Walking the floor at the incredible Vision Expo East, I had the pleasure of recording four quick interviews with four wonderful colleagues. In this episode, you'll hear from Dr. Alan Glazier about how he started ODs on Facebook, Dr. Jen Wademan about how she finds balance, Dr. Justin Manning about how to cultivate a winning culture, and Dr. Inna Lazar about how make an impact.
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Watch the episode here
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Vision Expo East Compilation - Drs. Alan Glazier, Jen Wademan, Justin Manning, Inna Lazar
I am super excited to bring you this episode. The date is April 4th, 2022 and I got back from Vision Expo East in New York. There has been a lot of talking and maybe having a little bit of fun but connecting with so many incredible people in our profession and industry. I am super energized by everything that I have gone through, meeting so many amazing people and seeing so many great things happening in our industry.
This episode that I am bringing you is an exciting episode, a little compilation of a few interviews that I did while I was there on the expo floor. I got to chat with four amazing doctors in our industry, all doing different things, bringing style, innovation, and business leadership. The four amazing doctors I got to talk to were Dr. Alan Glazier, Dr. Jen Wademan, Dr. Inna Lazar, and Dr. Justin Manning. What you are going to read now is a compilation of roughly 10 to 15 minutes each of a conversation with each of these four people, all talking about different things.
I think you are going to get to take away so much different value here, whether it is talking about how you can connect with your staff, how you can help build your business, how you can build your social media, and how you can build a community when the industry. All these different things that you can do. I hope you get lots of value out of this. We are going to start with Dr. Alan Glazier’s episode or interview.
I hope you get tons of insight out of this, value out of this and shoot me a message. Shoot all of us a message, take screenshots and post them on Instagram. Let me know what you think and what you will take away from each of these interviews. I know each of these guests will love to connect with you as well. Once again, here it is. The first interview with Dr. Alan Glazier and the rest of them were to follow.
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I am here at Vision Expo with the one and only Dr. Alan Glazier. Alan, I have been trying to get ahold of you for a while. I am trying to get you on the show. I am glad I ran into you here so we could record this.
As I said, you know how to find if you want to do it.
That is the truth. If any OD in North America does not know Dr. Glazier, I would be quite surprised because he is very easy to find. The Founder of ODs on Facebook and FluoreSCENE Media. I would love to hear about ODS on Facebook, this massive community that you started. How did it start? If there is somebody who does not know what it is, tell us a little bit about what it is.
ODs in Facebook is meant to be an optometry-driven eyecare industry discussion. It was the first social media community to include the people who we work with every day in our offices, the opticians, the ophthalmic techs, the office managers, and the industry people who support our companies. Before that, communities had only been OD to OD. I have always enjoyed participating in those communities. I love networking and connecting with people. As a member of this community, there were the old-style forum-type communities in the early 2000s and mid-2000s.
One of the things that I did not like was when there was a problem introduced there like they were angry at an insurance company or whatever, they would talk about it and go around in circles, and nothing would get done. One of the things I thought that would might help get it done is if the people that we work with directly every day knew more about what was on our minds. For instance, in my practice, I have four ODs. I have several typical texts, office managers, and eyecare professionals. We deal with reps and everything but the docs who you would communicate within these groups you walk by. In the hall, you wave at them and maybe have lunch with them.
The people I am engaging with at the office, the people who need to know what is on my mind, are my office manager. They are my techs. If they knew what I was thinking, they might be able to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions and ways to make the business run better. I thought if they had an ear to the ground in the discussion that it would be a better place where we could make some industry changes, basically influencing the entire industry as ODs. Another thought I had was that I did not think that they were going to talk that much and there would be more listening because they were a little intimidated. That is how it turned out.
There were a lot of discussions that happened. How long ago was it that you started this?
September 9th, 2021, is our 10th year anniversary.
Congratulations. Unbelievable. That is crazy. How many people are in the community now?
The total number of people is approaching 45,000. Thirty thousand of them are US OD. Depending on what you say, the number of US OD is somewhere between 35,000 and 45,000. We have 75% to 80% of all the ODs. What’s even more impressive to me and the thing that I am more proud of is the level of engagement. Out of that number, 78% of them, according to Facebook, are active or engaged.
As you know, on Facebook, if you join a group, you may never go there. The fact that people are in there and the poll that we did in the group of doctors that were active said that on average, they are in there fifteen minutes a day on and off in between patients. For me, that is the most important thing because what good is a group with just the numbers?
It is all about the lead engagement in the activity. As crazy that you have such a high percentage of group members that are that active in the group. That is amazing.
I am proud of that.
Did you ever expect it to grow into what it is now?
When I was observing those other groups, I was in and what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. I am not going to say it is better or worse. It is how I wanted to do it. As I said, it did not matter the number of people. If I could get 40 of my thought leader, friends and colleagues, people I respected, and smart people in a group discussion to talk about stuff, it would be worthwhile. Maybe we would have more than 40. I do not know but I started with 40. I went into the clinic that day after I set up the group and I put down the guidelines. When I came out, we had 120 members because of the invite feature. I was not that sophisticated on Facebook by any means.
From there, it took off because a lot of people felt the same way. People wanted a place that was moderated that did not allow political discussions, hurtful, hateful comments, or bullying. For me, I was very serious about making it as professional as it could be and that is what it is. I have been caught a lot of names. People get very angry at me after warning them more than once to not behave a certain way, then I kick them out and they blame me. It is a peaceful, happy place where people go. The reason the engagement is so high is because people are not afraid of getting bullied there. They know I am going to handle it. That is part of the reason why they engage in.
