Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Decide Early, Scale Smarter with John Marvin
What if the biggest threat to your growth isn’t competition or cash, but hesitation? We sat down with John Marvin, president and CEO of Texas State Optical, to pull back the curtain on how decisive leaders hire earlier, set cleaner guardrails, and turn people into the engine of compounding growth.
John traces lessons from small-town medicine to a 90-year network of independent optometry practices, showing why founders learn business by building one—not by collecting credentials. We dig into the hidden cost of underhiring, the danger of flip-flop decisions, and the power of staffing slightly ahead of demand so customers feel cared for at every touchpoint. You’ll hear why focusing on your strengths and buying back time for specialist work beats trying to fix every weakness, especially in finance and compliance where mistakes get expensive fast.
We get tactical: when to bring on your first employees, how to write a lean employee handbook that actually protects you, and why every new hire should sign clear job expectations on day one. We map out weekly 15–30 minute huddles, simple scoreboards that put performance in plain sight, and lightweight recognition that keeps morale high even when budgets are tight. Transparency becomes a growth tool, not a risk, when your team can see the game, track the score, and understand how to win their week.
If you’re scaling a team or about to make your first hire, this is your field guide to doing it right: decisive moves, clear policies, and communication that prevents fires before they start. Subscribe, share with a builder who needs it, and leave a review with the one hiring move you’re committing to this week.
Welcome to Scaling with People, your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth. Each week we go under the hood with battle test experts in all areas of business, from marketing to sales, operation finance, and people, plus product and leadership to unpack the plays, numbers, and systems that turn chaos into compounding growth. Learn straight from founders and experts who've done it and continue to do it successfully. There's zero fluff, just moves that you can steal immediately. This podcast is brought to you by Guide to HR, human expertise, AI-powered impact. Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Guinevere Cruery, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR. So, thinking about scaling your business, if you are, you might want to take a pause for a minute and listen to what we have here because we're going to be talking about what is really the key thing you want to be doing when you're scaling, when to bring in, bring in the right people or when not to, how to avoid that silent killer of growing your business, that employee employment liability exposure. So whether you're a solo founder or you're running lean, this is the episode that's going to save you time, money, and a whole lot of headaches and frustration. So let's get into it. Today I have John Marvin here with me. John, welcome to our podcast and tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Gregory. I've been looking forward to taking the time and spending it with you. Um, well, I was um I come from a background, kind of grew up with a father who's a private practitioner, a family practice doctor in western Kansas. And so I it was the uh stereotypical small town doctor. My mother was the office manager for his practice. And so I kind of understand that culture and that dynamic of what it means to grow a very, very large practice. He later moved to Kansas City, where he had one of the largest private practices in the whole metro area.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And um and so knowing and having gone through that and not only understanding the culture, but understanding the importance of that mode of medicine and healthcare, kind of has got me into a position where I am today as president and uh CEO of Texas State Optical, which is a large network of private practice optometry practices, independently owned optometry practices. And um, Texas State Optical, which is a company that will celebrate 90 years in existence next year. We were founded in 1936 in a small little southeast Texas town called Beaumont. Um, and so I understand the whole nature of what a private practitioner can bring to its community. And so um I've been president since 2001. And uh what we do is we work with young optometrists to help them open their own practice and grow it to serve an ever-increasing number of patients in their community and how to be successful doing that, make a nice living doing that, uh, avoid problems, uh both HR-related as well as just practice problems that come along with that. And um, so we're we're real pleased in the success that we've had over the number of years that certainly I've been involved with them. And uh I come from a background of marketing and consumer research. So I don't have an optometry background, nor do I have a um really what you would call a healthcare background. But given my experience and how I grew up, I I feel totally comfortable in the in the delivery mode. And and I think that I bring um expertise in the concept of understanding your customer or understanding your patient. And uh really everything in business flows from the customer. And if you understand that customer, you can be successful in business.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So I'd love to learn. I mean, you've been a founder yourself. Now you're running this organization that helps young founders of medical optometrists to create their own business. Love to kind of hear from you. What's um what's one of one or two of the biggest lessons learned you've seen um either yourself or these uh founders you're working with that uh you could share with the audience today?
