The Hidden Benefits of Engagement: Building Loyalty One Lens at a Time

Most opticians kill their biggest opportunities by sticking to old-school sales tactics. Rick Peralta, the Optical Jedi, reveals the transformative power of personal branding and genuine connection—tools that turn routine appointments into memorable experiences. When you're willing to go beyond prescription filling and embrace the craft of true engagement, you unlock loyalty, referrals, and a reputation that precedes you. 

In this episode, Rick shares his journey from a high school curiosity about optics to becoming a celebrated industry influencer. You'll discover how his mission to educate patients—using simple metaphors and storytelling—can bridge the gap between technical expertise and real patient needs. We break down essential techniques like active listening, creating personalized experiences, and leveraging social media to build a brand that embodies your unique style and values. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or new to the field, you'll learn how to foster genuine relationships that lead to long-term success. We also reveal the inside scoop on the evolution of lens technology, the importance of staying engaged with emerging innovations, and practical tips for elevating your craft. Rick emphasizes how a focus on human connection and authentic storytelling can differentiate you in a crowded marketplace—especially as the industry shifts toward more integrated, patient-centered care. 

This isn’t just about selling glasses; it’s about crafting a professional identity that resonates deeply with your community. Perfect for opticians eager to redefine their role, boost confidence, and create a legacy of excellence. If you're ready to elevate your practice and truly make an impact, this episode will inspire and equip you to turn every patient encounter into a branding opportunity you can be proud of.Rick Peralta is a veteran optician, founder of the Optical Jedi brand, and passionate educator known for transforming the way eye care professionals connect with their patients. His insights are rooted in decades of hands-on experience working with high-profile clients and pushing the boundaries of traditional eyewear fitting.

Talk with Peter Precht: www.eyecclearly.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Optometry Prophets Review. And I'm your host, Peter Preck. And today I am with the optical Jedi, Rick Peralta. Rick's a 37-year veteran of the eye care industry. He's an optical writer, speaker, president of Golden State Opticians, Vision Source Facilitator, a two-year health site ambassador. We'll talk about that if you would. Hockey fan and player, it's my heart. We'll talk in depth about Optical Jedi, Instagram, now TikTok, without any further ado. Rick, thanks for joining me. I really appreciate this.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

I really appreciate you having me on here, Peter. It's always a joy to talk to other people in this industry who are trying to get us all to think bigger and bolder. Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And not be afraid to kick around the technology. You know, that's that's what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about it and one of the things we do, we didn't talk about preliminarily, but we will get into is branding and self-branding. I think that that is something where you have poised yourself uniquely in that way. Uh but uh I also want to talk about the benefits of that at an individual level and other lanes of uh you know of opticians contributing to you know to their to their craft because that's really uh what what we did was absolutely a craft. Talk so you currently work at focal point optometry, that's an independent practice. Said you've been there 10 years, talk about your journey before that and talk about the birth of the optical Jedi Blog, if you would.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Absolutely. No, I'd love to get in kind of the the nuts and bolts of how I got to be where I am today. Definitely. So I I I entered this field as a high school student way back. My mom had no involvement in this field as an as a you know somebody that worked in the field, but she was a minus 1250 with a two-sill. And and she said to me when I was 16 or 17, why don't you become an eye doctor so I can get free glasses? And I just laughed, like everyone does. And I thought to myself, well, I'm just I'm just this dumb 17-year-old kid that doesn't even know what I want to do. I've like had all I've I had a bunch of interest in different areas, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. And I said, sure, introduce me to your eye doctor, let me see what this is all about. I hadn't even had an eye exam at that point. Like, you know, it was just a foreign field to me. I was fortunate to have not inherited my mother's eyes. I was a like 2015 at the time. And so I went in and I shouted him after school. Um, he let me watch the full process. I got to watch pretesting, I got to go in the exam, I got to put on the BIO, do the whole thing with the dilation. I thought, this is interesting, this intrigues me. It was like maybe a week or two past, and he offered me a job. He I think he saw uh the right level of curiosity and engagement. And when I first joined him, I it was, I mean, I'm aging myself, but this was right at the very forefront of digitizing records and creating some sort of digital database for patients. We're talking 1989, 990, right around there. Right around 90, yeah. Yeah, and uh so I was brought in to start putting some data, taking paper charts, putting them into computers, and that's what I was initially brought into uh to do. And I was a week or two into that job when uh doctor, um he's now retired, Dr. Thomas Fleischman up in Sacramento. Uh he uh he he just tapped me on the shoulder and he says, Rick, Rick, come with me. And we walk over to the lab. We still we step back into that lab and he opened a drawer like we did back in the day. We had just a drawer full of a bunch of frame broke broken frame parts, right? So you'd swap pieces out if you needed to on something. You didn't care if they match as long as they fit. And and he pulled out a frame, it was all mangled to to to no end, and he says, adjust it. He says, adjust it. And and I'm like, you know, of course, again, just an idiot kid who's never done anything in this field, I kind of go panic mode. And he says, Don't worry, it's really simple, just do to it what it is. And that mantra has stuck in my head every day I touch a frame, I say to myself, do to it what is, right in my head. It stuck with me. And it was such um kind of a light bulb moment for me in a lot of ways because it was a realization at how much it is a craft, that it is a skill, but it is grounded in science and it's grounded in some basic physics. And if you can understand some basic physics, you can pour that into your craft and solve problems for people in in really profound ways. Um, and I just kind of fell in love with it. So within you know, a month or two from that, I'm starting to do the basics of you know, I'm I'm doing pretesting, I'm I'm doing some dispensing. Next thing I know, I'm you know helping with taking orders. And you know, this was all basically my senior year of of high school. That's perfect. I I went off to college fully intending to be an optometrist. I was a pre-optometry track, I did the biodegree, I did all the stuff. And I when I graduated college, I was one physics class short of being able to apply to optometry school. But I said, Oh, you know what? I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take the the test, just I'm gonna do the OAT just to see where I'm at. Didn't really even do anything other than, you know, they they have the sample questions and the application booklet. That's all I did to prep. It was a horrendous testing experience in getting it all set up. They changed the room on us without any signage. I was lost on a college campus trying to find where I needed to go. Finally got into the room, sat down to take the test, felt like I finished it way too early. Like I because I'm just was so stressed over the getting there. I'm somebody that is like I'm I'm almost anal about being on time is being early. And so, like, if I'm on time, I'm late. And yeah, and everyone at the office will tell you that. Like, if I'm always in the office at least 30 minutes before everyone else, and and uh, you know, I it was a terrible testing experience, but then I got the results and I was 86 percentile. And I'm like, okay, I'm good at this, I can do this. This is a field for me. And I went back to Tom Fleischman again to work in his office while I was working out how and when I was gonna take that physics class, and it really kind of hit me hard during that stretch that uh that summer after graduating. I didn't like the exam room, I didn't like the dark room and saying one or two, one or two. Um, you know, it was just the absolute earliest stages of therapeutics and optometrists getting into being able to deal with some medical issues, but that really didn't intrigue me. What I loved was this blend of style and craft and science to fit people with the perfect pair of glasses. I fell in love with that.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

And what did your mother see in you that you know, did did didn't did that surprise her that you moved towards a petitioner as opposed to being the doc? Or did did she see you in that role? Or did you ever ask you?