Vision Expo East: The optometry profession is amazing for the many different practice modalities it offer. You just need to find out your groove when choosing what you want to study.
You have already answered the next thing I was thinking about because when you have such a huge group, there are going to be some crazies in there and some people who have mal-intent or however you want to phrase it. How do you monitor all of that with such a large number of people?
For the first five or so years, it was all me. It was a lot of work. I was on it. Facebook has improved the tools that they give admins to monitor it like a keyword. They will send and notify me in a text of a certain keyword is typed in there because that is either somebody who is driving something innocently. They have had tools that have been added, but I now have a staff of three full-time people that watch it 24/7 also so that we can keep it real. I got crazy stories.
First of all, I have a screenshot of every untoward comment in there that I save in a file, all labeled. I have to pull them up for some reason. I would never do that to harm anybody or hurt anybody, but I feel it is important because people always say, “What did I do? Here is what you did.” I have had everything from some crazy stuff. I have got my life threatened twice from the social media community.
In another community, somebody threatened violence against me. You will be hearing from somebody on that. Anyhow, I dealt with a lot of crazy but that is where that was aligned for me. I have thick skin. I do not care what people say about me. Once somebody is out of the community, I can care less what they say about me but that was a line that you do not cross.
That is nuts that people go that far. This is what I mean. There are some crazies out there. People who can’t handle their emotions or keyboard warriors. People who hide behind their screens. There are crazy people out there like that. When you have a community that big, it is amazing that you have done such a good job of moderating it.
Thanks. It is important. Otherwise, it would not be where it was.
Tell me about how you started from this group to throw in the big bash at every vision expo.
That is a great story. I am glad you brought that up. In 2012, when we were 2,000 members. At the expo, they were there. They found out about it or whatever. They approached me for Expo West to have a cocktail party. My concept was to bring online friends together in the real world sphere and press flesh with people who you met online. People were psyched about that because these were people they felt they were friends with but they had never met. The first ODs on Facebook, Vision Expo West Party, was at a little wine bar in the palazzo, where we had 50 people. From there, we had one at each event and it grew into a bigger event.
Now, we broke off from some partnerships into our own. We were working with some of the other expo partners to throw the ODs on Facebook party. This is our first ODs on Facebook and we got a swanky club with a DJ. I wanted to modernize it and make it cool. Because this is going out after the party, I will see you all at Expo West Party, where we have a very cool venue. During COVID, we had 700 people there. 2021 is going to be even bigger, overlooking the strip. It was beautiful, so come to the West Party.
I will be there. If you have not checked out ODs on Facebook, go check that out. If you have not checked out the party, anytime you are at Vision Expo East or West, make sure you are there. Hit Alan up to make sure you get invited. Do you need an invite?
You do not need an invite. Just come. You only have to be an attendee of the expo.
ODs on Facebook then now have evolved to the FluoreSCENE Media. Tell me what that is about.
ODs on Facebook is one of the social media channels and tools that we use to communicate with the industry and have the industry communicate with our people. We have eNewsletters, events, education and we have all of these things. They fall under this umbrella, and I realized people thought about ODs on Facebook. Facebook is in my brand. I can’t use that too much.
We wanted to put the umbrella under something. My friend, Andy Morganstern, I do not know if you know Andy but he is a podium speaker, a brilliant, and a funny guy too, came up with the name FluoreSCENE. What is the most common eyedrop ODs used every day across the country, all of us? It is Fluorescein.
FluoreSCENE Media became the umbrella under which all these things fall. It is a content channel where when we have a sponsor or somebody wants to get a link out, we throw it in the funnel. It goes out to all our stuff under that FluoreSCENE Media umbrella. It is a media company. We want to grow it into a big digital media company in eyecare with the component of being in control of the conversation. That is the value we bring, whereas some media companies have great print and eNewsletters. We have a great conversation. That is how I see it.
That is fantastic that you have continued to put effort into growing it because it would have been easy to stop at the Facebook group and be like, “Look what I have made. Forty-five thousand people on Facebook,” but you have continued to grow that to the newsletter and all these other things and expand that. That is awesome. Alan, tell the audience where they can find you. Where should they go to connect or learn more about what you are doing?
If you want to connect with me, connect with me on LinkedIn. That would be great. You can always reach out to me. My email is DrGlazier@Gmail.com. One of the things I am big on is mentoring. If there are any young ODs or students that want to reach out, I am always available for that. In all the shows, always find me out. I will always be the guy with a whiskey in my hand and ready to hang out and party. I will probably be hanging out around Harbir because I like you.
That is nice of you.
In your shadow, literally.
We will stand next to each other.
People want to connect with the day-to-day roles of their job. They like to know the bigger impact they do on the community and the people they serve.
Do you know how tall this guy is? Seriously.
I can tell you what I have heard the most since I got here. It is like, “You are taller than I thought.” I am close to 6’4”. If I am going to put the shoes on, it is probably close to 6’5”. I tend to surprise people with that a little bit. Any last words? The mentoring bit is awesome. I love that. That is something that is important to me as well. The only way we are going to help our industry continue to grow is by grooming and mentoring the young people who are coming into it. Basically, we are standing on the shoulders of the people who came before us and got these people to stand on our shoulders after that. Tell me anything else you want to share before we wrap up.