SPEAKER_00:I think the one of the biggest things that I've learned is the um the damage that indecision can make. That is so powerful. And the because I talk to a lot of young doctors who have, you know, many of them will tell me that their dream has always been to own their own practice. And um of those are at the beginning of their career. Sadly, some of those are at the age of 40, and they're working for someone else. And the indecision that they exhibited and and used throughout their early years caused them to put themselves in a position financially that makes it ever more difficult to have that dream that they wanted. And so the ability to be decisive and not study something to death is is extremely important. And uh, you know, there's um saying that you don't have to be great to get started, but you do have to start to be great.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_00:And um oftentimes young, especially uh in my experience, young health professionals or young professionals who really haven't studied business, they've studied their discipline, whether it's frankly, whether it's law, architecture, or optometry. That's right. It it is it is the uh intimidation of the business side of it that causes them to feel like I've got to study this more, I've got to learn more. Uh, we have some optometrists who feel like they have to go get an MBA before they can open their own practice. So that tendency to try to study to avoid risk uh will cause you to not get started. And not getting started turns into one year, two years. Pretty soon you're in you know, to start a business, you have to go for six months to a year without any income.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, if you've built a lifestyle that requires a six-figure income and living month to month, it's real tough to walk away from that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and explain to a spouse or your three children that are, you know, living in among enjoying that lifestyle, that we're gonna go poor for about a year and a half to two years so mom or dad can start their own business. And that that's a big thing to overcome. So I would say get decisive, start early, and go pursue whatever it is you want to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I'd actually uh add to that in a business setting, uh, working with founders and CEOs that are wishy-washy in their decisions, or they make a decision and then a day or two later they may have heard something, read something, someone told them something, all of a sudden they flip that decision. That is such a negative impact to the business. Now, sometimes it can turn out to be a better decision, but the chaos of flipping, wishy-washy, not being like this is the decision we're moving forward, can be very detrimental to the business and to those that are working for you as the founder. Uh, that's how I, when you were saying that, that's what I've I actually have experienced myself as an employee and now as a supporting um cast member, I guess you could say, to founders out there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, a lot of people probably in your your listening audience and a lot of folks on the front end of their career, when they're contemplating um starting their own business, there's this natural tendency to to want to make sure I'm thinking through everything and I'm I'm avoiding obvious things that are risked. And there's there's good reason to spend some time and prepare to um before you get started. But it's the stuck in the scared to make a mistake or the scared of the risk aspect that is damaging. I have a good acquaintance. Um, I say acquaintance because I'm I don't believe I can claim him to be a close friend, but certainly a sharp guy. His profession, and has been for almost 30 years, is he leads expeditions up Mount Everest.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:It's his job. And uh and I found it fascinating, you know, because if if you or I wanted to climb Mount Everest, we could call up a guy like John and say, you know, tell me how I get started and I want to do this. It takes two years to prepare. If you've never done it before, it takes two years. And I said, Well, how do you go about learning how to climb mountains? And he said, There's only one way, and that's climbing mountains. So over that two years, he's got you climbing mountains of a much smaller scale, of course, and each time getting more and more. And and I think it's such a beautiful point to be made in that the only way you're gonna learn how to be really good at the business you want to start is by starting. Yeah, because you're gonna learn in the process. You're not gonna learn from seminars or books or classes, you're gonna learn in the process, and that is such an important thing to really understand and uh and take encouragement from and hopefully um get started with.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great point. Like when you're starting your business, it's just gonna be you. Maybe you have a partner, maybe you have someone that wants to come along that isn't gonna be a partner, you may have that first employee, but you're not necessarily gonna be employee 100, employee 1000 the next day. You're growing it and you learn at the same time. So talking about employment as you're building that business, what is some of the challenges that you've seen founders dealing with in regards to pulling the trigger to have that hire that first employee and then beyond and making sure they don't overhire yet hiring for the right things at the right time?
SPEAKER_00:Well, rarely in the early stages do people overhire.
SPEAKER_02:If anything, they make you have no money to pay for the hiring, right?
