Optometrists Building Empires

Ankit Patel
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Welcome to Optometrists Building Empires! Each week, host Ankit Patel, explores the journey of practice ownership and leadership in optometry with some of the top minds in his field. This show is sponsored by My Business Care Team: We help increase revenue, reduce costs, and reduce staffing headaches. Let's build your empire together!

  1. 8 hr ago

    From the Catalog: Avoiding Stagnation with Harbir Sian

    From the Optometrists Building Empires catalog. This is the Harbir Sian conversation on avoiding stagnation, first published as episode 34. Are you ready to scale your optometry practice and embrace bold career moves? On this week’s episode of Optometrists Building Empires, host Ankit Patel sits down with Dr. Harbir Sian, award-winning optometrist, practice owner, and host of The 2020 Podcast. Dr. Sian shares how he expanded from one to three clinics, navigated staffing challenges, and leveraged public education to build a strong professional brand. If you're looking for insights on growth, resilience, and thinking big in optometry, this episode is for you!   Takeaways: Success doesn’t happen in isolation, so surround yourself with people who provide honest feedback, even when it’s tough to hear. A reliable network of mentors, peers, and business partners can help refine your ideas and keep you grounded.  In a challenging labor market, bringing candidates in for trial periods allows you to quickly assess their fit within your team. This approach ensures you find dedicated employees who align with your practice's culture and values.  Growth requires stepping outside your comfort zone and embracing challenges that may seem intimidating at first. The biggest opportunities often come from pushing beyond what feels safe and trying new approaches.  Success in optometry isn’t just about clinical skills; it’s about adjusting to industry changes and patient needs. Staying flexible and willing to pivot your business strategy ensures long-term stability and growth.  Public education is more than just a way to give back—it’s a powerful tool for establishing authority and trust in your field. Creating content and sharing insights helps expand your reach and strengthen your professional brand.  Scaling a practice isn’t just about opening more locations; it requires thoughtful evaluation of community needs and long-term sustainability. Strategic growth ensures your expansion benefits both your patients and your business. Quote of the Show: “ I wouldn't be where I am without the support that I've gotten from friends and family.” - Harbir Sian Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harbirsianod/  Clarity Eye Care: https://clarityeyecare.ca/our-practice/  High Street Eye Care: https://highstreeteyecare.ca/our-practice/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbirsian.od/?hl=en  2020 Podcast: https://www.the2020podcast.com  Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5w1H9BBwRXvBSSkexePYxG Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/optometrists-building-empires/id1762685070 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/689a039b-54ce-4f04-b641-66d8640d93d0 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/optometrists-building-empires-5812208

    From the Catalog: Avoiding Stagnation with Harbir Sian

  2. 20 Aug

    The No-Show Math: The Leak You Can See vs the Patient Who Never Books

    It is 7:42. Marcus is packing two lunches. Fourteen months ago he paid in full and said see you next year. The recall text is good. He glances at it over the milk and swipes for soccer. At 9:40 your lane is empty. That hole is real, and it is the small one. The bigger leak is the patient who never makes a promise your PMS can report. This solo episode uses Dr. Bethany Fishbein's warm-start math from Episode 098 to show why a buyer totals that file wall at the closing table if you do not total it first, and three fixes that need no new hire.

  3. 13 Aug

    Mike Guelcher: Building a Practice That Is Profitable AND Sellable on Your Own Terms

    Mike Guelcher is one of the few people in eye care who has seen the business from every angle: senior leadership at Allergan, eight years leading acquisition efforts for one of the largest private equity-backed optometry platforms in the country, and hands-on projects inside the exam lane. Now co-founder and managing partner at Prism Consulting Partners and a certified exit planning advisor, Mike helps independent optometry owners build practices that are not just profitable but sellable on their own terms. In this episode, he walks through the 22-year journey that made that work possible, why the sequence of those career steps mattered as much as the steps themselves, and how he learned that prescribing decisions and practice sales alike come down to trust built over years. He also shares how an unexpected corporate reorganization in 2014 turned into the most fortuitous door of his career. If you own a practice you may one day sell, this conversation is a look at the other side of that table.