SPEAKER_02 6:43

I don't I certainly don't think she ever saw me in that role necessarily. I mean, I was I was a solid, um, you know, a solid high school student. Um, you know, it wasn't like I had rough grades or anything like that. I always had a wide-ranging level of curiosity. I could go off on you on like Thomas Jefferson and the idea of being that kind of enlightenment man that just loves everything because I got my finger if I something anything intrigues me, I go as deep a dive as I can on that thing. And but I I but I always I always stop short of going to the very bottom because something else catches my attention, and I'm gonna go flying down that path.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Thank goodness for other rabbit trails, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, exactly, right? Everything is tangential, everything connects, right? Um uh you know, it's like and I don't, you know, we never really talked about it. She passed away when I was relatively young, um, so I didn't get a chance to really ask her about what she thought about the path I was taking. I think, you know, probably in the end, she probably would have wished that I had gone a different route with the as expensive as college was that I would be paying back those loans and everything else a little a little bit faster. But uh, you know, and I after graduating, I I I fell in the field. And I what I love about this, what I saw in my head for myself, what made me successful as an optician was that I was educating. I was teaching the patient about what could be. And and in my head, that meant what I really loved was not sales, was not a marketing thing. What I loved was educating. I wanted to teach. And so I actually took a brief break from the field, went back to my college, and started working towards an education degree to be able to teach. And uh, this was in San Francisco in the dot-com era, that that massive boom of 2000, and the industry, you know, made it impossible to live there. You know, when I left San Francisco, um, I left because the cheapest apartment I could find in the year 2000 was a studio for $2,000 a month, and that's what was listed at, but I lost it to somebody who offered $2,200 and round trip tickets to Hawaii as part of their deposit. It was impossible to live there. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, well, yeah, quite literally, right? And so I'm like, well, I I'm gonna have to stop short on this degree because I can't afford to live here anymore. And I ended up coming down to Southern California, and when I landed here, I'm like, well, what do I know? I know optical. And so I landed back in that field again. And like, there's one or two brief steps I took away from it, but every time I left, I'm like, I think this is who I am because like watching movies or TV shows, I was always analyzing the glasses, thinking about what brand were they wearing, was the anti-reflective accurate for the period, were the glasses crooked, I couldn't shut it off. And like I just really fell in love with that aspect of things. And so as I landed in SoCal and I started to develop, and I ended up landing very, very fortunate. I landed in an incredible practice in Beverly Hills. I spent almost 10 years there. I became an office manager, I was the lab manager. It was uh an entire top floor of a medical building, staff of 25, seven exam lanes. And I was I was thrown into the deep end a little bit there. Like I was brought in just as an optician when I first started there. And uh the lab manager in my second year left. He decided he was gonna move on and do something else. And the doctor saw me as the one who had potential to fill that role. And he said, So I'm gonna give you a raise, I'm gonna put you in this position. I want you to be the one to make a call on which labs are we using, yet negotiating pricing, you know, making sure that you're the one edging the lenses, you're putting it all together. And I was thrown into that end, and I like, and that lab manager was also the primary troubleshooter. He was the one that handled all the patients with the really complex RXs and why can't they see? We had several patients that were like 13 base out prisms with vertical prism as well, and it was like I was forced to learn on the job.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Sink or swim, baby.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Baptism by fire isn't always bad though. Yeah. I think there, I think there can be some strong merit because you're exposed to a huge array rapidly, which again, you're not gonna it's not gonna sink in. Let's not gonna be absorbed. But remembering it and remembering basic do's and don'ts. Those are I think those are critical.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Yeah, and and you you develop your own little mantras to to remind yourself on how to view things, and it taught me so much that like I've carried things forward from there. And of course, being Beverly Hills, we had lots of celebrity patients, and you know, you have to, when you're dealing with a celebrity, you really can't say no to them. Like, whatever they ask for, it you have to figure out how you're gonna do it. They ask for a lens technology that doesn't exist. Well, let me figure it out. They ask for a frame that doesn't exist, well, let me figure it out. And uh it really taught me a very different way of interacting with every person who sits down in front of me. And I've carried that forward now, not just with the patients now that I'm working in a suburb in Orange County, but also when I'm teaching on the road, I'm speaking at state conferences, I treat everyone in that room like that celebrity that was sitting in front of me in Beverly Hills. I'm gonna laser focus on you. You're everything that matters right now. That's all I care about. Somebody else could walk in the room that I know is gonna be waiting next for me, and I will wave to them, I'll put my hand up and say hi, but I'd never take my eyes off this person. It's all about you right now.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That's a gift. You know, that's not easy to do, to be able to be there. I'm sure you've seen them or even feel that way to some degree when it's a natural experience to engage others or be on an open stage. I haven't been on enough stages myself to to you know to say that I feel that way. It's nothing I fear. You know, uh more so because I'm comfortable in my own skin than I am comfortable in any questions that could be asked of me.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

That's the key, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, because it you know, when you do put it all together, when it's all presented in one shape or form, i i i it's about a delivery, how people are felt, how you made them feel. One of my favorite phrases is getting back to what you were just talking about, is this is what I can do for you. Because you're it's okay for you to rein in expectation as long as it's clear that you're trying to do what they want. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

That's where it gets blurry because you know there can be venues where the optician sometimes is you know aggressively moving towards what what they know may be a better answer, but if they're telling you it's different, you have to listen and it's the one of the one of the trickiest things to learn, and one of the things I try to teach in my courses when I'm getting out on the field, no matter what subject I'm teaching on, I'm gonna cycle back around to this. And I think that that we may have already made our decisions in our head about what is going to be the right solution for this person, but they have to be involved and they have to feel like it's their idea. So you have to say, okay, well, I've got these couple different ways I can do things, and I want to know about your space, I want to know about your desires. And once they start to say that, and you're like, okay, well, I think this is the answer. Now they feel like they made the choice, even though I made the choice.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