SPEAKER_00:Unless you're sitting on a big bag of money, and and I've not met many that are doing that. But but there's a tendency to underhire.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And um and feel like, well, I I don't need to hire someone to do that. I could do that. And and that's true in the early stages, I'm talking months, the early months of things, but as your business begins to grow, you always want to be hiring more than you need. And knowing how many more than you need is a really important picture that you can only really determine by being involved in it. If you're wanting to be a remote franchisee and not really involved in the day-to-day, I'll just pick, you know, in the food business, and you've never been in the food business, then you're gonna make mistakes the lore. So my my recommendation is regardless of what the business is, you need to be involved in that business from the first day and learn it from the ground up. And then you'll be comfortable at not only hiring, but supervising the work that you want that person to do. But keep in mind that the level of customer service and customer satisfaction that comes out of your business will be delivered by employees. And if you uh scrimp and shortchange your investment in your employees, you're really ultimately negatively impacting your customer satisfaction and the customer service level that you can provide. And so if you are going to make a mistake, make the mistake of over-hiring. Um, but like I said, most people, you don't have to worry about how much over they're over uh hiring because most people don't do that. They go the other extreme. So definitely you need to, but the only way you know is by being really involved and hands-on in the business itself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think uh earlier you said, you know, a lot of times it's like, oh, I don't need to hire anyone, I can do that myself. And I see that so often, including myself when I'm working on my own business, it's it's oh, I can do that. But then the question really becomes, should I be doing that? Yeah, you can do that. But should you be doing that? Not only because maybe you're not the mark marketing expertise or the finance expertise, right? You you may not have enough knowledge to kind of wing it, but you're not the subject matter expert. But also, too, what is the most impactful thing for your business that you should be working on over all these other administrative tasks or, you know, making sure that your books are correct financially, whatever it might be. Uh, that's where for me I really think about okay, is this how I should be spending my time? Is this the is this my time as the founder CEO going to actually grow the business if I'm working on this? And the answer is no. You've got to figure out a way to let that go and get someone who's gonna do it for you.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. And the biggest problem a lot of businesses have in the beginning is they're undercapitalized. Exactly. Because they are trying to do everything. And so we understand that when you build that budget, you understand that you got to pay rent. You understand that. But you don't understand is you need to have a CPA that can handle your bookkeeping and handle your your finances. Because if you mess that up, you won't have to worry about rent, you know, because either the state of Texas, in our case, and the state of Texas will come after you because you haven't paid employment tax for the last eight months or the IRS, or you can't pay your bills. And so you really need it certainly in my case, you need that expertise because that's not a strength of mine. And you know, a lot of times you'll hear people say, Well, you need to work on your weaknesses and uh improve your weaknesses to hand, and I disagree with that. Your weaknesses are your weaknesses. What you need to do is focus on your strengths and focus your energy and efforts in your business with what you're strong at, what you're good at, and then hire the things that you're not good at. It's not going to benefit you at all to become a really good bookkeeper if that's not your strength.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:One, you'll never be a really good bookkeeper. And don't waste resources or time trying to become one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I actually, as I've gotten older, I would agree with that sentiment. I feel like, you know, understanding what your strengths are and lean into those, and then filling the gaps with the people around you that are the subject matter experts. And that even goes for any manager, right? Um, hiring people that are smarter than you, especially in your gap areas, that is like that to me is a sign of true leadership because no one can be a subject matter expert in everything. That's just not possible. Maybe like the you know, 0.1% of the population might be able to pull that off. But like generally speaking, that's just not possible. So really dive into it. I I'm I'm a full fan and believer of what you just said. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I've always felt like if you look around, you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room. You know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Doesn't mean what we're saying doesn't mean you can't still learn and grow. And you certainly should do so, but just making sure that you're not spending all your time and energy trying to learn and grow in your weakest area because you want that to become your strongest area.
SPEAKER_00:Well, if you surround yourself with people that are more competent in certain areas than you and you're able to focus on your strengths, then you're going to grow.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You're going to develop because of the input of those other people. That's why if you're the smartest one in the room, you're never going to learn anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You need people in that room that are smarter than you in other areas so that you can learn from those. Not because you want to do their job for them, but you'll have a better understanding of the how it all fits together. Yeah. Works together.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. So, you know, now you've hired, let's kind of go through the process. Now we've hired one or two people. Maybe we're going to start hiring a few more. When should founders, and of course, I know the answer is an HR expert, but asking you, John, when should founders start to be concerned about employment liability and following employment laws, whether state, well, federal, state, or even local, some states actually have local county or sit and or city um laws. So when should that be starting to come into mind? And how do founders deal with that on top of everything else they need to do?
