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Tell me about your vision.

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Wow. So my vision, I guess that's a little bit of a tough start for an eye doctor.

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Right. I mean, I'm an optometrist.

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I have a private practice with my wife.

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She founded it years ago and we had all kinds of problems in our practice with

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hiring. So right off the bat, I wouldn't say my vision was some grandiose scheme

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to solve hiring problems for all practices in America or small businesses.

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Of course, it didn't start like that.

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My vision was simply to try to get myself out of this steaming mess that I was in

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where we were hiring the wrong people over and over.

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Our average workday was was incredibly stressful.

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We had incredible turnover, etc., etc.

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That's essentially what this all started at.

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And we were able to solve this problem of finding incredible team members

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predictably and reliably.

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And that's, I guess, where the bigger picture vision came from.

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And now we're doing it in all kinds of different health professions outside of

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health care to other small businesses throughout North America.

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That's awesome.

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Most small businesses and

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little more than small businesses, they have no idea how to hire right people.

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And there's been so many statistics out there like the cost of hiring an employee,

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the cost of hiring a wrong employee and all those things.

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It's a big number.

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Sometimes it goes into a few hundred thousands and more.

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And most times you can't bear that.

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Like, it's a very tough decision to hire the right people.

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I understand where your vision came from.

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And so how did you get started in solving this issue for yourself?

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What was that story?

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Well, it started out with me looking at companies that were doing a terrific job

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of hiring Disney, the Four Seasons, other companies that did that.

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They just knock it out of the park.

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And it occurred to me that maybe they got a reason they can do this

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consistently over and over, did a really deep dive into how they did that.

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And I found out that they were not hiring using traditional hiring methods.

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They flipped everything upside down, essentially.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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So their approach, how did this get started?

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It got started by defining the problem as how do we find the right needle in a stack

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of needles, a big stack of needles?

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And that's essentially the problem that we were able to solve.

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Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned people like Disney.

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I would say people like Google are also up top there.

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People like Coca-Cola, they are up top there.

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They have figured out J.W.

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Marriott also, like they figured out

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the systems and processes to the team that they know what to do and how to do it.

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Right. And they're so ahead of the curve by most people.

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It's kind of hard to catch up. Right.

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And I'm glad you said something because most people don't even do that.

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Most people don't look up to the top players that do it right.

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Well, our goal with this wasn't to reinvent the wheel.

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I didn't start out to start a company.

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I started out to hire great people in our eye care practice in rural Pennsylvania,

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which is exceptionally hard.

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And what we were doing that was the exact wrong thing to do is we were using

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resumes to hire and entry level folks, their resumes don't tell you anything

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along the lines of what they're good at.

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It's a work experience list that's mostly made up.

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What we instead started to do was figure

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out how to determine what people's natural strengths and talents are instead

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of using their resumes. So when you put a person into a role in a business

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that they have those natural strengths and talents for, the end result can be

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extraordinary. And that's what we were able to figure out.

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And then we systematized it, turned it into one big automated process.

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And now we're doing that for clients throughout North America.

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Wow, that's awesome.

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I am. Wow. I'm so excited.

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More and more talking to you about this.

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Same. Yeah.

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So what when you were going through the process, right?

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What what challenges did you face

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trying to figure out this?

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Hiring, I want to call it a process, I would say.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah, go ahead. So what challenges?

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Well, first off, email.

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We started this process using email.

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And for people who sit in front of the computer all day, this is hard to believe.

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But you ask folks, especially younger folks, how often they check their email.

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They tell you whatever you need to hear.

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The real answers are checking it two to three times a week.

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And it is a cursory glance at best.

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We were trying to contact all these candidates via email and it was a disaster.

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They don't check their email enough.

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They have long forgotten about the job they applied for.

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By the time they do check their email and the only and I mean,

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the only route to these people is via texting.

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That's it.

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So we built our entire system to be text based to the extreme that as soon as they

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apply for a job, they get a text within five seconds of hitting the button on the job boards.

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That's how extreme it has to be in order to communicate effectively with them.

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Yeah, that's awesome.

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Tell me more. Tell me more.

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What are the other things that you faced and how you solve them?

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Well, we tried to to find off the shelf, essentially assessments to to do this.

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Like what would make a great secretary?

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What would make a great assistant in a health care?

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Because keep in mind, this all was born out of health care.

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And what we ended up finding out is there's

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not one tool that you can buy to do that.

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So we have to build our own.

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And this took a while and it took a while to validate them.

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And it took a while to get the feedback

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loops in place so that when somebody was hired, we got feedback from our own team,

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from our clients, so this got better and better and better.

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And now it's to the point where our automated process will tell us with about

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97 percent certainty whether or not a person can do the job.

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And then we do a video interview to remove the remainder of the uncertainty to make

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sure that they would represent your business appropriately.

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And from there we send over those finalist candidates to the clients.

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And along the way, we we found out that without doing the strengths and talents

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assessment, this goes nowhere without doing the video interview.

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At the end, it can go nowhere.

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And what I mean by that is, you know, we've had people that pass through

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the process very well, one did a video interview driving a car, actually driving.

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So holding a phone up while they're driving a vehicle.