See, that's a that's a technique. Where did you learn that? Because well, I mean, honestly, somebody must have taught that to you, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

I you know, like I've I've felt like I've I've I'm good at absorbing what's going on around me and paying attention to things, even if I'm not like like sitting there watching, I'm listening and paying attention to what's going on. And in Beverly Hills, we had this one optician, the he'd probably been in the practice the longest, and he was the rock star. Quite literally. He played bass in a band, like he was a rock star. And and and Howard would have, I'm not even kidding you. Now, again, this is an extremely busy practice. We're packed when we have reps come in to choose frames. We're not seeing them until like seven or eight at night because we've been going past hours to finish everything up. And Howard would have he'd be sitting with his patient, laser focused on that one person, and somebody would walk in and he would put the hand up. That's where I learned it from. He put the hand up and say, Hey, but he still stayed on that one person, and he would have them lined up three or four deep. All the other opticians are free, and they're like, No, I'm waiting for Howard. And that's what I like. I learned something from that. For better or worse, I learned something from that now because now I have those stacks and I'm stuck like working late because people wait for me. But uh, but I know that I can engage and I can listen and I can find that level of connection. I think it's really important to feel comfortable in sharing who you are and finding that spot in which, okay, now I understand you because you understand like we have a connection. Um, you know, it's like it's like the the Disneyland thing where they put the on the name badges, they put, you know, where you're from, right? And that's a small way of connecting with someone, like, oh, they're from my hometown. Now I understand them. And it's the same thing I'm doing, only I'm doing it through my words. I'm listening to them, and they mention something about, you know, hockey or they talk about Broadway musicals or something else that I love, and I can talk about it. And I'm like, I get it, I understand your space. Oh, my wife's a teacher, I understand your space, I know what you're dealing with as you're as a worker, as a teacher in a school. I get your environment. Now let's work together and find that answer.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Well, and I don't want to make fun of a small industrial town, but it quite feasibly, you know, Beverly Hills might have a few better perspectives on framing a certain eye a certain way. They might have a different philosophy, you know, regarding whatever set of eyes it may be. I always drift back to celebrities. You you mentioned how like if a celebrity's asking for something, you're going to deliver on it. Well, you know, let's take that four steps further. What if you're a celebrity and everything's gone great for years and all of a sudden you still get a get a set of glasses and they they're not working? They look great and you're turning them on and visually they're not working, and you come back a few times, now you don't want to be the reputation there of being that pain in the butt, or maybe you do and don't care. I don't know either way, you know. That's an interesting seat for a celebrity to be in versus anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

If that makes any sense, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, absolutely. It it's it's because like they, you know, they don't want to develop some of them at least don't want to develop a reputation as a diva and being like super picky, but they they they've especially for the big high-profile ones, they've the the world has been so designed to cater to them that they don't even realize that they're asking for something that's not possible. You know, it's like I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Get Shorty, but like there's this whole great joke in that. It's like that, you know, Danny DeVito is the this the actor, the big star in the movie, and and he comes in and he's playing a star, and he he comes to a restaurant, he won't celebrities refuse to order off the menu. They'll come in and say, Well, I don't really feel like that. Can you make this, this, and this for me? Oh, and can you put this on the side? And they get whatever they want because people are like, Oh, I want I want them to talk about my restaurant. I want them to talk about me. And that's kind of the approach I've taken about it is when somebody has a difficulty, like, I don't care what it takes, I don't care if I'm gonna have to eat redoos. I'm going to keep working this until I figure it out. We're gonna figure it out together, we're gonna find the answer because I want you to have the best possible vision you can get. You know, there's a couple of years ago I had a patient who's not a celebrity at all, and I quite literally spent over a year doing redoes until we got it right. But we finally got it right, and they were happy.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Well, there's gonna be a point where there's an answer that a question that wasn't asked, or an answer that is unveiled and the light bulb goes off. And yeah, some t you ever hear people describe the halos they used to see with polycarbonate? And I mean I can never understand halo, and then finally someone was able to articulate it with an with an actual camera lens. And I was like, Oh, wait, they actually see that. I never did. I mean, I never experienced it, but he was like, Yeah, that I've seen that with these certain types of glasses, and I work in photography, and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, all of a sudden things.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

It's so great when you have yeah, when you can have that that an individual, whether it be a patient or just even somebody in outside daily life, that can unlock something for you and give you a new perspective on how you can sit down and help people. It's really a powerful experience. And I and and perhaps because of dealing with my mom with her minus 1250 all my life, like I had a a deeper understanding of how challenging lenses can be. Watching her struggle and have to get redoes made and having custom zeiss glass lenses being made in Germany and have to be shipped back and waiting two months for to get them and then them not work, and understanding those frustrations, like it gave me a window into how an important of job we have. Because it's like the prescription's only part of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Right. But it sounds like she was just from what you just mentioned there, the two or three sentences used. It sounds like she was used to a level of quality, a level of understanding, you know, obviously German lens technology that that that that's exposed to her in the 70s. She was thinking differently. You know, I think her approach was maybe a little but she also had an atypical circumstance.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah. And so she was fortunate enough to land in offices that were forward-thinking enough that they would try to find the solutions for people. And again, that's like that that was the first place I worked, was a place that was thinking beyond just the standard care. But how could you do the exceptional care?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Imagine all the ugly offices that she had been through and seen and all the different experiences. Because when your mind is 12, I can't relate to that. When your mind is 12 from the get-go, you you know, by the time you've hit your 50s, you've got a plethora of eyewear and contact-lens experiences to look back on so that when you hear things and then see things come into focus and you can see people's reaction, you know, for her, it was probably in that focus moment she could see the elation of the optician, or she could see the pleasure of the whole experience for the moment. Absolutely. And I think that that's something she certainly wanted her son to be involved with. Yeah. Which is beautiful. Uh it's I mean, it's a little unique that it comes out of a situation like this where there wasn't family, but there was veritably a you know, just extremely high Maya.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah. I mean, when she took her glasses off, she was literally pacing the glass or the like a book against her nose in order to read it. And so that's that's what I grew up watching. Is she struggled to read, but she was a voracious reader. So she was she would sit on the couch, take off her glasses, hold that photo that book right up against her nose, and that's how she saw. And and like every time I sit with somebody, I'm I have that kind of in the back of my mind. When I sit down with any kind of high myope, I'm like, I understand you, I understand what your needs are, I understand what your problems are, what your difficulties are, and I can help you with this. And certainly part of it is obviously, you know, prescription, lens design, all these things are important, coatings are important, but it's also about lens mounting and how do you get those lenses to look as good as possible, to sit properly, not splay the temples. And that's the kind of things that I did learn an awful lot from that experience in Beverly Hills, working with extremely high prism prescriptions and like how do I make this better than perfect? You know, like not just that I get the lenses a fit, but how do I make them look even thinner, even though they can't be? And that's uh a great joy I get today still is that even though I don't do as nearly as much edging as I used to, I hold those difficult ones for myself because I know the lab will never get it as good as I can.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

