affordability as well as the way you can preserve the culture and the capacity of your onsite team, You know, their, uh, [00:09:00] mental, You know, health or whatever you wanna call it, as best you can, where they're, You know, running, running themselves, spread thin, You know, outsourcing some things that way has been opportunity.

Jason: I brought my best staff member from my prior location to the office, and they just couldn't really put it

together. I fired the manager within two weeks of starting. Um, members slowly trickled out for different reasons, you know, some personal, some

I had to let go just because of the overall performance. And I think my last new staff member from that point sent me a message when I got home from the hospital having my second daughter, I wasn't gonna be there for a week, saying, "Hey, I took a job for a dollar more at another practice." And I was like, "Okay, I think it's time for you to just go home. Don't bother coming back tomorrow. You know, enjoy your life." [00:10:00] So that point, I'm bringing in new staff constantly. You know, that's been the hardest part, honestly, since opening, is staffing, finding people that are self-motivated, that really enjoy eyewear and just helping people. We run off of a system, I'd say, more akin to a hotel versus a medical office. It's all about hospitality and taking care of people, thinking one step ahead of everybody and always having the answer ready, what they need next going before they get there. And that's really been, I think, the key to our success, is the ability to see what patients want, anticipate that, and stay in front of it.

I've actually moved away from hiring experienced staff members.

Ankit: [00:11:00] Hmm.

Jason: We train everything. best seller was a manager at a little retail spot called Salad and Go.

I

Ankit: Yeah.

Jason: Don't know if you have those by us, but it's a

Ankit: We got that.

Jason: Lot that sells salad

Ankit: Nice.

Jason: Into a multimillion-dollar company,

he was great at multitasking, great personality. The last person I hired was a Starbucks manager. Prior to that, there's one that's a retail trainer at Express. She would take the new hires and teach them how to interact with people and how to sell. And all of them have been fantastic.

But there's been, you know, eight duds in between.

Ankit: You know, even the best companies in the world, I was hearing that they get, they get it right only about 60% of the time. Like, uh, and so hiring is hard. So I, I like this. So it sounds like you're hiring for attitude,

skill set. for attitude, and don't be afraid to fire quickly. You know, keep a [00:12:00] probationary period. Be Prepared that if they don't start hitting those metrics, and make sure you write out the metrics that are expected. know, if you expect them to have a 60% capture rate, make sure that's written down in a contract that they have to hit, and if they don't hit that rate, b- they're out the door.

Yeah. It's, you know, it's interesting because I, I think, and, and maybe you can speak to this, how you've dealt with this. I see so often, and I felt it too, man, they're not doing their job, but I really don't want to bring in someone new. I'm so busy. I'm going to be working more. I got to man- like, do I really want to do that?

I'll just deal with it and let things slide.

Jason: Oh, man. I run a small staff,

Ankit: Yeah.

Jason: With two people in the office, if one person's not doing their job, the other person is killing themself. it becomes real easy and real self-explanatory that the person who's doing all the work needs to tell me, "Hey, so and so is not doing their job."

You know, if they don't take that initiative, I won't know. But once they take that initiative, I give them the exact option. I say, [00:13:00] "Hey, let's start an improvement plan. Let's get them going. But if they don't make that improvement plan, would you be okay with me firing them? will have to work a little bit harder for a time period, but the goal will be to bring in somebody who is a much better fit and helper to you to work synergistically to end all these problems."

Ankit: I like that. Um, that's interesting. So, and so you don't have a, a manager over both locations, correct? just you?

Jason: one manager that I have at one location, and she's one of the two staff members, and then an assistant manager, somebody who really knows what they're doing at the second location, the highest paid, more bonuses, more money going their way to handle more tasks and more of the issues.

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: . How else are you doing with staffing challenges or are you having staffing challenges? It's,

Carlos Grandela: is, it's a good question to ask right now 'cause I'm in the middle of, of changing things. I won't have

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: students for

Carlos Grandela: for the next six months or so. It's just the way the lottery worked this year. And so,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: I'm

Carlos Grandela: having to get an additional exam tech to fill kind of what the students have been doing for me.[00:14:00]

So, uh, You know, kinda the breakup with our two main offices. I've got two opticians. I have two front desks. I have a remote biller.

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: Um,

Carlos Grandela: and then I have two pre-testing technicians. And so our, um.

We're setting up now,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: we're gonna

Carlos Grandela: gonna start working with Weave. 'cause we've never been doing texting or anything like that for,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: for

Carlos Grandela: patients,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: before.