SPEAKER_00:I think that you should be concerned with that when you hire your first person.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Because hiring someone is a you're entering into an agreement with that person. And there are a number of things that are critical to that relationship, business relationship and agreement being successful. And one of them is a clear understanding of what their responsibilities are. Um, there also is an importance to have a clear understanding as to where the line is between employee and friend. Because a lot of times, a lot of times young entrepreneurs will hire friends because their friend needs a job and they need a person and uh they get along well, they bowl together and they just have a wonderful time, but pretty soon it becomes complicated because their that line is blurred. So there needs to be a clear understanding of that. And then, of course, if you've got different genders involved, you've got, well, it doesn't even require different genders, I suppose. Yeah. But you've got to realize the appropriateness of behavior and what might be appropriate at the fraternity house is not necessarily appropriate in the workplace.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and there's a, you know, there's you need to be real concerned about all that. One of the things that I even today will tell young doctors with the private practice with maybe four or five employees, we'll tell them you've got to have an employee handbook. And they'll look at you like, well, what do I need an employee? I only got four or five employees. Because, tell you, I mean, it's four or five people, it's real easy to get confused about things and misunderstand things. And an employee handbook will outline exactly the areas that are important to be very clear. And um that and they need to, we the pro the best practice we offer them is you need to write it and here are the areas you need to address, and then you need to make sure that they sign it because they've read it and understood it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Every because heaven's forbid you end up in a legal situation, and one of the questions is going to be not, did you have an employee handbook? It's do you have a reason to believe that employee understood that employee handbook? Yes, I do. Their signatures right here saying they understood it. So I but I think that your concern about that as a business person needs to start the first time you hire somebody. And then if you scale it up with the more people you bring on, you've set in place a procedure that will serve you well over time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, a lot of times people think about handbooks, they're like, oh gosh, that's just like a checkbox I have to do for legal perspective. But if you think about it this way, it is, you kind of said it earlier, it's setting expectations of what you as an employee can expect of me as the employer, what me as the employer can expect of you as the employee. The the ground rules, you're basically like, you know, you're on the road and you're and and the handbook is your guardrails, and it's keeping both parties in on the road safe, safe and sound, right?
SPEAKER_00:It's it's think of it like an agreement, you know. It's yeah, along with the the handbook and the job description that go hand in hand. Every handbook should have an addendum to it that is that person's job description. Then now we everybody understands what's expected of one another. And because a lot of times in a small business, it's the employer who drops the ball. And the employee needs to know what they can expect too. I mean, yeah, you told me I had five days of personal time off, and I've only taken two, and you're, you know, or you're denying me to do this, or you know, it it's endless the misunderstandings. Yeah, those are things that help to keep all of that clear and understood.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, I just um worked on a termination for one of my clients, and uh the question was, well, how am I going to get paid out on my PTO? And I said, no, we have floating holiday, like flexible holiday. Like there's no accrued PTO to be paid out. And it and it still fascinates me, even in today's world, you have all that documentation in place, and employees still ask things that, you know, I mean, I live it, I breathe it, I get it, I, you know, I consume it, I sleep about, you know, dream about it. But you know, when simple things like that, you're just like, really? Like, okay, well, um, yeah, like you you sign the handbook, you see in our policy, in our systems, what we have available to you. Why do you think we're gonna get paid out anything when you didn't accrue anything? It's just, it's so fascinating to me to see those things still pop up, even after you've gotten that written out and acknowledged. And, you know, if let's just say this person um, you know, decided to sue this client, then at the end of the day, because they didn't get paid out, right? We could go to court and be like, no, no, no, there's nothing accrued, there's nothing to pay out here. This is our policy. This person signed off on it. And, you know, it's you would never get to court because of that. But, you know, help yourself not get to court, I guess is what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah. I mean, but you know, you understand because how many user agreements for software have you just agreed to without ever reading?
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Right? Yep. Well, and that's interesting too, because it's like, you know, I have an Apple, I have to sign the agreement. I, if I don't want to sign the agreement, what do you do? Well, then you can't use Apple, right? Like you're kind of forced into signing an agreement and employment contracts the same way, um, or employee handbook, I should say, is the same way. The employer is not going to change their handbook because you don't like something in it. You agree to become an employee and work for this employer with those terms and conditions you know set.
