In this episode, we sit down with Mike Kogelis, co-founder of Big City Optical, a 20 location private optometry practice in Chicagoland. Primarily growing by individual cold starts, Mike is a wealth of knowledge in building and scaring a practice. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Having a disciplined, growth mindset is the foundation for scaling your practice as large as you want to build it. You can't grow your business without working on and growing yourself along the journey 
2. The most successful businesses aren't afraid of making mistakes in the process of growing. Mistakes lead to learning that lead to faster, more effective business decisions in the future.
3. You can't scale without having great people. Build your business around a great employee experience leads to a great patient experience. Empowering them to lead, grow, and develop is necessary as you grow. Find people who can help you build in addition to those who can help you run the business.
4. Stick to a game plan that works. Repeat it over and over. Avoid distractions that take you away from your core business model.
5. Surround yourself with people that help you become the person, business, etc. you want to be.
6. Luck favors the bold and prepared. Say yes, make the phone call, make the crazy ask, take the chance.

What Mike is Reading:

• Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business by Gino Wickman

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, Dr. Manning shares some key takeaways from the 2025 PECAA Annual Meeting and the power of storytelling. Key takeaways:

1. Humans are far more likely to remember details, facts, and information when they're wrapped in a story v. just shared individually. In fact, facts are up to 22x more likely to be remembered when they're wrapped into a narrative than shared individually.
2. Humans primarily make decisions in the right hemisphere of the brain - tapping into more of the emotional creative side - and then it reaches the left hemisphere where we use logic and rational thinking to justify the decision. If we only lead with the logical and rationality with our patients, we miss the most critical aspects of their decision making process.
3. There are multiple ways of crafting a story but two of them work really well in business - the PIxar method and the Storybrand method.
4. Story provides extra significance and value to the products you sell. In 2009, two journalists purchased 100 random useless items for a total of $129.  They listed the items on eBay and had writers craft a story for the item itself. In the end, they were able to sell the items for more than $3,600 all due to the value a customer associated with the item due to its story.

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Steve Faith, co-owner of Livermore Optometry Group in Livermore, CA to discuss data driven decision making with vendor partners, what a good partnership looks like, and leveraging the right data to drive practice success. 

Key Takeaways: 

1. Best advice: "Independent practice is not that difficult. You only have to do two things. Make sure people like you and control your personal and professional overhead."
2. At one point, LOG worked with over 40 different vendors. When looking only at their optical, they had 30-35 reps calling on them regularly. It cost the practice $100 an hour in staff costs to see reps, equalling more than $40,000 a year.
3. LOG looked at various industries for insight on how to improve their vendor purchasing habits and their data to influence their  purchasing. EdgePro made a huge difference in tapping the data in the EHR system to make better purchasing decisions.
4. Vendor data has not been all that impactful for Livermore as it's focused primarily on the vendor partner's product but does not take into account the practice as a whole. Bringing the practice level data into the conversation has a much greater impact.
5. Great vendor partners are ones that know the practice individually and provide the support the practice needs. Great partners are willing to work with the needs of the practice based on the data the practice has.
6. For Livermore, the VSP practice report has been valuable to providing even greater insight into their patient base and other practices in their area.

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this Tales From The Trenches episode, we sit down with Dr. Emily Ridge, owner of Elite Eye Care in Hernando, MS. Emily started her practice nearly 3 years ago and has learned a lot along the way, growing faster than she planned.

Key Takeaways:

1. Emily knew she wanted to be an optometrist in elementary school and as she worked her way back to her home town, knew that starting her own practice was the only way to create the ideal environment for her.
2. Her vision was to create a practice that would serve all ages of patients and while that vision has stayed the same, the practice has evolved to provide more pediatric services and specialty contact lens care.
3. Mentorship and building a team/ community around her to support the cold start launch was critical to opening on time and successfully. Being curious and asking questions is one of the most important skills.
4. Fear of failure is a normal emotion to have not just before opening but after as well.
5. While it is important to know and understand as many areas of the business as possible, do not hesitate to outsource components of the business to allow you to focus on the aspects on you can focus on.
6. Your staff will never feel the same depth of connection to the business and its success as you the founder, but there are ways to get them to invest long term in the success and care about the patients and business.

What Emily is Reading:

• The Housemaid Series by Freida McFadden
• Sara J Maas series

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we sit down with the founders of the 2 Blind Brothers apparel company Brad and Bryan Manning to discuss the positive impact their wildly successful clothing brand has had on blindness research and treatment advancement for Stargardt's maculopthy, a condition both brothers have. 

Key Takeaways:

1. 2BB has a powerful origin story. Brad and Bryan were shopping in Bloomingdales when they realized they bought the same shirt based on feel alone due to challenging nature of clothes shopping when visually impaired. Thus was born this idea of creating an apparel brand that was so comfortable on initial feel that you'd want to buy it.
2. 2BB donates 100% of all company profits to fund blindness research. It has grown into the eye care industry through partnering with L'Amy who was donating proceeds form their sales to 2BB by purchasing plush guide dogs.
3. To date, 2BB has donated more than $3 million to research and supporting businesses that employ individuals with visual impairment. That funding has directly impacted bringing genetic treatment options to the market for genetic retinal/ neuron-ophthalmic disease including Stargardt's.
4. Having a noble cause that the business supports cultivates a deeper emotional connection with customers for which that cause resonates. The story must be authentic and true to who your business is. 