There are a lot of great smart ODs doing a lot of great stuff in social media groups, adding a lot of value to the industry, and I love it all. I want to see everybody be successful. When you remember of ODs on Facebook, you will get value out of there. We encourage you to get value out of it underneath any other community that you join. I do not know what else to say other than that as long as I am driving value to the industry, I am happy. I am having fun and I am enjoying what I am doing. Now, you are doing that too and that is great. I wish you a ton of success with this show. If I can add value to what you are doing in any way, let me know.
By being here, you have added value. I appreciate that. By paving this way of showing people that there is a lot of value, we can bring. I think social media, not that long ago, was brushed off as like, “It was the thing that kids do,” but we see with what you are doing and what I am trying to do with the show is that we can bring value to our profession and grow it. Thank you for doing that, Alan. Thanks for joining us on the show.
This was fun. Thanks a lot.
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I am here with the lovely Dr. Jen Wademan from Northern California, the owner of her practice. We all know her from her wonderful Instagram page and Reels, which are so entertaining, but there is so much more to Jen. Jen, welcome. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for taking the time.
I am so excited to be here.
It has been nice to get to know you.
We have had some fun events like that event we have been a party to, so it has been great. I have seen everybody in real life, which is well-needed after years.
The energy is amazing. It is partly when you get everyone together, the energy is good anyway but because it has been so long, everybody has got this pent-up energy.
Everyone is ready to go.
Tell us a little bit about the Jen Wademan that we do not know.
I have been practicing for a while. I have a practice in Northern California, as you said. It is a private practice. It is a great little area of family eyecare. Probably over the last couple of years, I have been trying to grow and expand in private practice and bring on new things. It has been exciting, especially meeting people like you and everyone here. It has been a blast and motivating for our profession and in this industry and to see people doing great things. Outside of work, I have two girls. I am active with carpooling everywhere and activities, mom life. I do a lot of things online now and it has been great for me. There is that creative side, which is fun to venture into and exercise different brain muscles.
I love to dig into that part. I am quite active on social media as well. They will see what I am doing or yourself. They will think that we are the social media people but it is a creative outlet and express your creativity. For me, I like editing, creating videos, and stuff, and you are entertaining. You are a great actress. I feel like you do great in movies and on TV.
I like making people laugh. I am not very funny always but that fills me up. I love this like marriage, especially over the last few years with social media and presence online of bringing what we do to everybody else. In my practice, I am big on patience, education, and awareness. I want to propel this profession and get everyone to know everything about it.
That is the common denominator would most of us who do these social media things. We are getting out there on social media since it is a creative outlet, but the education piece is so important.
It is like marrying all these things. Two things I enjoy grading are photography and learning about all that stuff.
Tell me about this creative outlet. How does it help you personally and professionally? Do you feel like it makes you better in other areas of your life?
It started as something like, “I am going to try this and tinker around.” I will find it a cool app and be able to edit a video differently or design stuff. I have always designed my own stuff in the office for patient materials. I also transfer that to online and stuff like that.
Can I buy patient materials from you? I do not like doing that so much and I need a lot of new materials.
Vision Expo East: The optometry industry is getting wise in recognizing the value of an optometrist's insight, clinical knowledge, and clinical training and how it impacts business success for a larger corporation.
It is harder now for me. I have got so many different things going, but it started off as that. It filled the time and started looking differently. I think what is neat about it is connecting with people within the industry and in different ways. Not only within this industry but also on a broad scale within healthcare. It has been fun.
When you get to your social or online presence, it is growing and when you start to get to meet so many more people, imagine you are connecting with them on a whole different level.
You probably have a laundry list of amazing people that you have sat down with because you are doing incredible things.
That is one of the special things about doing the show. You get to meet lots of different people and learn from them. I feel like this social media gives you that outlet as well as the connection. I want to ask you about balancing everything. You are a mom, a business owner, and you do the social media thing. How do you balance that? Are there certain tricks there? How does it all come together for you?
I have given up the notion of balancing. I do not even know if I can give credit to them. I read this article by this woman. She was like, “It is okay. You are not going to have this perfect idea of balance.” Trying to obtain that is sometimes will drive you crazy because your life is sometimes unattainable and recognizing there are different seasons where things are going to be a little heavier on this side.
The pendulum is going to swing and be a little heavier here. It is accepting that and going with the flow. Not having a chaotic but an acceptance of like, “Work is busy now. I have got a lot of things going on with my kids now in the stage that we are in.” I am not being so hard on myself if it is not a perfect balance equilibrium.
I think that balance is like an illusion or is not a real thing. It is maybe something that we strive for.
It is a good goal. Not to discredit it but sometimes, it is so unobtainable at different stages of life. For me, I would be like, “Why can’t I say on top of all this stuff? It is okay. One thing at a time and certain things are urgent. Other things are not so much. Some things will have to get taken care of the next day.” I have learned that a lot within my private practice. As you know, everyone is constantly coming to you for something and patients, staff, and everybody, and then you go home. As a parent and you are like, everyone wants more of you.
That reminds me of a t-shirt. I think my dad might have this t-shirt. It is breaking down the two columns and it is like, “What do the kids ask mom?” It is like, “Where is this and that?” On the other side is like, “What do they ask dad?” It is like, “Where is mom?” That is the only question they ask. Dad’s life is a lot easier than mom’s life. That is for sure. I see that when my own kids. They are little and I still get like, “Dada?” “Yes, baby?” “Where is mom?” “If you need to, I can help you.”