And I don't know how this isn't that long ago, but uh, how manual is editing? You know, how much editing is an actual manual, how much of it is all you know, the length that you and I are at our computers right now. You know, I don't you know, are there's is it an inordinate amount of that, or is it A lot closer. You know, I would imagine the film industry would have a huge array of eyewear neat, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Well, absolutely. I have a very good friend of mine who uh actually worked with me for a brief stint in Beverly Hills, and she was a total she was a lab monkey. All she wanted to do was be cutting lenses, that's what she loved. And a good probably five years after we worked together, she ended up getting really lucky and landing a job making the glasses for movies and TV shows. She works in a very specialty place where they have just shelves and shelves of vintage eyewear. And when a studio calls up and says, or prop designers comes in and says, I need this thing, then they make it. And so her the things that she's made, you've all seen it, you know, in Netflix shows and you know, and big blockbusters, she's has a blast doing that. She's not on set, they don't really put opticians on set, which is a shame, because they really should. How many times have we seen glasses cricket in a movie and it makes you want to scream?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

But how many times do we want to see a sitcom? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Oh, please, but I've I've had well honestly, I've I've I've seriously talked quite a bit with more than one person in this in this business, like, and there is there almost seems to be an interest in it. Like, I want I want the office as a sitcom set in a in an optical shop. Like, I can I can all see I can see the side-eye glances when that person comes in with the broken glasses. Like, I don't know, I just opened the cases the way they look like. I mean, like you could you could have a field day with the things that we deal with on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Uh there's this dry sense of humor, but there's this dark sense of humor too.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

It can get super dark for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

It could really I can I can see you've got the great scenarios.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Well, absolutely, and then you put in the the the uh the intergenerational dynamics that you get in offices when you you know there's one or two that are in our age group, and the vast majority are more like in their 20s and 30s, and like the communication breakdowns that happen just because we're talking different slang, or even like I'm like most of my dialogue is in is in movie references, and they have no clue what I'm talking about. And I'm like, how can you like you're out of your element, Donnie? I how do you not get this?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

I I remember in my early safety days, I just put this on a post somewhere, I think, on LinkedIn, but or by early safety days, I had a scenario where I was meeting with a practice and I didn't have this account, but it was a very, very prominent central PA account that bought a lot of safety. A lot of people worked there, a lot of people needed safety eye where I was trying to get the account, but it was a common abbreviation which didn't occur to me. The name of the facility, well, the name of the facility, the abbreviation was TMI. And I'm sitting here yapping on just like I am with you, and they're they're saying TMI, TMI, and I'm like, bowing my head and heading for the door, you know. It was extremely I got to my car and I'm like, what are they? Oh my god, it was Three Mile Island they were talking about. It wasn't it had nothing to do with it, too much information. So I was like, oops, you know, and I felt I felt so stupid because I should have known the abbreviation, but none of their tones changed, so I was kind of going with it. But I was like, okay, it's time to stop talking. Yeah. Because you know, when you're saying too much, you're saying too much. And you just it is what it is, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

I do want to, you know, I want to hit real quickly on an overall philosophy of education. Talk about how, because we're in a similar situation. We've been in a state where we're trying to grow opticians together in the best way we can, but the requirements don't exist right now. Yeah. So how how successfully are you able to have conferences, gatherings, get it get togethers? Are there CEs? How is it going in general across the Golden State?

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Well, so we're in a very unique situation, I think, in a bunch of ways here in California. First, as big and as dominant as the state in so many other aspects across pop culture, American culture, regulations, so much is driven by California law. But up until this point, California has never had a statewide opticians association. We've never had an organization until this year that was based to try to actually bring everyone in this eye care industry together that's not doctor-driven. So, you know, it was when I, you know, like I said, I've been in this business for close to 40 four decades. But because I'm in a state that didn't require anything, I always like I approached it kind of like, well, I know what enough. I'm good. I know I'm good enough. I don't need those initials. I know what I know. And especially with the baptism of fire I had in Beverly Hills, like I came out of that going, like, okay, this is not just a job, this is a career, and I know I'm good at it.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Right, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

So, like, why do I need those initials? And uh, when I joined my current practice, so roughly 10 years ago, when I came in, there was kind of a light bulb moment for me early on, and it wasn't even in my practice. So I had a really good friend of mine who lives in North Carolina. Tracy posted on Facebook that she got her first progressives, and she posted the selfie wearing these glasses that did not fit her. And and I'm like, I don't know what progressive she's wearing, I don't know what design she's wearing. And so I kind of messaged her and I just kind of reached out gently and I'm like, so I mean, I'm glad you finally took the step, but can I ask why you didn't reach out to me? And she said, Well, you're in California. What could you do for me? And and th this was just like the aha lights in the skies moment of, oh my God, how many people are making this terrible mistake on their eyewear choices because they don't know what questions to ask. And so I created that blog that you mentioned, my Optical Jedi blog, was created at that moment as a tool to educate patients, not eye care professionals. I created that to try to get patients to understand some things in, you know, it's not the most scientific language. I tried to make it as simple and lay person as possible, using lots of metaphors and analogies to get them to understand what we're thinking about on our other side of the desk and to make sure that they're getting the right care they should be getting in their office they go to. So if they can go in with some tools armored and say, okay, well, which lens are you giving me? Which coding are you giving me? Because so many places just say, Oh, you need a progressive, take some dots and walk on. They never even tell you what lens you're getting. And that really drives me nuts. And so I thought, let's let's try to provide some tools. And very quickly, and talking about branding. So when I landed on this name, my first the first URL I saved for myself on this was the eyes have it. I thought, oh, that's really cool. You know, it's like this is all about eyes, and we've got it. And then I typed it out and I realized that it looks like it said I shave it, and I'm like, I can't use that one. And I I've got to come up with something else. I've got to come up with something else. And people, I mean, for those not watching the podcast here, I have a passing resemblance to George Lucas. And I I've been and I I'm a gigantic Star Wars nerd. I've been one of the organizers for the group that camps out at the Chinese theater for all the movies. Um I I'm I'm deeply entrenched in the Star Wars world. Everyone for years have been calling me a Jedi because, like, they say like I mind trick patients into doing the right thing because and I'm like, okay, I'll I'll lean to this. I'm I'm an optical, I'm a Jedi. I'm gonna uh that'll well be. I'll be the optical Jedi. And and I could not have stumbled onto a better naming for myself, other than the fact that um I could potentially get sued by George Lucas someday for using his terminology.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Just stand next to him.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yeah. But it's uh yeah, I'm like, you can't sue me, I'm him. Uh but uh but uh yeah, I it it just immediately clicked for people, and uh, I it it's still a little surreal to me when I go to conventions and conferences and people I have no I've never met, I have no idea who they are, and they walk up and they're like, Oh my god, you're the Jedi, and they want a picture with me. And I'm like, how did this happen to my life? I did not see myself becoming that like I was just working in offices, that's what I did. But I I crossed this threshold of like I can help people beyond just the office.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Individual branding opens doorways to to the professional exchange, to other options, to speaking, to and there's nothing, there's more than nothing wrong with it. It's encouraged, I encourage every optician to explore your creative juices. Well, absolutely. You know, you know, you may want to try something and you may try other things in the process and find that you're quite good at the other things.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Well, and we don't know. This is an this is an industry that offers so many avenues to that ABO after your name. Like you can do so many things. You can work in an office, you could be a frame rep, you could be a lens rep, you could be working at the design level and creating the lenses, creating what the next generation will wear. Like so many things you can do, and like you don't know until you start dabbling into it and finding it.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

