On this episode, Dr. Derrick Artis rejoins the PracticeAdvantage podcast to discuss the value of alliance groups, buying groups, and the roles they play in your business success. 

Key Takeaways

1. Buying Groups were born in the 80s as a response to retailers entering the eye care space. The broad vendor discounts and consolidated billing allowed independent eye care professionals to compete with the retailers on a different level. 
2. Alliance Groups were born in the 90s and early 2000s as a response continued change in the market. Not only did independents need volume-based discounts, but business resources, education, and more sophisticated business solutions. 
3. Now, practices are facing additional challenges from e-commerce and managed vision care. The groups of the future need to address these. 
4. In order to face the future of independent eye care practices, owners need to leverage the size and strength of a combined buying group and alliance group together. 

What Derrick is Reading:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari
• A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade

Bryan Hoban, EVP for Member Business Advisors is back for another episode, this time focusing on Key Production Indicators and how best to leverage them in your practice as you look to 2022. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Always look at data with the goal of hearing the whole story. Numbers are only so important - the context surrounding the numbers is what is most important.
2. Tracking and following your metrics regularly allows you to make small course corrections to stay on track. Smaller, easier decisions are far simpler and less stressful than having to solve bigger problems that could have been prevented.
3. As you plan for 2022, leverage your KPI's to identify areas of weakness and opportunity for you to set next year's goals for improvement. Review them at least quarterly (ideally monthly or more frequently) to track progress. 
4. Key metrics to track:
   1. Revenue Per Patient
   2. Frame Capture Rate
   3. Other Capture Rates - Retinal Imaging, Contact Lens, Annual Supply, A/R
   4. Revenue Per Contact Lens Fit
   5. Daily CL %
   6. Sphere, Toric, MF, Specialty Breakdown
5. Do not be afraid to share KPI numbers with your team. Use the numbers to encourage their success and your practice's success.

On this episode, we chat with HEA+PECAA's EVP for Member Business Advisors Bryan Hoban on the importance of diving into your practice's finances, what numbers to look at, and how to begin budgeting for 2022. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Avoid the elevator analysis. If some data metrics are up, avoid immediately jumping to things being good. It is critical to ask why and understand what reasons revenue is up or another metric has improved. Data tells a story. Knowing the whole story gives you confidence to make the right decisions for your practice
2. Set aside 30 minutes each month to review your financials monthly. Put the previous months side by side and look for what jumps out. Spend more in depth time quarterly with your numbers.
3. Key Data Points to Review:
4. Any improvement in any of these key metrics hits the bottom line
5. Budgeting is critical. Begin with your P&L and adjust for a set amount of growth. Build in COGS, staffing, administrative expenses and build in as percentage of new revenue. From there, fill in other static expenses. Build in any other known big variable expenses you know will happen in 2022.

What Bryan is reading:

• Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot by Dr. Bob Rotella

Email Dr. Manning to get ahold of our free budgeting template!

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Derrick Artis, optometrist, former industry executive, and one of the most sought after industry consultants to discuss practice exit strategies in this brave new world of private equity. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Consolidation in the eye care industry has been going on for more than fifty years. Consolidation on the practice side has been happening for the last 10+ years - 2200 practices have sold to private equity in the last 10 years.
2. If your plan is to sell to another doctor, it is important to be involved with your alma mater and network with students to find a good associate. Second, you'll need to finance part of the sale for the associate. Third, don't ever stop focusing on growing your practice.
3. If you're looking to sell to private equity, understanding your EBITDA number and what multiples PE companies are paying for a practice. Understanding each PE company's approaches is critical. Do not take on new debt or sign a long term contract if you're interested in selling in the next five years. Tighten your operations and processes and look for ways to grow your practice.
4. Consider a multiple arbitrage approach. Join together with local practices to create a more profitable entity where each partner practice could receive more than what it'd be worth on its own.

What Derrick is Reading:

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
2. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

On this episode, we chat with the world's leading membership and subscription economy expert Robbie Kellman Baxter about ways to create patients for life within your practice. Robbie is the founder of Peninsula Strategies and has worked with large  companies and organizations alike, including Netflix, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal, SurveyMonkey, and The National Restaurant Association. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The Membership Economy focuses well beyond the transaction. It's about creating long-lasting customer relationships so the individual gets all their future needs from one business. Your patients always have choice, so you have to optimize your business around their long term desired outcomes.
2. When you have a patient that refuses to return for a comprehensive exam, really be curious about why. Understanding why they leave is critical to your long term success in meeting patient needs.
3. Take the time to define who your best customers are and who are your middle of the road customers. What are the differences between them? 
4. Re-evaluate your onboarding/ engagement process. Are there areas you can improve?
5. Remember to meet the patients' needs when they're in the awareness phase of the patient journey. 