Jen, I have been posting about being here and my stories, some pictures of you and me, and interacting with other people. I have had a lot of people back home and other people messaging me like, “I love Dr. Jen.” Talk to the people. Tell them a little bit something about yourself and your students, especially. What advice would you have for students or new grads who are coming up to you because you said you have been practicing for a little while? What advice would you share with either a student or somebody who graduated?
I answered this question. Someone sent me a message online and she was a new student, a first-year. My advice to her was to partake in all the activities. Do as much as you can there. The community within optometry school is pretty amazing, as your class because it is a small group. You all are going through the same thing, navigating this new world and forming those study groups. Those study groups are amazing. You should do that. I probably was not as good about that when I was in school. I tried to do it all myself and you quickly become overwhelmed. I do not know if that is what you are looking for.
That is good from the student’s perspective. How about from a new grad perspective as an actual adult?
No one has asked me that in a while. This profession is amazing. There are a lot of different areas you can go into practice modalities. I feel like there is so much potential with my opiate management, dry eye, and primary eyecare . We have got a lot of different facets to what we can do to remember that. Figure out your groove. It is okay if you need to. When I graduate, I am like, “I am going to work as much as I can.”
I was at three different places with different modalities and a little bit different styles of management. It was helpful in figuring out, “Where do I want to be? What kind of modality do I want to practice? How do I want that? How do I want to unfold all that for the next 5, 10, or 20 years?” Take those opportunities and be exposed to those working modalities. It is good.
That is excellent advice. A lot of times, I hear from new grads or students like, “I want to do this.” You are hearing students be like, “I want to specialize in this.” It is great if you want to do that but it is also a good idea to dabble in a few things to make sure you know, then you can pursue that.
We have our whole life. Maybe that is a little bit more of my perspective. I want to make sure I am in the right place where I need to be where I am happy. It makes sense with my family and it is okay if it takes a little time to get there, figure things out and test the waters.
That is the takeaway from also what you were saying. It is like, “Let it happen. It is okay. Go with the flow a little bit.” I think a lot of times, we get caught up with following a certain track of that.
You have got to do this and this because everyone else is not. Figure out how that works with you because you are going to be a better version of yourself.
Thank you. Is there anything else you would like to share before we wrap up?
This is a fantastic event. It is so exciting. If you have not had a chance, anyone has not had a chance to come to Vision Expo East, you have got to go.
No one can come to work with a hundred percent energy. Leaders must have the ability to communicate and understand where their team members are coming from.
This is my first time at East. I have been to West two times and this is a whole different animal. It is amazing. It is huge and so much fun. I get to meet amazing people. I will say, I do not know if other people wonder about this but because for years, we do not see people. We meet everybody online and make new friends.
Sometimes, I wonder like, “Is that the way they are virtually or in-person?” I want to say that you are authentically genuinely the same person, which is a good thing because you are such a fun, kind person online. You are that in person. Anybody who gets a chance to meet Jen, make sure you do. She is lovely but thank you for doing this, Jen.
Thank you for having me. This is fun.
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We are back at Vision Expo East and I have my good friend, Dr. Justin Manning. I have been trying to get Justin on the show for a little while, scheduling conflicts and whatnot, but finally, he is here. He is a master in people management, business management, growing, and consulting with businesses. We are going to touch on that a little bit then I am going to have you back to go in real deep on those topics another time. Dr. Justin Manning is the Chief Member Experience Officer at PECAA. He is a lot more than that. Justin, tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us what PECAA is too.
You are being very generous by saying a master at anything. As Harbir said, I work with PECAA. We are the largest Alliance group serving 12,000 independent ECPs across the country, close to 8,000 businesses.
That is a lot of people.
It is a lot of fun. I grew up in the profession. My father is a private practice optometrist. I got a younger brother who is an OD in practice as well. I was a little bit of the black sheep to go the industry route. I was in a number of different private practices during my career, built a specialty contact lens practice, helped grow the medical and clinical side of some private practices, then made the leap over to the industry side of things. It has been a good ride.
Where did you go to school?
I went to school at Ohio State.
Graduated?
2013.
A few years after me. You graduated years ago and you stopped practicing completely. How long ago was that?
I joined the industry full-time a few years ago.
Let’s talk about that for a second. I know we talked about that off the air. There are a lot of conversations. I feel like I am hearing more conversations about career paths, whether to go industry or not. I do not remember hearing that conversation nearly as much when I graduated in 2010. In the last few years or so, it has been way more. Do you know why or what is happening there?
When I was in optometry school, I did not either. I was fortunate enough to have a lot of business management education as part of the optometry curriculum. I think we had fourteen credit hours of business over the course of the four years.
We did not have that.
The industry was something that was separate as a piece of practice but not so much from a career. We did not dive too much into a career. What I think is perhaps driving some of that opportunities. The industry is finally getting wise to the fact that they need more optometrists, help and guide them, and understand the optometrist. We serve independence.
We focus totally on private practice optometrists but recognize the value that the insight and clinical knowledge, and clinical training that an optometrist has and how it impacts the business success of a larger corporation. There are more ODs moving into the industry space. It is still a very small population. Do not get me wrong, but as an opportunity, it is becoming bigger because there is a lot more value in helping us work together to drive forward patient care and drive the eyecare industry forward.