You mentioned earlier teaching. And to me, I I continuously come across opticians that you know they're done dealing with patients in a dispensary, but whatever level they can get involved with teaching or coaching or mentoring uh other opticians, they are interested in that. And uh there is a pay it forward philosophy that is almost embedded in what we do. It I think it has a lot to do with the gratification of helping people, see, but also the ability to cope with when people can't.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Yeah, you don't you don't go into any kind of healthcare role without caring about people and helping people. That's inherent in what we do. And I don't think that's something you ever leave behind, no matter what position you're in. You still inherently care about helping people. That's the essence of what we do. And it's funny you say that too about about speaking and and being part of the teaching process and everything else and the other ways you can do things. We have a friend visiting from England right now, sh and we were having this really great conversation. I was driving her out to see some of her other friends locally, and I uh we were talking about kind of long-term goals and career, and I'm like, I'm no spring chicken, you know, I'm in my 50s, and like there's in theory, there's an a a finite level of number of years you can be doing this in an office, and then you're gonna have to move on to do something else. And I know it's still a ways down the road. I still feel overall pretty healthy, and I you know, I'm engaging on a level that I never did in any other point in my life, but I'm like, the the speaking at conferences, the teaching in the field, I could retire from working in an office and still keep that going and still be a supplement to retirement income or whatever else I want to worry about. Because in the end, I I I can't fathom not doing this at any point in my life. I can't fathom stepping away from this and and just sitting at home. Is even even with all the other passions and things I love, even with the hockey and with the national park touring and travel and all that stuff. I I I even when I tried to step away in the past, I couldn't turn it off. So, like it's still gonna be a part of me no matter what. And I think that's true for a lot of us that have taken it from being a paycheck and turned it into a career.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

And to be able to make it portable in one way, shape, or form in another, so that you do have those freedoms to do the travel and still stay grounded somewhere, be able to touch base and get back in and and hold a frame and see a face and talk to the regulars that you've been helping for years and years. And I mean that's a that's that's that's a huge part of of everything that we do and how we do it. We can't we can't we can't do anything further with this discussion until we talk about technology ups and downs. And then obvious and then obviously your advice. So you it 30 38 years nearly, you're coming up on 40 years. I mean, let's let's let's hear it. What has been a really wonderful and what has been really, really bad, and and what you're yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

So it's interesting because like uh when I when I really pause and think about it sometimes, and I think about the the evolution I've seen in technology in this field over that full four decades, it's it can be kind of mind-boggling at times. Like when I started, when I started, there was no such thing as transitions, it didn't exist yet, you know, and it was a like in my first year was when that product came out, the first generation. And you know, you know, you look at that performance of that first generation versus what it does today, and it's like it's light years improvement. You know, and then uh you know, you talk about progressive lens designs, and you know, when you're dealing with you know 20 or 30 lens designs at the very beginning to now, you know, a few thousand options available to us, it can be overwhelming, but it's also kind of incredible that we have that many ways to really tune the lens design to matching the patient need. And I think that that's probably the place where I have the deepest connection and passion for the technology and the evolution in this industry. I I uh I started wearing progressives well earlier than I needed to because I really felt like I couldn't present it to patients unless I wore it and understood it. So I started wearing in my mid-30s with the lowest ad I could and started building up a portfolio of lens designs I've worn. Many of them have been retired now and don't exist anymore. But at this point now, as of last week, I added two new lens designs to my collection last week. So I'm I'm I'm now up to 252 different progressive designs I've worn.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

And and it I feel like it's given me such a deeper breath of knowledge to understand the pros and cons on designs. Right. But also it's more than that, it's allowed me to see that and tell patients this, the ones that are terrified of progressives or failed with them in the past. Right. It's like, no, you failed on a design, not on a category. It's like you it's like saying that, you know, I used a cell phone once and I couldn't figure it out, so I can't use a cell phone ever again. It doesn't work that way. You know, the first cell phone was a brick that was as big as a car, and now you can, you know, it's a full-blown computer in your hand. You can do anything. Like it you can dive back in and find that one that works for you. Some people are iPhone people, some people are Samsung people. The same goes for progressives. You know, not every lens is for every patient, and you have to find those solutions and be open to looking beyond just the one or two that you always work with and realize that there's we've got a golf bag and find the right club.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

You know, that's a really good point. I can't tell you how often, and I'm not gonna push any specific opticians under any buses, but very seasoned opticians, very seasoned opticians that deal with three lenses, and that's it.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

That is all they ever deal with. And I'm not, you know, if their patients are happy and everyone sees and it's all good, then just shut your mouth, Pete, and get on with it. But like you just said, but like but all those clubs in there.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah, it's like they can see, but could they see better, right? That's that's the thing for me. It's like yeah, they could be happy, but could they go, oh wow, I didn't know it could be this good. And that's what I'm that's what I'm always hunting for. Well right.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

You were hitting on it earlier. That is that craft skill component of that separates the the craftsman, the skilled optician from someone who's slinging product or saying, let me know what you choose, and we're writing that up. And everyone's been there on a very busy day. I'm not, you know, bashing any churn environments or whatever for for any other purpose, then it does squish some of the ability to show those expertise, qualities, absolutely that that we were they're going to see us as an order taker. Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