SPEAKER_00:But for the employer, it's important to have that service agreement, if you will. Yes. Well established and well thought through, and frankly, uh signed off on by an attorney. Yes, which is another one of those startup expenses that you should budget for and capitalize for, um, so that you can uh avoid a lot of the problems that otherwise were just frankly misunderstandings.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So uh I feel like we could talk about this all day long. Um, probably not a favorite topic of most people, but it's good information to know and be prepared, even if you haven't started hiring or if you started, even if you're 10, 15, 20 people deep, if you don't have a handbook, please make sure you have one. But also recognizing all the laws and regulations. It's not something that, you know, as a founder, a business owner is gonna really be able to know. I mean, lawyers and HR experts spend so much time and energy staying up to date on all of the laws. And if you're in different states like California, Washington, Massachusetts, so many more, there are so many nuances. I think California, I actually stopped counting at like 40. I think they probably got 50, 60 new employment-related laws out this calendar year. Um, crazy. Like we're gonna be getting into what's next. And I feel like they just keep growing. Um, and again, state, city, county. I mean, I think uh I think there's a northern county, northern California county. On top of that, if you're in San Francisco, there's a state-specific, or excuse me, city-specific uh laws that you have to follow as an employer. So it can get really in the weeds very quickly. Um but as we wrap up here, I'd love to know from you are any other thoughts, tips, tricks that you'd like to share with the audience about this or anything else, lesson learned that you'd like to share?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think when it comes to uh working with a team of employees is particularly that just thinking about that aspect of running your business, I think it's really, really important to have a regularly scheduled team meeting where it may only last 15 minutes, it may last 30 minutes, but have at least once a week a huddle up with the people and talk about things to avoid a lot of this misunderstanding. We've been talking a lot about employee handbook and kind of the legalities of the relationship between employee and employer, but a lot of customer service problems, a lot of people end up getting fired because they they're being held accountable for something they didn't believe they were being should be held accountable. But without that communication on a regular basis and not wait until you know all blazes have blown up on around you, a lot of especially small businesses, they say they understand, yes, I agree, but then I just don't have enough time. And so they end up having team meetings, but they're only to deal with a crisis. And if you have them on a regular basis, like I said, 15, 20, 30 minutes once a week, you'll avoid those crises because you'll prevent that from happening. And so I think that that ongoing communication between employer and employee in a small business environment, whether it's like a lot of our people are five to seven employees or 10 to 20, having that frequent communication is really critical to the business operating at its optimum.
SPEAKER_02:I would totally double down on that. And I think that there are a lot of people out there who just need that attention. I kind of call it the, you know, the daddy mommy, like pulling, you know, your employee pulling on that daddy mommy pant leg, right? I need attention, I need attention. And a lot of times, if you're not having those conversations regularly with your employees, that can actually fester very unhealthy for both parties. Also, having those conversations will allow you to share what's going on as much as you feel is appropriate for your business, right? Maybe even there's some particular situation that is external impacting the business that if your employees understood, then maybe they could come to the business in a different capacity, different mindset that would help the business get through this tough time or to be able to double down and get as much business as they can because of the situation. Um so giving context helps your employees also produce. And I think that's very it's a very helpful relationship that you want to, you don't want to neglect your employees.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and you I think it's important to have a set of business metrics that um help the employees understand the production and success of the business.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Otherwise, it's like two high school football teams playing without a scoreboard and only the coaches have the scores.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's it's difficult. If you you a lot of especially small, but I don't want my employees to know how well we're doing because they'll want more money.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And uh you gotta get rid of that attitude because these are these are people you're depending on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And if you're not, if you're afraid that they'll want more money, it's because you haven't paid them enough, you know, and you need to invest in them and uh and not be shy of then now saying, guys, we need more points on the board.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and rewarding them, maybe there's maybe you can't give them more on an hourly basis, you know, profit sharing or one-time bonus or an appreciation award. There's many ways to share the success of the business because some businesses are syllical, right? They're, you know, you have a really good year, you have a really bad year. Uh, hopefully it's, you know, you're growing year over year, but things happen, whether they're in your control or not, external and internal. And so celebrating the wins and sharing that with your team can be uh help really for that long term longevity of your business. Well, John, I feel like we could dive in and talk about more and more, but uh, you know, really enjoyed having this conversation with you. Thank you so much for. Joining us today and sharing some lessons learned and talking about uh you know hiring an employee perspective as you start to grow your business.
SPEAKER_00:It's been my pleasure, Gwynavir. Thank you very much for the invitation to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And for the listeners, thanks so much for joining us. And we will see you on the next podcast. Have a great one. That's a wrap for today's episode of Scaling with People. If you got value from this conversation, do me a favor, share it with someone building something big. And hey, I'd love to hear your take. Drop a comment, shoot me a message, or start a conversation. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss the bold, unfiltered strategies we drop every week. I'm Gwynavere Crary, founder and CEO of Guide2HR, where we help high growth companies scale smart with people for strategies and AI powered systems that don't just keep up, they lead. If you're building fast and want your HR to move faster, head to guide2hr.com and let's talk. And remember, scale isn't just about speed, it's about people. Until next time, have a great one.