It is so interesting that it has taken that long for the industry to get wise to that idea, but it makes sense. Great friends like yourself and Solomon and others who I am seeing moving and making that shift. I have multiple practices that I am taking care of but that is not something I am going to be doing anytime soon, but I find it very intriguing. If I ever wanted to switch career paths down the road, I would be very interested to see what that would look like. I got guys like you to show me paving the way. I appreciate that. Tell me about your journey. Initially, when you fully moved over to industry, that was with Healthy Eyes Alliance?
Vision Expo East: Optometry practices go wrongif they either overdo empathy or accountability.
What was HEA versus what is PECAA?
Within the industry, if you look at the history from an independent standpoint, small business, you own two. You know what it is like to be a small business owner. Although, yours probably would not be classified as small with all your success. Individual businesses do not always have the size and power scale to go and negotiate better deals and better discounts for their practice. We are talking cost of goods, like frames, contact lenses, atomic lenses, business services, and more.
Version 1 in the ‘80s, we are buying groups. Doctors started purchasing together with a buying group. That buying group goes to the volume and could now go negotiate discounts with other vendors. They put a whole bunch of vendors into one bucket and you could then purchase at the negotiated deals. That was about it. It was very transactional. On top of that, you could take all of those individual bills and put them into a single bill and pay one company. It did stream. It still does streamline your practice significantly, especially at the end of every single month from an operations standpoint.
Version 2.0 was the Alliance’s community, business, management services, and consulting a lot of connections. Annual meetings, doctors getting together with other doctors, and sharing ideas. They have very strong vendor programs with a select few vendors. Healthy Eyes Advantage was a big conglomeration. We had four individual buyer groups that we put together to form, at that time, the biggest buyer group policy.
We then brought PECAA into the mix. We rebranded the PECAA to bring the best of alliances as well as the best of buying groups together into a single membership, so people did not have to go and search for other deals or discounts in other organizations. They got everything they needed in a single, very cost-effective membership.
That is a huge 12,000 optometrists.
We serve ophthalmology and opticians as well, so 12,000 ECPs.
I do not think there are 12,000 ECPs in Canada. You guys have them all under one roof. Tell me your chief member experience officer. Tell me what that means.
My team and I, the way that we look at member experiences is twofold. As a membership organization, we want our members to have a fantastic experience as a member from how they access all the services that we provide to help them grow and build their practices and their businesses. We do education. We have a cold start program. We have an in-house consulting team. All of those fall into memory experience.
From a bigger picture, what are our members’ experiences? What does that look like in their own business as a business owner and as a private practice ECP? We want them to enjoy their practice as much as possible. It is hard work. You know it better than anybody. There is a lot of ups, downs, success, and opportunity, but there is a lot of work and challenges that you face on a day-to-day basis.
We want to be that partner to make your life as easy and fun as possible as an owner. You can enjoy business success and still love to take care of patients because that is who we, as optometrists are and, as a doctor-driven organization, the members that we serve. A member's experience is twofold, both as a member of the organization but, more importantly, as a business owner within their own business and their own practice.
That is a lot for you to oversee.
I am very fortunate to have a rock star team of people who make it look easy. They are awesome.
That is amazing. We are talking about within the realm of business management, you felt like your specialty or the thing that you are comfortable with is the people managing. It makes sense when you are chief of member experience. Tell me in your mind the few things, high-level or whatever level you want to go into, that are key. I am a business owner. What do I need to do to make sure I am managing and taking care of my people the best?
We talked earlier about business and business management education, whether you got a lot or a little in optometry school. I think across the board, one thing that we do not get much of at all is understanding the intricacies of leadership and how to manage people well. As optometrists, we are in practice and seeing patients nonstop.
Trying to manage people while also taking care of patients all day long is that much more difficult, and people are dynamic. We all have needs, motivations, and things that drive us, and recognizing what those pieces are can make or break us. How you communicate, how you deliver feedback, and what your people in your practice want are so critical to the success of the practice, but we do not talk about it, in my opinion, enough.
Not nearly, though.
The way that I look at the culture within a practice, where I look at people management are three key pillars of good practice culture. 1) Vision, 2) Empathy, and 3) Accountability. I see a lot of practices that maybe have one, have two, but very few have all three. I believe that if you only have 1 or 2, you have to have that third to stand up well. To go into those visions, people want to connect the day-to-day role of their job with how it has a bigger impact in the community, on the people that they serve, where is the business going, and what is the vision that you, as a business owner, have for your practice? Where is it 5 or 10 years from now?
How has it, perhaps? Maybe this is a little bit too big picture but how is it impacting the world for the better? They can connect their role, their day-to-day with that vision, and you are reiterating. You have to reiterate that vision every single day. I am a believer that you cannot over-communicate what the vision of the practices, where we are going, why we are doing it, and why their job is so important to that.
The second piece of that is empathy. We all have life. We all have things that drive us. Empathy is not sympathy to be very upfront and clear. Empathy is understanding. It is communication and recognizing when you are having a good day. It is when you recognize that you are having a bad day. It is the fact that, as much as we want to separate life from work, we can’t. We are human beings. Again, we all have needs, motivations, desires, and challenges. We are not all going to have a great day 100% of the time when we come to work. Recognizing how those dynamics play in and having that ability to communicate and understand where your team members are coming from.