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And that's a great example of somebody

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who is ridiculous and can't possibly be allowed anywhere near my business.

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I don't know about yours, but we further and further and further screen in order

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to get these people, because at the end of the day, we care about the folks that

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we're putting into our business, we care about the folks we're putting into your

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business. This is critical.

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They have to represent you well.

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And so that that's done in an incredibly

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automated, incredibly predictable way.

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You know, it gives businesses some advantages, too.

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Like with our practice, you can be applying for these jobs in the middle of the night.

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Everybody can do that.

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But what you don't expect is a response

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and you don't expect somebody to be getting back to you, you know, our

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automated system to be walking you through this entire process.

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You can start at 3 a.m., be done by 3 15 and have the video interview sent to you.

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You know, you're completely done by the time you wake up in the next the next

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morning and you'll hear back from our team that fast.

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So.

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When you're scaling or when you're looking for people to hire, right, apart from the

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obvious skills they need, like the requirements, like, hey, if this is a job

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nurse, you need to have this degree or this qualifications at least.

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Right.

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What other things that you look for that's not on a resume?

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We are we're focusing on entry level positions more than than highly skilled

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positions, and this is where where our our process delivers terrific results

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because you're having to discern what a person is good at by looking at a couple

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of lines on a resume.

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And if you're looking for a doctor or a

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CEO or marketing or any executive positions, we're not the company for you.

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There are other companies that that will do a great job of that.

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What we're designed for is to essentially

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find an incredibly great fit person for entry and starter and middle level

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positions in small businesses, and that's what we can do all day long.

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So is that and that's what you need for your optometry business as well.

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Right. That's how you started it.

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But so now this goes to the why of the situation.

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I think you've already explained some of the why, but I want to get into more

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details. So what problems were arising before you started doing this process for

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your own company?

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And maybe attrition is one of the problems in that.

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But these are entry level positions.

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I want to know, like, what was the issue and what was your why that made you do

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this? The.

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Turnover hiring the wrong people, getting a business full of C, D and E and F

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players, not a players, not B players.

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We weren't hiring performers.

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We the why behind it is we weren't hiring

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performers, we weren't hiring people who were excellent at the job.

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We're hiring people like doctors would hire, which by that I mean hiring folks

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to help them get better, help them be a better person, help them up in life,

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give them an opportunity.

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Look, that's a noble approach, but it will not fill your business

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with high performing employees and team members.

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That's just how it goes.

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We have years and years of experience without the hard way.

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That's for sure.

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So our why was to stop that from happening.

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And it was to create a method by which we could keep

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we could get like acquire a level B plus level talent and then keep them.

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And the challenge is that A players only want to work with A players.

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B players will tolerate or they'll tolerate B players, but they leave because of C

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players. So if you can't keep great talent in your company.

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And one of the reasons is that you're

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you have too many of the C, the D players, and they repel the great talent.

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It's the nature of it.

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You categorize A, B and C and D players for our audience.

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Can you give more insights on that?

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What do you call an A player, B player and C player?

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A player would be like a superstar, somebody who you point them in the

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direction and they've already accomplished by noon what it took other

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people the whole week to do.

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I mean, these are folks that are just incredibly competent at what they do.

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They're a natural fit.

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They are incredibly productive.

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And without them, your business just never gets off the ground.

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B player, somebody who's close to that B plus, I should say,

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somebody who's close to that, maybe not as as fantastic, but still a great person

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for your team, the C and the D players, they can be great people.

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The issue is that they're not working in the right role for them.

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It's not a natural fit for their strengths and talents.

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That's why they're only performing at that level.

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And I know that's a really

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frustrating thing for some folks to hear.

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Why can't I make them better?

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Why can't they be better?

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But it's not going to be.

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You're trying to change a person at their core.

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It doesn't work like that.

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Your better bet for the business is to help them find a position that is a great

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fit for the natural strengths and talents and replace that person in that position

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with somebody who has the fantastic fit that you're looking for.

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That's how you level up your small business.

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And that happened to me.

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I built my team, I built my results for us.

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And it was incredible how much less stress.

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You know, you talk about my why.

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That's why.

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The end result was 95, almost 100 percent less stress.

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It's a joy to go to work now.

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That's awesome.

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And what's your attrition?

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Yeah. What's your attrition right now?

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Well, in a small practice, you're always going a small business.

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You're always going to lose somebody

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because these are positions that that require, you know, let's say a spouse has

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more of a career position, middle management or otherwise.

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Then the person in the health care role

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generally moves when they move, when they're transferred.

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Military gets transferred, things like that.

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So we have a very low attrition rate.

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And that is something we're super proud of because of how well the team is

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functioning as a whole, because each of the people is allowed to be themselves

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at work, functioning in their natural strengths and talents.

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That's awesome.

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That is something Bill, my team simply delivers routinely as folks who stay much longer.

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Yeah. And the attrition rate for your clients, what is that at now?

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You mean the people leaving their their businesses,

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the people you're helping to get hired in other businesses, because that's all right.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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It usually starts off pretty rough because they are having those problems.

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As we bring these these A players and B plus players on the that all changes.

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The culture of the business changes from one of coping to performance, if you will.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.