We're we're we're the cashier at the at the McDonald's at that point. Right, right. Right? Like we need to be thinking beyond that and saying, can we give them something they didn't even know they could do? And and so like I every time I sit down with somebody, whether you know they they've worn progressive for years or they're brand new to it, or they're terrified and they've been fighting it for longer than they should have, whatever, even if I don't get them to jump to what I think makes the most sense for them. I'm as I'm handing over that receipt, I'm in their prescription, I'm still going to be wrapping things up by saying, you know, there's so many new ways of doing things. Things could change in the next couple of months, so don't give up on it. Let's talk again last year. You know, and and I might even toss out, well, you know, I mean, there are even frames now that are hearing aids. Like I can fix almost anything. I just need to know what your problems are.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Well you're setting up the future engagement by pointing out that there's continuous technology that's coming through the tubes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

And you know, that's it's not we're not in a static business at all.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

No, and that that's what is so cool because even when things come back in and get reinvented, this this little bit of resurge of flat tops and flat top edging problems and all kinds of weird stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's you know, I snicker at them because I dealt with them 35 years ago. But it's at the uh you know, at the beginning of the career, you know, it's it's just interesting to see some of these things waving back through people's. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Well, and and what's interesting too is this the it this blending of old and new. So, like, you know, you talk about like the flat top thing coming back a little bit, right? So that's that's a that's an old tech, but now we're putting these super modern, super slick coatings on them that didn't exist 35 years ago, and that's completely changed how complicated it is to edge that lens and keep it straight. And so there it's like, yeah, like there's still something for us old dogs to learn because, like, yeah, we understand the basics of how to fix it, but it's still different because coatings have changed so much. And it's it's it's uh I'll honestly, it's what I love about the technical technological advancements and how we can engage with this is that is if you try to sit still and only offer the three lenses, then you're gonna get passed up really, you're gonna be left behind in the dust. You have to keep like I this is something I I routinely say in my classes like if I've got any downtime in my office, if I'm slow, I just open up Vision Web and start scrolling through the descriptions on lenses, and like I see a name that I've never seen before that I'm calling the lab and say, What's this one? I've never heard of this. Tell me more. Because we have to keep engaged with the possible, and not every rep is gonna know everything, or they're not they're gonna think that this doesn't match your needs in your office, so they're not gonna stop by and tell you about it. You have to stay engaged. And and reps are often gonna give you a little bit of a marketing spiel, so you you have to know how to filter that a little bit. So you reach straight to the lab and you talk to the people actually making the lenses, and you'll get a whole nother perspective than the one that's coming in to sell you the product, completely.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

And your lab person doesn't want to talk to that lens person, yeah. So that's you know, that's a nice liaison, that's a good way of bridging some of those gaps. But especially if you can ask a question when someone's walking in, you know, to talk to you about a new lens and you're already asking questions about, you know, like I was just reading this about it.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah, exactly. I mean that's well, not only cover you. Yeah, for better or worse, you can kind of put people in their place a little bit. If you if they come in, you're like, oh yeah, I've heard about this, but I need to test it. Like it's already gone beyond the I I understand the technology, but I need to see if it actually lives up to what it promises. Put it on my face. And ever everyone, every out every rep that I work with knows that I will not sell products until I've had a chance to test them. They have to be warned by somebody in the office so that we can know if they actually do what they say they're gonna do. My patients are not my subject matters.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Right. Have you ever had patients ask about product that you ended up introducing?

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Yeah, I've um there's been once or twice I've had patients actually bring up stuff that I had not heard about, and that was always like, okay, now this just shocks me and I need to know more.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

And there's been plenty of times where, you know, like I really so and I could get in a whole soapbox rant about my preferred methods on how do I actually work with a patient in the in the dispensary, but I have a preference in general to make that patient sit down in front of me and never let them get up. They're gonna I want them glued to that seat, and I'm gonna concierge some frame styles for them. I'm gonna, we're gonna have a conversation about lens technologies, we're gonna figure these things out together. I'm trying to psychologically put put them on the same side as the desk as me. I'm not adversarial, I'm conversational. We're working together.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Well, was that is that a philosophy that was taken from Beverly Hills?

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Or is that I think it's kind of just my own thing. I didn't really pick it up from there per se. You know, I I felt like if to the concierging of frames, maybe to a certain extent, like it's overwhelming to people to look at a wall of frames.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

And and they all start to look the same. If you're not initiated in the field, it's really overwhelming when you see a wall and they all look like rectangles in black, and you're like, what do I do here?

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

And so, so I and I have, um I mean, it's not maybe super obvious in the video here, but I have a relatively narrow bridge and it's low. And I have fought all my life finding frames, especially plastic frames, that will sit in the right place, not slide down, not touch my eyelashes. These things drive me nuts. So I've become so hyper-conscious of this for myself that that's a major driver in everything I'm selecting for a patient. So while they might come in, like I always start with a couple league questions of are you looking for a square frame or a round frame this year? Do you want a plaque or a black or a tortoise or do you want a square or do you want metal? Do you want plastic? What are you looking for? I'll lead with that as I'm looking at the prescription. Yeah, what should we change? Yeah, so when I'm glancing at that prescription, uh that glancing at the prescription immediately gives me a couple of things. One, you know, am I looking at multifocals? So I that's gonna change the frame selections a little bit. And am I shortening my multifocal list based on the power type? If I'm looking at that that progressive in its area, there, the multifocal RX and its high SIL or high minus or high plus, that's gonna change which progressive I found to be the best solution. So I'm shortening my list of of those multiple thousands of lenses and funneling those down a little bit, pre-selecting a little bit in my head to give a short list of how we're gonna figure out what's the final choice.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, based on the experiences that you've seen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah. And so then, you know, now I've I've I've had that start of and like, okay, they give me that I'm I'm only I've been wearing black, I want tortoises here because it's always like they want one. Of two colors, right? I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna go find some shapes for you. And don't worry, they're not necessarily gonna be the colors you asked for. I'm just trying to find the fit first. So this is kind of a double-loaded thing. One is I am definitely looking for the fit, but I am also intentionally forcing them to put frame colors on that they would never put on their face. And that will make them realize how good another color can look on their face.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

People get set in their ways. They really do.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

They really do. And like every patient I set my own personal goal, every person I sit down with is I want to make you even a funkier this year than you were last year. And whether they know it or not, I'm always gonna, okay, I'm not this year, but you already went wild with your color last year. So we're gonna make it a funky shape. You know, I'm gonna now you've you've tested the boundaries and you've discovered everyone compliments you for wearing the fun and funky frame. So we're gonna go even funkier and make them even more thrilled with what you were and go, where did you get those? And they'll come back to me. So it's a this is my referral process. It's not uh you, you know, yellow book ads or anything like that. It's about look, I can help you in a way that you've never been helped before.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