Most of our

Carlos Grandela: of our patients are pretty old, not interested in that. But as the years go by, even our 80 year olds are on their smartphone. So it's, it's high time. If you're not doing texting, that's stuff probably good time to start doing it. Um, but so

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: we're

Carlos Grandela: moving somebody into a remote scheduling position.

Because of that, to manage a lot of what's going on with,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: uh,

Carlos Grandela: that side of things.

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: Um, I'm

Carlos Grandela: I'm having to get an additional exam tech to keep us on this double booking.

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: That we're

Carlos Grandela: we're doing.

Um, and

I'm in this process of hiring associate doctors. So I've got two part-timers to help fill this other office. I'm at a point, um, we're booked out eight to 12 weeks that we're kind of ready to add a couple more days.[00:15:00]

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: So

Carlos Grandela: while I could probably have a traveling staff that goes along with me from place to place,

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: um. I,

Carlos Grandela: I need staff that stays at their location so that I can get another doctor to fill those spots when I'm not there. And ultimately that will raise our revenue while keeping our expenses pretty

cloudRecording_FullConference_Take_123: to the same.

Nathan Heilman: the one thing I hear from patients time and time again is it's just every time I come here, I just really think you have the best staff. You're just the nicest people. I just really want you to know that. And I, I take that really to heart, say thank you.

I'm glad to hear that you like him as much as I do. Um, but the strategy is really when you interview. I don't interview somebody for skills. I interview somebody for just, are they, do they have the right personality? Do they have the right traits? Because you can train skills, right? But you can't necessarily train someone to have the soft skills, You know, to have the emotional intelligence, to [00:16:00] have the right way that they handle themselves with patients on a day-to-day basis. pick that up just from having a conversation about anything. And so we've actually brought in a number of individuals that, uh, really had no prior training, but they had just the right traits that we thought would blend well with our group that everybody kind of gets along, if you will.

That's, I think that's important, but not only that, just how do they relate to patients. Um, do they have common sense? Do they have a way of. Broaching uncomfortable subjects in a way that is, again, emotionally intelligent and, uh, validates the individual without being defensive, You know, without, uh, jumping to conclusions.

So that is how I think we were able to build a good group of people, is we just shopped around for the right personality traits.

Ankit Patel: Hmm. I like that. So you, um, is there, uh, a specific like secret [00:17:00] sauce that you look for? Like, how did You know that they, they weren't like the wrong.

Nathan Heilman: Oh, it's a good question. I, I would just put it down to guts. It's just kind of a gut feeling, not only from myself, but I also, You know, have a couple other higher, You know, level staff that I've trusted to, to kind of give me their insights as well. And right after an interview we can kinda look at each other, said, yep, yep.

She's, she's. That that's the person that we want. Uh, and we've definitely taken people with lesser experience, lesser skills for those that have those personality traits that we just kind of have a feeling for. We just know

Ankit Patel: Okay.

Nathan Heilman: Gonna fit well and we're willing to take a chance on, versus somebody that's like, okay, they're more skilled. But I also have kind of found That individuals with less skill are more malleable to your way of doing things. If you are looking for individuals that have greater skill sets and sort of set in their ways,

sometimes it's difficult for them

to blend [00:18:00] into your system, Say, well, I know you've done it that way for 20 years, Edith, but what we need to do here is just if you can do it just a little bit differently, we we'd appreciate that.

And

sometimes people just don't budge. Like, no, I'm doing it my way or the highway. And it's like, well, okay, well then we have another decision we have to make.

Kyle Maxam: You know, starting the second location, um, getting Brookville up and running it, it's far enough removed that we had kind of forgotten about all the difficulties early on when, You know, we started off in, in Brookville, we had. Three employees. So you had somebody call off sick, you lose 33% of your, your employees.

Um, so you're, you're.

shorthanded. I can remember the days of working with my, my office manager. Do we need to reschedule patients, You know, trying to figure that out. Where now in Brookville we have 15 team, uh, 15 team members where somebody's sick. It works better when we're all here, but we can easily kind of cover for each other And help out.

So now that we're seeing that, in Germantown, You know, starting off at, at a smaller group. We were [00:19:00] intentional with the people that we're bringing in. Now they're all hired knowing that they may have to go between the two offices. So we have a handful of teammates that are, they're cross-trained, that they can help out in the optical, they can help out as a tech, and, and they know if somebody gets called off in, in Brookville or in Germantown, they may go down there and help out.

Ankit Patel: can you touch on that a little bit? Because I think some people might be hearing this and saying, wow, 20 minutes, 20 miles away, I could never get my staff to go that far.

Kyle Maxam: Yeah,

Ankit Patel: Like what is it that you do differently culturally, that people gravitate towards your office?

