On this episode of the Practice Advantage podcast, I sit down with Kathy Long, PECAA's Business Operations Advisor to discuss the importance of taking time to review your standard practice operations and find ways to make them more efficient and more effective. 

Key Takeaways

1. Leverage your office manager. If your practice doesn’t have one, consider team leads to drive change.
2. It’s important to get started. Take some time away from patient care, pick one specific process to evaluate, determine your metrics, ask the right questions, involve the team, and most importantly, get started.
3. Consider the most important processes like recall, optical capture, doctor hand-off, and marketing – ones that have significant revenue impact for the practice.
4. Focus on the customer journey and map that journey. The mapping exercise helps lay out the process operations that you can focus on and improve.

What Kathy is reading:

• Stop Overthinking by Nick Trenton

On this episode, we sit down with the masterminds behind midbrain, Randy Bunka and Saul Alvarez, to discuss the tools that big box stores and e-commerce platforms and how independent eye care professionals can take advantage of them to drive new patients into their practice. 

Key Takeaways

1. The average practice loses at least 10% of their patients each year. Marketing to new patients in new markets is critical just to stay flat as a business, much less grow.
2. The big players are leveraging big data and AI, based around who the patient is, what they're looking at, when they're looking at it, to market to new potential patients successfully.
3. Re-marketing is incredibly effective. We don't always know when the consumer is in the awareness phase of the customer journey. Re-marketing keeps your product and service front and center so they know where to turn when they're ready to purchase. 
4. The most effective marketing is targeted - towards multiple categories of patients, but individuals who are most likely to access your services. 
5. PECAA Ads allows independent practices to leverage the big data and AI to drive re-marketing display ads to new patients in your community. Learn more today!

What Saul is reading:

• Drive by Daniel Pink

In this episode, we talk with PECAA's incoming President, Jonathan Worrall to discuss the power of emotional intelligence as a skill all leaders should possess. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Great leaders are curious. They listen more, ask more questions, and rely on input and feedback from those closest to the work. 
2. Emotional Intelligence is recognizing the entire person on the team and the thoughts and feelings they bring to their work. 
3. An EQ driven leader is self-aware of their own emotions, thoughts, and biases.
4. Creating an EQ driven workplace and leading with empathy does not absolve people of responsibilities to perform. Performance goes hand in hand with a great workplace. 
5. An EQ driven leader invests in their team's success, both professionally and personally. 

What Jonathan is reading:

• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Davis Capaccioli, owner and founder of Peak Eyecare to discuss the culture strategies helping him build his one-year old Cold Start practice. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Davis's One-Year Cold Start Lessons learned:
   1. Make yourself available to patients to grow your practice. Efficient and optimized is great but not at the expense of being available for new patients.
   2. Patients will pay more for higher quality products especially with a story
   3. Don't burn out team members all for the sake of being lean and mean
2. Culture matters because the amount of time the patient spends with the doctor is less than they spend with the rest of the team.
3. Emphasizing core values, daily reminding of core values, celebrating living out the core values and encouraging them members to call out others helps drive a strong and great culture.
4. Every team meeting includes a “Values Moment” in which the owner and team members highlight others for living out the core values with a patient in the last month.

What Davis is reading:

• Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Pat Lencioni
• Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by Jim Collins

On this episode, I sit down with PECAA executives Dr. Lance Anderson and Jamie Hughes to discuss the key principles that make a great leader.

Key Takeaways:

1. Jamie's 3 Roles of a Leader:
   1. Define the North Star
   2. Have a structure for how they run and manage of teams
   3. Shows up when the chips are down
2. Lance's Keys to a Great Leader:
   1. Willingness to listen to other points of view even when it's different from yours
   2. Being able to be honest
   3. Selflessness
   4. Decisive
   5. Trust in team
3. Delegate results, not tasks
4. Take care of the organization, then the people, then the customer