It's beautiful. And you know, I've been having marketing decisions, discussions that are gonna lead into very interesting decisions because you know, of directions that I'm choosing to go with IC clearly, but not by my choice, but by society's choice, there are flagrant examples in the last four or five years of people that have gone on camera with really, really the wrong glasses on. Absolutely. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Yeah. And it's exploded with those.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Well, but let's be real about it. Uh, in one or two of those instances, literally watched people that were behind a a desk on a panel, and their their in front of camera career just got knocked six or eight years backwards because you had such bad advice from your optician, or you ticked off an optician, or I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

I mean, and honestly, it what you're probably dealing with what you're probably dealing with in those situations is a situation where you let the patient wander and they choose a thing off the wall and say, I like this, and then you just say, Okay, instead of saying, Okay, I like that shape for you, but it doesn't fit. Let's fix that. And that's my process.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Right. Well, and so there's nothing there's nothing more frustrating than for for me when I see a frame that fits properly, but doesn't complement the beauty on the face. Absolutely. I don't have an example I can articulate in this call right now, but but I really it well it's it's very frustrating when you see like a big set of big, beautiful dark eyes, and they've got this crazy light metal frame on, and you're like, God, you could really just pow those eyes out if you could just try this or try these two other looks, or you know, and that's super thick or clunky. We can really do this elegantly, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

It's like exactly. That's the that's the the the front loading I try to do by concierging frames. Is that they're gonna like now there's two things that happen when they do that. Is one is that they generally don't look at the price tag because I just put down five or six frames in front of them and say, just try these on for me. Look at yourself in the mirror, look at me, and and if you really dislike something, hand it to me, I'll make it disappear. And then we'll start whittling down to the shape that engages with you. But they're going to be putting on colors that I know are gonna work on them, but they would they didn't want, they've never asked for, they never wanted to try. Even this last week, I had somebody that's always black, always black, always black. This year I want to try tortoise, and so I slipped in a green, and the green made her lies just like electric. And I'm like, and she was like, I yeah, no, it's gonna be this one. I like this. That worked. I love that. That that's the key, is that you you you you it's a psychology game, that's the mind trick, right? Is is you get them to it and make it their decision, even when it was really yours.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Well, you know, you and I love hockey, and uh the cap's commentator, the play-by-play, is a gentleman by the name of Joe Beninotti. And he is known for his eyewear. He's a small statured man, his eyes are close together, but he's got a fantastic his optician is spectacular. He's got a really cool array of shapes that fit a little bit of a rounder head, but a small man. And his PD is narrow. Fantastic array of frame choices, and you know, the nerd in me and all of us is you know, whenever I'm watching him in between periods, I'm like, oh, he's got the blue one on tonight, or oh, he's got the you know, it's I don't know. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Yeah, and it's like looking, you know, I'm a I'm a Kings guy, right? You know, and me out here in California, and and it's and it's like when when you're watching the games and you see Daryl Evans come on, and he's always wearing the most elaborate outlandish suit. And uh I've I've actually I've actually heard him interviewed on podcasts, and it's like they're all one-offs custom made for him, and they're crazy. Like you think Don Cherry wore crazy stuff, forget it. He did. Daryl Evans has got it all over him, but they all compliment him, they all look fabulous on him, and it's like it's such a signature look that at the Halloween games in in LA, people come dress as Daryl Evans and wear elaborate crazy suits, and that's like become one of the things that's and then you had no idea that it was a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

We're all doing Daryl, yeah. It's it's a thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

But it's it's a it's engaging with the personality and the look of that person and making it all like dial up to 11.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

And and and a branding that can really change things for the individual. You know, we're we're hitting an hour, and I feel like we could talk an hour on branding. Well, you know, I can't. Sorry, I'm chatting that you no, you laugh about that, but I I really do think that it we should come back and talk very specifically about branding because uh it's a huge part of carving not just the identity for for you to to speak or teach or any of that, but it can allow you to be very specific.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

And I think that yeah, absolutely. And I think the branding even goes beyond like you a name you choose or a logo you choose, but the branding is also about which frame collections you're carrying in your place. Like that's that's part of your brand, is how do you want to people identify your ethos?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Right. What what drives you, what motivates you, what makes you unique, what makes you the same, what communities are you a part of? All of these things build parts of an identity uh that you can sculpt into your own brand, which is is different. It is very the human branding component that we the ability that we have to do this in the eye care industry is unique. I think it's unique poise and position to well let's just talk about our generation for just two minutes here. How many people, how many rock and roll musicians from the 80s are going that going into glasses, you know? Sooner or later, Sammy Hagar is gonna need a pair of glasses on, you know. Well, and it is true that that's a change. Your face is your brand. You know, I've mentioned people like Tom Brady before, but when you go into wearing eyewear, how you do it is critical.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

It's more than critical when you're in this spot like someone like him. So, you know, making the wrong decision, making a buy-wim decision, deciding that you know all the answers, is is you know, it is something that we're battling because we know that our value depletes every time someone clicks to buy glasses online and there's no optician there at all.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Well, and I think you you've come back around to an interesting thing too, whereas like when we talk about the the good and the bad of technology, and I feel like, you know, I mean, obviously AI is the big gorilla in the room, right? It's that's all anyone's talking about right now in this business. And I think frankly, to a certain extent, I think it's a big detriment. Like AI has incredible value. I will not deny that at all. But I feel like when we start to use it for creating like logos and art, or we're using it to create descriptions and mission statements for our offices, I think that's where it starts to really collapse and fail us in a lot of ways. It might help you hone your vision a little bit, but in essence, what happens when you do that? And and and I know my daughter's a Gen Zer, and the the Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids, like they kind of despise AI, especially in the art, and it's really obvious to them immediately.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

And and that's they fear identity identity theft is their big thing. And yeah, and I'm sympathetic to that.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

And I think the reality is that um, I mean, you know, there's still it's been an interesting evolution to watch because you know, Gen X in a lot of ways is still the forgotten generation. People don't think about us that much. So like everyone went from marketing and targeting boomers to marketing and targeting millennials, but they still don't really understand what millennials are. They think millennials are 20 somethings and they're not, they're 40 somethings. And like, and you and okay, so your millennials are really your progressive wares, so you've got to be thinking differently about who your target audience is and understanding that we are five to ten years tops away from Gen Z being the dominant financial driver in the marketplace, and they despise AI. So you gotta be really careful about how you engage with it, use it as a tool for the science stuff, like the the lens designing and that kind of stuff. But I think it can be really dangerous thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Refinement refinement from a craft that's established in place.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Improving things that are clunky.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