Kyle Maxam: yeah. and it was being really slow and very intentional on How we, hire our team members. so we've gone through the hiring process and now indeed, you, just get A huge influx of, people applying. We'll get 4 or 500 people within a couple weeks and it's just being patient.

You know, we're, being a small town, it's kind of, it's a unicorn to find someone who's already trained in the position you're hiring for that's got a good culture fit that matches what we're about, what [00:20:00] our mission is at the office. So we, tend to go off of personality. We go for people who are hardworking, that work well with teams and have a great personality.

So for us, it, it's being patient. We've had times where we're, we're a month in and we're. You know, me and my office manager will be joking. We'll be like, man, are we ever gonna find somebody? Are we gonna, You know, do we need to start cutting the schedule? Do we need to start doing this or that? And it's, um, just being patient and waiting for the right people to come in.

So we, every time we found the right fits, um, people who are mission oriented with us, who, who wanna, um, there to help patients, that they work well with teammates and, You know. You know, we've even had times where, You know, we, we've had them show up at the office in Brookville last minute. Someone calls off, they'll go down to Germantown for the morning, come back to Brookville, and, and they just know how our patients always come first.

Ankit Patel: So I'm gonna ask an interesting question

Kyle Maxam: Yeah. Yeah.

Ankit Patel: me about when, um, you hired someone [00:21:00] and there was a false positive. You thought they're a good cultural fit and they ended up not being, what happened? How'd you work through that?

Kyle Maxam: Yeah. And, and we've had very few over the years, thinking back of a teammate, that didn't work out. It was because of performance. Um, it, it was almost always if, if something didn't work out, it was usually how they interacted with the team. Um, and it's tough. I, I like to say I'm always really quick to, to, um.

You know, make, make the needed adjustments. And sometimes we, we keep team members around maybe a little longer than we should, hoping. Again, we're in a small town, so a lot of the, the teammates that we have, they're, they're in our community. My kids might go to school with 'em, and it, it could be tough. Um.

But again, it, it ultimately comes down to the reason why we keep growing is because we, we want to keep making a bigger impact.

Erika Morrow: My staff is incredible. I don't know. I, I am very lucky. I mean, I, I definitely feel like I compensate my team really, really well. One of the things that I changed three years ago is I changed everybody to a four day work week. [00:22:00] 'cause I found that if somebody worked over 36 hours in a week, that they called out the next week. And it was something that I tracked very consistently. I was like, why does this happen? You know, I have a headache. I don't feel good. Um, my stomach hurts. Oh, I have this for my pet. And I was like, You know what? I'm not, I don't work Monday through Friday. Why should they work Monday through Friday? So I changed it so that they're, um, Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday, I have two employees that like to have a midday week off.

So they mon do Monday, Tuesday, off Wednesday, and then work Thursday, Friday.

Ankit: Gotcha. I like that. And You know, that's not the, you, you're actually the first person I hear to say that, that that's actually made a huge difference in terms of staff stability.

Erika Morrow: Oh my gosh, it's incredible. Like I honestly, I get to the end of the year, I'm like, you guys have PTO, you

Ankit: They're like, we're, we're good. We have three day weekends. What's the point? Yeah,

Justin Nguyen and Alyssa Pack: In the beginning as I mentioned, it was like just having only two people with people calling out. Also, like the quality when in the beginning we weren't really sure, we didn't refine our hiring process really [00:23:00] well. Um, so we would just kind of hire without deeply looking at more, maybe interviewing more candidates kind of thing.

So we've had our fair share of just people that were not a good fit.

So in the beginning it was like that, finding the right people. And then as the years went on, it's like once we do find them and now we, we, we found them, which is great. Now it's like putting them in the right seats, figuring out should they. All just be cross-trained or, um, should we now start having just like a dedicated optician where that's all you do, right.

And a dedicated pretest, or now that we have more people on our team, um, 'cause now we have, uh, like four or five, five people. Mm-hmm. Not full-time, but maybe three to four or full-time equivalents. So now we, we've. Managed to shift from everybody being cross-trained to now you have your focus. Um, but some of the challenges is training, uh, making sure that you're like, retain the information.

Uh, sometimes it, the biggest challenge is while [00:24:00] you're seeing patients like in between, they're, they're waiting to out at your door to ask you a question because they don't have that autonomy yet, or like kind of the. They're thinking like, what would I, You know, if I can't, uh, see Dr. Noy or Dr. P, what would I do?