What Robbie is reading: 

1. Presenting Virtually by Patti Sanchez
2. The Long Game by Dorie Clark
3. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

Robbie's Books:

1. The Forever Transaction
2. The Membership Economy

Building your practice brand that transcends patient care isn't easy. Built on emotion, experience, and psychology, your practice can have a brand that attracts patients for life. Here are key takeaways from our conversation with Daryl Trust, CEO of BrandTrust: 

1. The COVID-19 pandemic caused consumers to rethink their loyalties to their brand, providing significant opportunities for practices to gain patients they did not have before.
2. As you chat with your patients, ask them deeper questions about their own story. Listening the stories they tell will give you insight into their deeper motivators.
3. Human Truth is found by putting yourself in the customer's shoes and listening with empathy. We cannot use our perception of their experience to influence our business decisions.
4. Do a snap test. If you have an idea, try it out and see if it's successful. If not, scrap it. If it is, grow it!

What Daryl is reading:

1. You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy
2. Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection by Marissa King
3. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant

On this episode, we sit down with Lee Ann Pond, CEO of Engaged Leadership and author of the Amazon best selling book, The Engagement Ring, to discuss the power of engaged employees and how you take your team to the next level. 

Key Takeaways:

1. According to gallup, engaged employees drive a 21% increase in revenue, will have less absenteeism, stay longer, and provide better customer service. An engaged employee is not only happy but will go the extra mile in their job daily.
2. Data shows that employees want the ability to have more work-life balance, more time with their family, and the flexibility to work from home.
3. The RING Philosophy
   1. Relationships: Employees want to have relationships with the people they work with, most importantly with their supervisor.
   2. Included: Employees want to feel a sense of belonging in the business. Team building, lunches, holiday parties work to improve feelings of inclusion. You have to show your level of value in each team member.
   3. Needed: Employees want to feel needed and they need to know exactly how their work moves the practice's mission forward.
   4. Growth: Employees need opportunities to grow, including opportunities to be promoted and to advance their knowledge and skills.
4. Providing quality feedback is the easiest way to advance the RING philosophy.

What Lee Ann is reading:

• An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir by Mary Johnson

There are four pillars of a business operating system: Purpose, People, Playbook and Performance. In this second episode, we sit back down with Brian Turchin, CEO of Cape Horn Strategies to discuss creating a Playbook for your success and managing your team's and business's Performance.

Key Takeaways:

1. Your systems are perfectly designed for the results you're getting. If you're not getting the results you want, you have to change your systems or your playbook. Your playbook should be short and sweet.
2. Your playbook should help you maximize efficiency and standardize the quality and experience each patient that walks through the door receives. Your playbook impacts repeatable, predictable success.
3. Everyone should be involved in building your practice playbook.
4. We cannot measure performance if there aren't metrics to track. With regards to your business, what is your Economic Denominator specific to your practice that drives your success? With limited time and resources, your Economic Denominator impacts the decisions you make for your business.
5. Each team member and employee should have at least one personal economic denominator that drives your business's success. Tracking this helps manage performance.

More Resources:

• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
• Traction by Gino Wickman

What Brian is reading:

• BE 2.0 by Jim Collins

Learn more about HEA+PECAA and how membership can help you grow your business!

There are four pillars of a business operating system: Purpose, People, Playbook and Performance. In this first of two episodes, we sit down with Brian Turchin, CEO of Cape Horn Strategies to discuss how critical your business purpose and your people are to your success as an independent eye care professional.

Key Takeaways:

1. Do you have a purpose for your business that goes beyond your personal purpose as a doctor? What it is? How are you communicating that to your people?
2. Your business strategy is simply how you distinguish yourself from other practices and compete in your community. What are your Kept Promise Indicators?
3. Your people are your greatest assets - you cannot be profitable without them. Investing in them is key to your success. Your team members are connecting with patients throughout the entire journey and reinforce the purpose you've established. The right person in the right seat makes all the difference.
4. There are two dimension to finding the right. The first is being clear on your culture and who are the people you love being with. The second is being clear on the results you want from the people you have on your team. Have you defined your values and outcomes and do you look for them in your interviews?

Tune in next week to learn what Brian is reading and learn more about HEA+PECAA and how membership can help you grow your business!

In this episode, Dr. Manning chats with JC Quintana, internationally recognized author, speaker, and expert on customer experience and innovation. JC shares strategies for understanding our patients and customers better and innovating within their journey within a practice. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Innovation within the customer experience begins with creating greater value with patients for the products and services you offer, makes accessing that products and services more easily, AND makes it more enjoyable to transact.
2. To deepen the relationship with the patient and customer, it begins with evaluating and understanding the needs, characteristics, capacities, circumstances. Empathy mapping and customer journey mappings make this understanding easier.
3. The patient journey begins long before they step foot in your office. These steps of the journey are influenced heavily by your ability to make the experience is easy, valuable, and enjoyable. Success here addresses these three items.
4. There are multiple journeys within a practice, based on the services and products the patient is accessing. Defining these journeys make it easier to innovate and make changes.
5. To be successful in practice, patients want to be a part of co-creating value and collaborating for their own eye care and success. 

JC's Books:

1. Speaking Frankly About Customer Experience Management
2. Series Relationships: The 7 Elements of a Successful Business Relationships
3. CRM to the People 

What JC is reading:

Leadership: Theory and Practice by Peter Northouse