Doctors who score from a higher empathy standpoint have more empowered patients. In return, patients who feel more in charge of their own healthcare have better health outcomes.
I feel like that is emotional intelligence. EQ seems to be an important factor these days. That topic has been coming up so much more in the last 5 or 10 years, maybe. Previously, it was like, “I am the boss. You are the employee. Go do your work.” Now, it is so important for us to get on the same page.
It is true. There are so many studies that show. If you look at it from a patient care standpoint, doctors who score higher from an empathy standpoint have more empowered patients who feel more in charge of their own healthcare and who want to come back for care. They have better health outcomes. An interesting statistic is doctors with high levels of empathy and patients with the common cold resolve faster.
It is crazy but it makes sense. People want to know that they are valued and you, as a doctor, care about them as a patient. Your employees and your team members want to know that you, as the boss or the owner, care about them and their success. You will make concessions when it is appropriate but more than anything, they want to feel understood.
What a crazy result from that study, it is vision, empathy, and accountability.
Where I see practices go wrong is they either overdo empathy or accountability and they do not have the opposite. Empathy is understanding the ability to communicate, recognizing you on a human level, what your needs are, what your desires are, and what motivates you. The accountability is you have got to do your job. You have responsibilities. The front desk, your technician, your opticians, you, as the doctor, have responsibilities. There is a good way of doing things.
There is a better way of doing things. There is the way that you have structured as part of your own operating procedures that they have to participate and they have to do. The accountability piece provides feedback both critical. I would not even call it critical. It is more constructive developmental and the praise.
The Harvard Business Review says that you need to have at least four praises per developmental or constructive feedback. That ratio is four positive praises like you are doing a great job. It has to be specific. It is not, “You are doing a great job.” No. It is, “Harbir, you are a rock star doctor because I saw you doing these things with your patients and that was awesome. That lives.” If you could connect it back to the vision, that is even better. That is helping us accomplish our vision because of how you are taking care of patients. I was on the street after the ODs on Facebook party and I happened to overhear it.
It was a crazy party but it was not on the street that way. I was waiting for my Uber and I heard these two individuals talking. They were talking about work and she made a comment like, “I know that I will never get feedback from our supervisors.” I think we get afraid of delivering feedback. It is a very vulnerable position for us as somebody giving the feedback.
It is as vulnerable as to somebody receiving feedback, especially if it is, “I noticed you were doing this. This is not how it is done. Here is the way to do it better,” which is a pretty good process for delivering feedback. You separate the person from the action. You talk about the action, communicate how that actions are not in line with the process, the vision, and the works, and then you provide, “Here is the way that it should be done,” and you follow up with that. You check in that you provide that feedback.
The key piece, though, is people want to know, are they doing a good job? If they are not doing a good job, they want to know it and they want to know how they can do it better. That is that accountability piece. You have metrics that you want to hit every month from a business standpoint. It is okay to share those. It is okay to measure where each team member and their role is up against the metrics on site. They want to have that scoreboard to know whether or not they are doing a good job. If you have all three, you could create an amazing culture where people want to be.
I love that. Thank you. That is a lot we packed into a short conversation. Those three pillars of building a strong culture in your business, vision, empathy, and accountability, that is huge. That is a lot of insight for people to take away from this quick convo. I appreciate that. Anything else you want to share before we wrap up quickly?
I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and your audience. It is a privilege and an honor. I love what you are doing.
Thank you. I am going to have you back on for a longer episode. That is for sure.
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I have the one and only Dr. Inna Lazar. I am so excited to have her. I know you all know who she is. Besides being the social media personality that she is, she is also a business owner of Greenwich Eyecare in Connecticut. She is a mother, an advocate, and doing all sorts of cool things. We are going to take ten minutes to learn a little bit more about Inna. Inna, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for such a kind introduction. It is like, “Who is this person? That is me.”
It is a little weird when someone says all these nice things in an introduction, it is like, “I have not heard it said all at once like that,” and that was not even all of it. That was short.
I am so not used to hearing that. It is all new to me, so I am cringing a little bit here but thank you so much.
We all know that you are doing wonderful things and I appreciate it because it is not just for likes on social media, but we are going to talk a little bit about educating the public. You are doing things to move the profession forward. We want to talk about this thing. First, I want to address the situation here.
We are sitting in this little booth that is hosted by Lumenis. This little Optilight booth is a little advertisement for Lumenis here but it is cool because it is soundproof. The other interviews I have done have been in noisy environments. People are going to hear what we have to say, especially you. Inna, let’s talk about the education thing. I thought that was important. Tell me about the importance of educating the public. What are you seeing and what is the need now?
Optometry is a very young profession. We, as a whole, as eyecare professionals, need to do a better job educating the public about who we are and what we do because how often do I have a conversation on Instagram? Who is this? What is OD? What does optometry do? We will have to go into this whole discussion about how we are primary eyecare providers. We do not do surgery but we are diagnosing and treating ocular diseases, as well as providing care for visual needs like glasses, refraction, and some offices even sell glasses. Do you sell glasses at your office?
Vision Expo East: It's hard to integrate a specialty into an already busy practice. You do actually need to have passion for it in order to create this space and to see patients.
We do.
I do not because I wanted to concentrate on medical and put all my force and learning the medical portion of it. My main goal was to create a dry eye clinic and myopia management.