In this episode, we sit down with PECAA's EVP for Member Business Advisory Bryan Hoban to discuss key performance indicators that give us a deeper look into the health of the practice. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The basics are always important: Revenue Per Patient, Frame Capture Rate, Revenue Per Pair, CL Capture Rate
2. Data is only as valuate as the insight it provides: why the numbers are what they are and the steps that need to be taken to improve them. Deeper KPI's provide greater understanding as to why the main KPIs are there they are. 
3. Unique KPI metrics to consider:
   1. Frame line by gender
   2. Frame line by age
   3. Frame sales by gender
   4. Frame sales by age
   5. $0 frame sales
   6. Frame sales per period of time
   7. CL sales per period of time
   8. Months of CL sold
   9. Annual supply rate
   10. Frames per refraction and Lenses per refraction
4. KPI's that don't always help:
   1. Revenue per refraction. High amounts of medical can really throw this data points off.
   2. Chair cost. It can be skewed in a way that leads to poor decisions especially around managed care plan acceptance.

In this episode, I sit down with Jamie Weeks, Executive Chairman at Legacy Franchise Concepts and CEO of Honors Holdings to discuss the secrets of scaling a business. Whether you want to grow your practice as a single location or turn it into 5, 10, or even 15 locations or more, the secret to scale comes down to one thing. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The secret to scale is culture and speed
2. What is your mantra? Determine it and drive it home every opportunity you get.
3. Culture depends on your ability to be vulnerable and connect with your people. Work life balance should just be life balance. 
4. Culture involves surrounding yourself with people who you would want to have lunch/ dinner with and not talk business.
5. Processes and procedures make us more efficient and effective. It drives our ability to move fast. 

What Jamie is reading:

• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Lynn Hellerstein, owner of Hellerstein & Brenner Vision Center, author, and podcast host to discuss the tools and strategies needed for growing a binocular vision and vision therapy practice.

Key Takeaways:

1. Starting a VT practice can be intimating. Starting small and slowly scaling by adding services and space is a great way to get started. You do not need all the space and all the technology available to get started.
2. Success in VT practice relies on referrals. Referrals depend on relationships that you build with those in your community - teachers, educators, psychologists, neurologists, other ODs, and more. Always follow up with a report and take the time to understand their role in children or adults that need VT services. Consider speaking opportunities in your community. 
3. Don't be afraid to market your VT services for the practice. Share your message through your website, social media, Google ads, newsletters, books, and more!
4. Track and manage your numbers, trust your gut. 
5. Don't let your space confine you and impact your patient experience, but don't move before you're ready.

What Lynn is reading:

• From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks

Find out more about Dr. Hellerstein's books and podcast!

On this episode, Dr. Manning is joined by Mike Guyette, President and CEO of VSP Vision to discuss key takeaways from the VSP acquisition of PECAA. 

Key Takeaways:

1. PECAA wil continue to operate independently and led by doctors. Doctors know what doctors need. 
2. There will be new rebates and offers for PECAA Max and Advantage members right out of the gate.
3. VSP's resources will be used to bring PECAA's tools and resources.
4. Trust is critical to success and is driven by the actions we take, each and every day. 

What Mike is reading:

• Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz

On today's episode, I sit down with Dr. Santrell Hart-Moreland to discuss the power of medical aesthetics and strategies for implementing and growing this significant revenue opportunity. 

Key Takeaways:

1. There's significant crossover between devices and treatments that provide medical treatment and aesthetics. Beginning with the medical application makes expansion easier.
2. The demand for medical aesthetics already exists within your practice. It takes uncovering them, educating patients on them, and expanding the treatment options available to them.
3. Don't be afraid to ask colleagues, both in eye care and dermatology, about ease of implantation and pricing. Joining the American Med Spa Association can provide you significant tools and resources for implementation and pricing.
4. Team training and buy-in is critical. The more they can experience treatments, the success with patients, and take ownership over the areas, the more they will share the excitement with patients. Having a medical aesthetics coordinator can play a significant role in managing the patient experience.
5. Always market your new products. Consider focus groups you leverage as you add new products and services. Invite them to an open house as you launch them and allow them to experience it first. This will create significant word of mouth marketing.

What Santrell is reading:

• Winning With People by John Maxwell
• The Power of One More by Ed Mylett

Join PECAA Max today to maximize your business success, for your patients, your team, your community, and your bottom line!