What Brad and Bryan are reading:

• Brad: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
• Bryan: What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

Learn more about 2BB:

• Frames
• Apparel

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Danny Clarke, Chief Business Officer of Amplify Hearing USA to discuss the demand and opportunity of offering audiology and hearing care to your patients. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Only 20% of Americans who have hearing loss use hearing aids. In Europe where audiology and optometry are close partners, it's more than 33%. In the UK and Denmark, it's over 45%.
2. In Europe, 48% of hearing aids are fit in private optometric locations.
3. When available, vision care patients are more than open to receiving hearing care in their optometry office and vice versa. Hearing patients are more than open to receiving vision care from optometry practices that offer it. It provides significant convenience that patient consumers want and rests on the trust optometrists have built with their patients. The average consumer with hearing loss has no idea where to go for hearing care.
4. Like so many other opportunities, team training and education on the "why" is critical to success. 
5. The availability of OTC hearing aids have dramatically increased the awareness of hearing loss and hearing care, further driving the opportunity for success in this space. 

What Dr. Clarke is reading: 

•  Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

The light sensitivity and photophobia associated with migraines can be debilitating for many of the patients who walk through our doors. In this episode, we sit down with Derek Johnson from Avulux to discuss the role Avulux's lenses play in alleviating the symptoms of migraines. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Avulux is a light filtration system that filters out specific wavelengths of light that have been shown to amplify the symptoms of migraine headaches including photophobia and light sensitivity.
2. The technology is based on two studies that showed that 480nm and 500 nm light triggers pain and photophobia in patients suffering from a migraine without impact to color perception.
3. More than 47 million individuals in the US suffer from migraine and 1 in 3 women are affected.
4. Migraine sufferers are both well connected and actively driven to find solutions for their symptoms, driving the opportunity this poses for optometric practices.
5. Success in prescribing these technologies to patients begins with connecting their individual experience with the problem to the solution you're prescribing. 

What Derek is reading: 

• Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 AND an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we sit down with Shelley Paxton, Chief Soul Officer of Soulbattical to discuss an inward look at ourselves as leaders and business owners to make our work, the why behind what we do, more fulfilling. 

Key Takeaways:

1. A "Soulbattical" is a time to take a step back, realign the work you're doing with what matters most to you, and living it out each day in your work. It involves living and leading with greater authenticity, courage, and fulfillment. 
2. Creating a fulfilling work environment means being able to bring our entire selves to work. We want our team members and us to be able to do that.
3. One of Shelley's most powerful reflection questions: What are you pretending not to know?
4. Avoid "Shoulding all over yourself". Living out of your authentic journey allows you to shed the "shoulds", the expectations that drive, challenge, and drain you consistently. Identify 3 that are not productive and take one of them you want to remove today. Reframe and step away from them. 
5. Take an inventory of your work and life and determine what falls into "Soul Fuels" and "Soul Sucks". Seek to maximize the fuels and minimize the sucks as much as possible. 

Shelley's Book: Soulbattical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life

What Shelley is Reading: 

• Four Thousands Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 AND an additional $60,000 in 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we sit down with Catherine Bornbaum, PhD, MBA, Chief Business Officer at RetiSpec, an AI company that uses fundus photography to detect Alzheimer's disease risk and development. 

Key Takeaways:

1. RetiSpec's technology works with most standard fundus cameras and uses AI to assess and detect the retinal changes associated with amyloid deposition - the biggest risk factor and key diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's.
2. There are 55 million individuals globally living with dementia and there are at least 6.7 million individuals in the United States 65yo+ with dementia. It is believed these numbers vastly underestimate the number of individuals that have it. It is estimated that 1 out of 9 individuals age 65 and over have Alzheimer's disease.
3. Having the conversation with those that are high risk or have early disease can be a challenge. Leverage the data from the report, lead with empathy, and own your role as part of the team - refer the patient to PCP or neurology for further workup and share more tests will be done to determine.
4. There are two FDA approved medications for Alzheimer's disease and we know prevention is also key: diet, weight control, and exercise.
5. Technologies like these will only advance the role optometrists play in full body health and wellness. Practices wanting to be successful in the future must take advantage of them. 

What Catherine is reading:

• Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell 

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 AND 2025 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**

In this episode, we're continuing our focus on the Future of Eye Care with frequent Practice Advantage guest, Shelby Wade, PECAA's Marketing Business Advisor to discuss how marketing will evolve in the future and what things we'll need to pay attention to as we communicate with our patients in the future. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Word of Mouth will always play a key aspect of marketing, but we must continue to adapt to new forms of marketing. The basics will still apply: have a great website, have a strong social media presence, be involved in the community, and having an online scheduler are key aspects.
2. Our online presence is critical as all patients will use it at some stage in their patient journey. It's important to pay attention to the rules and regulations that exist around marketing to them digitally. Leverage the tools available through the primary platforms like Google and consider working with an agency or freelance consultant to navigate.
3. Technology will continue to play a role in how we reach people. It's important to be transparent with how we use that technology. While metaverse may or may not come to full fruition, it's important for us to be aware of. Even more tools will be available to us that aren't even in our imagination at the moment.
4. AI will play a role in helping us understand our existing and future patient customers so we can reach them more effectively through our marketing channels. It can help you develop the right content, keywords, budget, and strategy. AI can also help us understand patient sentiment before and inside the practice which will help you reach them even further. Transparency will be key here.
5. Our patients will always want to be known. Leverage the technology, tools, and resources of the future to lean into this.

What Shelby is Reading: 

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Practice Advantage Reading List

** Don't miss out on an extra $10 rebate for all commercial VSP Eye Exams this year! Earn up to an additional $55,000 in 2024 just by taking great care of patients. Visit www.pecaaexamrebate.com now!**