That is amazing. I did not realize you did not have an optical because for optometry, for the longest time, that is the keystone or the bread and butter. It is like, “Here is your prescription. You have to go get some glasses.” The transition that we need to make is let’s go over to specialty care. Let’s find a way to differentiate ourselves from all the other opticals and all the other places you can buy glasses, including online.
That is cool that you focused only on that. For the people out there who think it can’t be done because there is so many people who think, “I can’t only open a specialty dry eye clinic or specialty contact lens clinic or whatever.” Obviously, it can be done and it can be done. If you would not mind, share some tips with us about how we could, whether you are starting cold or someone like me who has a practice wants to integrate a specialty. Any keys that you might want to share at a high level?
Number one, it is very hard to integrate a specialty into an already busy practice. You do need to have passion for it in order to create this space and to see patients. For example, when I graduated, I started working at a very busy practice. I knew I wanted to do something with dry eye and myopia. We very quickly realized there was no time.
The owners of the practice were not motivated enough to create this time for me to educate the patients to invest in the equipment. That is why I do find that it is difficult. If you want to do it, I think it is worth it. The patients are going to love it and it is going to be very rewarding for the doctor financially and emotionally. I am here for their emotional only.
Finances are okay too. It is an additional bonus.
If you have this dry eye patient in your chair, they are not able to do their job because of the redness and painful eyeballs, then you treat them. They come back and hug you. They love you so much. You changed their life.
When I was trying to get into the dry eye realm, one of my mentors or colleagues that I look up to in the space, he was like, “These patients are going to be the most loyal. They are going to be the ones that are most likely to hug you when you are done.” Would not we want that? We want our patients to hug us. They are so happy. That is what happens when you treat something that they think is untreatable, incurable, and you fix it for them, like a dry eye in this case. It is amazing.
What they were doing were artificial tears. That is why for new practice, it is very easy. You are making an investment. You create time. You have enough time to spend with a patient for education but when it is a running practice, you should be able to create time. Make it happen. Do it.
It starts with that passion part, though because if you do not love it, you won’t make the time. That is amazing, so thank you for that insight. Let’s talk a little bit about your social media, if you do not mind. We could talk about this all day but I wanted to make sure people see the full version of Dr. Lazar. You have created an incredible platform for you to reach so many people. How has that been? It is growing quickly. It is continuing to grow and is a bit of a celebrity, right?
I do not think so.
Either way, I am sure you have lots of people reaching out to you and connecting with you. How does that feel? How has that been for you over the last couple of years as you have built this channel of yours?
The reason I started doing it, I started investing my time during the pandemic because I had all this extra time. I realized we need to educate people in terms of eyeballs. I do not see many doctors going out there and creating these educational quick videos on, what is an eye? What is this? What do we do with that? How do you treat the allergies like a quick home remedy? It is because we see dermatologists and Emergency doctors do it. Why are we not doing it? I know there was Dr. Carly Rose on TikTok. She is incredible. Everyone should go and follow her. I follow her on TikTok.
Carly, you are doing a great job.
We love you, Carly, but then I did not even have TikTok. I was only doing Instagram. I started like, “I am going to do this and see if it goes.” I know it is going to be good for business. I was not planning on going bigger. I was trying to stay in my hometown. I wanted to talk about dry eye and myopia.
You wanted to reach your demographic.
It seems like people love education. They love the quick tips, “How to do this or how to stop the myopia progression?” It grew and more people started following. They follow me for good information. There is so much misinformation out there that even I sometimes get caught up in that. If you are doing it, you have got to do it and put out good information.
That is the hardest thing these days is separating good sources of information from not-so-good sources. Thankfully, there are people like yourself. I hope that people can trust us enough that if we put something out there, they know immediately is without question it is good information and you can rely on that. It is nice to have resources like that. If you would not mind sharing a couple of tips or tricks and some things that you have done that you feel have consistently helped you build your channel, if there is someone out there who wants to do that for themselves. Can you give some piece of advice?
When delivering feedback, separate the person from the action. Communicate how the action does not align with the process and clearly explain how it should have been done.
If you are a business owner, you should do it. You are able to do the sponsor. I do not do it because my posts mostly are Reels. You cannot sponsor Reels at least where I am at but I know you can sponsor like posts. It is good for your business to be able to do that and be sponsored in your area. What I found is Reels do the best. Reels do incredible but also, you have to have good, quick information.
It is like my friend. She is a chef and she was trying to make these Reels. She messages me. She is like, “Everything I made, it does not take off.” I am like, “First of all, you have less than seven seconds. You have to do a good job to fit all the information in under seven seconds. You have to make sure your video is hopefully trending. The sound is trending and good lighting.” It is under seven seconds, good lighting, great information and trending sound.
Those are important tips right there. That is huge. As you said, Reels seem to be where the algorithm seems to want. I have been making my 30 seconds eye doc and some of them do okay but 30 seconds sounds like an eternity compared to less than seven seconds. It is crazy.
It has to be less than seven seconds. Those are the videos that have done the best, at least on my account. She reached out to me. She was like, “What you told me works.” She even gained extra followers. She was excited. That is what I found that works the best. Good lighting and good information is key because TikTok prefers you to speak. Tiktok is not like Instagram.
I should be on TikTok with the 30-second eye doc because I am talking, whereas the Reels are more like the acting, the sound is trending audio, then the information popping up.
I do not know what else. You should do the Tiktok because the TikTok does not take off for me but I am also not investing a lot of time into it.