    Mike Guelcher: Building a Practice That Is Profitable AND Sellable on Your Own Terms

  4. 6 Aug

    The 2:15 Problem: Missed Calls, Burnout, and the Half of Optometry That Is Running on Empty

    It is 2:15 on a Tuesday. A patient sits in her car with 15 minutes before her next meeting, contacts running low, finally ready to book the exam she has been putting off since April. The phone rings four times, five times, and about 30 seconds later she hangs up. Research puts the callback rate closer to 1.5 out of 10, which means roughly 85 percent of those callers never try again. Worse, the call leaves no evidence: no voicemail, no note, no report. Three weeks later the schedule looks soft and it feels like a marketing problem. This solo episode connects that missed call to the burnout data. A University of Colorado study of U.S. optometrists found 53.6 percent burned out, with only four tenths of a clinical day separating the most burned out doctors from the least, and EMR users running 17 percentage points higher. The fix is not working harder. It is changing the ratio of what you personally do.

  5. 31 Jul

    From Burnout to Building a Team of Travel Optometrists with Dr. Fred Cho

    Dr. Fred Cho is not a practice owner and never has been, yet he is building something most ODs do not know exists: a team of travel optometrists serving remote communities and filling a multi-provincial doctor shortage in Canada. Licensed in Ontario, Manitoba, and Newfoundland, the University of Waterloo grad tells Ankit how burnout forced the change that reshaped his whole career, and why he now speaks, blogs, and podcasts about building a career that actually fits your life. A different kind of empire, built on freedom, geography, and a business model worth understanding whether you own chairs or fill them.

    From Burnout to Building a Team of Travel Optometrists with Dr. Fred Cho

  6. 23 Jul

    What Your Practice Is Actually Worth: EBITDA, the 50% Rule, and the 25% Benchmark

    A solo episode pulled from the iCareGrow series conversations. EBITDA gets thrown at practice owners every time a buyer makes an offer or a bank sizes a loan, and most owners nod along without knowing what it really measures. Ankit breaks it down in plain terms: what EBITDA is, why it isn't cash flow, the 50% cost benchmark, the 80% schedule-fill check, the 25% doctor take-home target, and a rule-of-thumb range for what a practice might sell for. Grab your P&L and follow along. Join the next event at iCareGrow.com. Connect with Ankit: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankitpatelcvc/ MyBCAT: https://www.mybcat.com iCareGrow events: https://icaregrow.com/ Book a meeting with Ankit (free copy of his book Optometry Redefined included): https://meetings.hubspot.com/ankit98/optometry-redefined Optometrists Building Empires: https://buildingempires.live

  7. 16 Jul

    Getting Out of Your Own Way: How Dr. Nick Lillie Doubled His Practice

    Dr. Nick Lillie cold-started Family Vision Optical in Allendale, Michigan right out of school in 2011. For years everything ran through him, until he faced the truth that changed everything: he was the bottleneck. In this episode, Nick and Ankit dig into the identity shift from doctor-who-does-everything to CEO, the no-paycheck weeks behind the growth story, hiring on core values, and the weekly operating rhythm that more than doubled his revenue.

    Getting Out of Your Own Way: How Dr. Nick Lillie Doubled His Practice

  8. 9 Jul

    Scaling True Eye Experts as a Non-OD CEO with Kevin Whaley Stefany

    Kevin Whaley Stefany is a master optician and one of the few non-OD CEOs in optometry. He co-founded The Eye Doctors, which scaled into True Eye Experts, an award-winning multi-location group in the Tampa Bay area, and led it as CEO for more than 14 years. Now the founder of Autograph Eye, he talks with Ankit Patel about the optician-to-CEO path, office efficiency, new revenue streams, and what it takes to grow a multi-location optometry group. Sponsored by My Business Care Team. https://mybcat.com

    Scaling True Eye Experts as a Non-OD CEO with Kevin Whaley Stefany
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About

Welcome to Optometrists Building Empires! Each week, host Ankit Patel, explores the journey of practice ownership and leadership in optometry with some of the top minds in his field. This show is sponsored by My Business Care Team: We help increase revenue, reduce costs, and reduce staffing headaches. Let's build your empire together!

Information

  • Creator
    Ankit Patel
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    109
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 Ringmaster Conversational Marketing
  • Show Website
    Optometrists Building Empires

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