You know? So we're

trying To train them to be more independent and stuff like that, and empower them ultimately. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ankit Patel: that a lot. Um, anything specific, like, can you tell us something specific that might work well for you that has worked or maybe something you could try that didn't work,

Justin Nguyen and Alyssa Pack: I do wanna talk about actually, um. My BA because I think that's been a great success that we've found in our practice so far. Um, so for listeners who maybe don't know exactly, um, my Bcat is, is actually your company that we work with,

You guys train, uh, a virtual assistant, usually in a different country. Our virtual assistant is from the Philippines, and she's answering all of our phones all day long. Um, the great part about it is that we didn't have to train her. Um, basically almost at all. We, we [00:25:00] gave you our training playbook and, You know, she learned some of the things, um, that we usually do in our office.

Basically follows our protocol, which we love because I know every office does things a little bit differently. Um, and it's a great way for us to manage our patient or our staff because if someone calls out, then we still have someone to, You know, say, answer the phones and people aren't juggling having to see patients you.

That walk in and then answer the phones at the same time. So we think that's been amazing. We also do have a virtual scribe as well, so she also is, um, from South America, uh, in Brazil. And, You know, same thing. You know, she just offers that extra person or body in the room that can help with managing flow, patient, um, patient load.

And we really think that it, it's been. Amazingly beneficial, uh, in our practice, especially when, You know, one or even two people call out, we can still manage a full case stay without [00:26:00] feeling overloaded.

Rick Guinotte: Now, back then it was one employee for every $150,000 that an office would do well with inflation, everything, it's now closer to 200,000. So he's doing 450,000. He only has three employees. He's maxed out his staff. He's maxed outta his staff. They can't do anything. Hey doctor, you need to add another exam lane.

You need to hire another staff member. And we're probably gonna add another employee after three months. 'cause once you get that other chair going and you get that other exam room going, you're gonna need another employee. 'cause you're gonna have your optical backed up. So you're need another optician in here.

And after that happens, you're gonna be able to do this, this, and this. Well, lo and behold, that office jumped from being under $500,000 that year to over 700,000 the next month, next year. I do think one of the biggest hurdles that people run into is when to hire a new employee.

And I understand that as a business owner. As a business owner, when I hire a new employee in, I don't look at our team of just how many employees we actually have on my payroll. [00:27:00] I count their significant others, their spouses, their children, And so on, because the decisions I make as a business owner doesn't just impact our team.

It impacts their households. Okay, so I understand why people are nervous to hire more employees because you, you never want to have to lay off people, and I've always been able to say I'm very proud of the fact that over all the years of managing 18 offices. I never once had to lay people off. I always found a way during tight times to make the payroll work and make sure the business could grow.

There's always a way you have to think outside the box. If you're inside the box, you can't see the label. You've got to see from outside in to see where opportunities are.

Jennifer Tabiza: So I never do job listings. I always recruit. And one way that it can be really great for you to recruit is first of all, build a community, whether it's on Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube. Start to create a community with other [00:28:00] Optometrists or if you're in any industry with people in the industry because you can then start to have a place to be like, Hey, I'm hiring, and people know who you are and can spread the word.

The second thing that I do is I never ever list a job on ZipRecruiter or Indeed I do the opposite. I will actually use something called Resume Finder on these platforms, and I will put in the key words of exactly what I'm looking for. I will have ai. Scan all the resumes, give me like the top 20 clients and then I offer them a job via text or, or an email.

Um, so those, those are easier ways to do it. Now, I shouldn't use the word easy. It takes a lot of work and effort. Right now I'm actually working with someone who we are working to hire someone for his dry eye business, uh, patient care coordinator, which I believe you should always have if you wanna expand fully into aesthetics and.

Um, he's having a little bit of trouble, right? It, it's, it's because it takes, it does take some diligence and some time, but you can actually find someone pretty quickly when you look [00:29:00] this way versus let me just do a job post and hope that somebody good shows up eventually. That's, I think, the big mistake in hiring Optometrists run a small business and they don't realize that big businesses typically recruit.

That's very, very common. If you need a good optician. Go offer great opticians in other places. Physicians, you never know that maybe they're happy, maybe they live far from the office, you don't know. So you've gotta put the energy in. Um, but I always find people, oh my gosh, if I need to hire someone, it never takes me more than two weeks because I usually use these modalities to find someone.

That's a wrap on another episode of Optometrists Building Empires. Thanks for joining. For show notes and more Visit Building Empires live. This show is proudly sponsored by my business care team. My business care team was born out of staffing challenges. My wife and I faced together managing multiple optometry locations.

We refined our approach at classic vision care and now offer our expertise [00:30:00] dollars. If you're experiencing challenges with staffing and you'd like to set up a discovery call, we'd be happy to help you and connect you with the right resources. We'll see you next time.