I find that so interesting that you have done so well on Instagram but I thought it automatically translates to TikTok but it does not. Good for algorithms or whatever.
I do not understand but I know a lot of doctors who are doing such an amazing job on TikTok and Instagram is a completely different story for them and vice versa. I am trying to transfer my videos but I am also not passionate about Tiktok. I have a life to live.
Inna, you should be only focusing on social media.
No. It is an extra. I enjoy making these videos. I have patients that are coming to me and they are driving from New York to see me for a dry eye because they saw me make an educational video. This time, it pays off.
I like this aspect of it. I was talking to Jen Wademan as part of this little collaboration. We are seeing the same thing. I think a lot of times, when people see it from the outside, it is like, “They are wasting time on social media.” From a business perspective, I tell other colleagues this all the time, there is a lot of value. If it is done consistently, it can bring people into the office.
That is ultimately what we want. We want to help more people. I do not have as much of as big of an audience as you do but I still have people coming in from other cities because they saw me on Instagram. It is worth it. Get comfortable with doing it to some degree a little bit. At least, it’ll be worthwhile.
I agree with that.
Let’s close up. Is there any more information or anything you would like to share? Any last words of wisdom with the audience? Maybe for new grads or young students, is there anything that you want to share with them?
I wish everyone did whatever they do with passion because it does translate. Your patients are going to see it. Your audience is going to see it if you do it on social media. Passion is so important.
That is excellent last words of advice.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. I am going to have you back on for a proper long episode. You did so amazing. I feel like we get to talk for an hour but it is only 10 to 12 minutes.
That is good. It is perfect. I love that.
Let’s have you back on again at some point but thank you so much for doing this. I know you are crazy busy with everything going on in here. We will see you real soon. Thanks. I will see you again.
Thank you.
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There it is. Those are the four amazing interviews I had the good fortune to do while I was there at Vision Expo East in New York, Dr. Alan Glazier, Dr. Jen Wademan, Dr. Justin Manning, and Dr. Inna Lazar. Make sure you take a screenshot and post it up on Instagram. Tag each of us. Let us all know what you took away. I know each of my guests would love to connect with you.
All these amazing people love to connect and engage with their audience. Make sure you do that. Thank you again for all the support, everybody commenting and reviewing. Everything that you are doing has helped to support the show. Stay tuned. There are a lot bigger, better, and more fun things coming for The 20/20 Show, Canada’s number one optometry show. I will see you guys again very soon.
Important Links
About Dr. Alan Glazier
Dr. Alan Glazier is the founder of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care in Rockville, Md. He graduated from the University of Maryland and the New England College of Optometry. He is a partner and business development executive in Keplr Vision.
In 2015, Dr. Glazier was selected as one of the 50 most influential optometrists ever by his peers. In 2017, he was honored as Maryland Optometrist of the Year. In 2019, he was awarded a presidential medal from the New England College of Optometry and is a member of the board of trustees of the college.
He is inventor on seven issued patents in computer science and ophthalmology, as well as an author of two books and numerous journal articles. He lectures on clinical, practice marketing, Presbyopia, and myopia control topics.
About Dr. Jen Wademan
On this blog, you will find content curated from a healthcare professional, balancing the demands of raising kids while juggling the ups and downs of life, professionally and personally. I’m an eyecare industry expert providing usable and relatable tips, advice and education centered around overall wellness and eye health.
My tone on this platform is not too different that the tone of my patient care interactions in real life. I’m a proponent of not taking life too seriously and always leaving room to laugh and smile.
I’m inspired to fill my life with the things that bring me enjoyment, invest in bringing joy in what I do for others and explore new places in life, as a woman, mother, wife and doctor.
And in all honesty, this is my space to give voice to all these roles that take up so much space in my life.
And it is also why I hope you find something on this website that leaves you feeling good, inspired, connected with and helped, whether eye-related or not!
Jen Wademan, O.D.
About Dr. Justin Manning
About Experienced clinician, healthcare leader, practice builder, and industry executive bringing diverse experiences to optometry, business, and health IT solutions. Former international optometry professor and practice leader of multi-location, five-star medical eye care practice.
Founded the Keratoconus and Scleral Lens Institute, successfully built on design thinking principles. Passion for empowering eyecare providers to become healthcare leaders around the world to have impacts felt across the entire healthcare system.
About Dr. Inna Lazar
Dr. Lazar obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology with a minor in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh and her Doctor of Optometry Degree from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry now known as Salus University.
Dr. Lazar’s clinical training includes diagnosis and management of ocular diseases, specialty contact lens fittings, pediatric and geriatric eye exams as well as comprehensive primary eye care.
She received her training at numerous hospitals throughout the United States including The Eye Institute in Philadelphia, the Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia, Ophthalmic Consultants of Connecticut in Fairfiled and Kay, Tabas & Niknam Ophthalmology Associates in Philadelphia.
She is a member of the American Optometric Association, American Academy of Optometry as well as Connecticut Optometric Association.
Dr. Lazar is also able to perform a comprehensive eye exam in multiple languages including Ukrainian and Russian.
Dr. Lazar especially enjoys working with children and has participated in the volunteer Head Start program, providing initial screenings and eye exams to the children in Philadelphia.
During her free time, Dr. Lazar enjoys traveling with her husband, spending time with her family and friends. She is a true food enthusiast and loves to try and cook different cuisines. To stay active she plays tennis and was on a college tennis team.