Yeah. Well, it's like you know, it's like when when they talk about like using integrating AI to to improve or modify a progressive design, that's brilliant. That's a great way to use it. It is. Oh yeah, you can you can take a bunch of data points from a bunch of different patient wearers and then say, okay, these are where they're the they're unhappy, let's fix those spots. That's a brilliant use of AI. But using AI for marketing is something you gotta be really careful with because you're gonna you're gonna disengage with a lot of your customers really fast if you don't do it right.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah, it has to speak to your philosophy, like you your set of beliefs, how you do your business. There's so many things that are in between the lines that forge an ethic, you know. To some people, stealing a pen is no big deal. To others, it's theft. To, you know, I'm not here to define or judge either of those individuals, but theft is theft. And I don't know how to blur a line that's clear. I mean, I can give it their own prescription and do that, but that's not, you know, that's a it is an inherent problem that we're facing. That that Gen Z you talked about. They want to get eyewear in a way that the existing ophthalmic dispensing system doesn't provide successfully or effectively or whatnot. I'm not saying that they all want to buy glasses online, but there's a healthy chunk of them that are going through the experience in a clunky nest of the city. Well, and here's here's the interesting thing, too, is that I would say it's a better experience. It could be going better for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Absolutely, absolutely could be. And I think that I'll tell you again, from looking at my my daughter and her friends and everyone in in her age group, she's 18, so she's kind of smack dab in the middle of the generation. Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

She is they are much more engaged and passionate about tactile experiences and actually touching the product and seeing the product, that's more important to them. They do not like online shopping at all. They might use it as a resource for research, but then they want to go to a physical store and touch it. And that's important for all of us to remember is that if you can have excuse me, if you can have the digital storefronts that give examples of the eyewear and explain how they're different from each other, design philosophies, manufacturing locations, materials that are being used, if you can spell that out on your website, you will be engaging with the Gen Z and Gen Alpha much better than you realize. They don't want to shop online, they want to research online.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

It blows me away that somebody in their 20s wants to know why different acetates are different. I have it was the farthest thing from my mind when I was 27, 28 years old. I did not care about that at all. I mean, it it it is interesting though. They also have access to so much more information. Lord only knows what interests them. But that's another use for AI that I think is very useful and valuable is that because, like I just said, Lord only knows what they're interested in, AI knows. And that is a better way of communicating with your patients. Because I mean, let's face it, we may think we're super close with somebody, but if we're seeing them once a year, we're seeing them once a year. We don't see them every week. We think we know Susie really, really well. We would know her a heck of a lot better if we implemented a few tools properly in our social media campaigns and our website management, things that things that we do that really do change, you know, uh where you direct your resources and how it's like.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

It can feel counterintuitive, but I feel like one of the greatest tools that we can have to to know and engage our patients better is is to find ways to actually get them to come into the storefront sooner more often. I know there is a tendency to think that you know we're seeing patients, you know, ever once a year for exam, maybe every two years for an exam. I think what's the average right now, like 1.6 or something like that. But if you can build the proper conversation, relationship, discussion, not just at ordering, but at pickup at dispense, and establish for them how important adjustment of those glasses is for them to see as good as they possibly can and get them to come in for tune-ups and plan on it, maybe even start pre-booking tune-ups like you would at a Jiffy lube, that you you will have a better relationship with that customer and they will be more excited because every time they come in, you're like you can point out the new things that just came in that they didn't know about and keep them engaged with you in a whole nother level.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

And you don't have to say it to everybody. I'm sitting here thinking of the five people that their plastic frame gets out of adjustment every four months. Like, what the heck are you doing, dude? It's like and I have an idea what he's doing, you know. I mean, that's I mean, that's part of it. But yeah, well, he takes them off, he falls asleep on them, and the dog sleeps on it. I mean, there's all these other things, but yeah, it it's it is routine, you know, and having that that's actually brilliant. I actually I really love that idea. Okay, and I might come to the East Coast just so you know.

SPEAKER_02 58:12

I I'm glad. I like one one of the biggest drives when I when I created my blog, when I started my Instagram and when I started doing all these things, like the the blog was created explicitly to educate patients. And then I created the Instagram to just have a more visual platform for that same idea. And immediately, almost like literally my second post, I discovered it was only iCare professionals that were engaging with me on Instagram. And it made me realize that there was a space for educating us as well, and I needed to fill that space. But I created the Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

No, no, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just want to say keep keep going, but connect the difference between your Instagram following and what you've experienced thus far on TikTok. Yeah. Right, right, right, right, right. Me too. Until this year. This was uh my first year. Right, yeah, mm-hmm. Completely. As you should. Yeah. That's what I do too. Right. And obviously on TikTok I'm more apt to plop in a a video from the park or of Sadie or whatever, you know. I mean, that's I'm okay with that. And and and but it's it's certainly I find the engagements a little pitch slappy, but by the same token, it it right, right. Well, I want to ask you about that. That's crazy. Mm-hmm. Well and and I'm totally about that. But there is a use for AI that I mean there's no question on different social media forums that there's certain feelings you get doom scrolling certain places, and then you do in other places where you're doomed doom scrolling, at least at least that's for me. But well, and I'll and I'll be very succinct about it. You know, X can be very brutal to me in my own world, you know, but there's other engagements in other places that are not. It's very fluffy, candy coated and and TikTok in regarding our industry. But there are some fun conversations that are very in-depth about energy and light and photos and and nature, you know, and and and I find those a little bit more engaging. I I think in general, our industry is so slow to learn how to embrace these things that you're literally an ambassador to it. So for you to stick your nose in and say, I'm not here to I'm not here to monetize my TikTok. I'm here to take the same message I was doing over there and bring it over here. Because the reality is I think it will resonate in the right lanes. There, I do think there's algorithmic benefits to tech tick TikTok that are above maybe what you and I have come to grip at all. If that's even a word. Right. Right, right, right. Which is cool. Well, and again, stay in that comfort zone, stay it it's a branding thing too. I mean, you're one of the reasons I don't mind your videos is because they are quick. Speaking of that, no, it's the truth, you know. Yeah, no, not at all. Well, know that you're I know that you're gonna get your honest opinion of stuff. That's the thing that I do like, you know. You even though you are sh connected to vision source and a and S Lord and what and the transitions and all of that, it's if something is off or stinks, you're not gonna say it's great. And I do like that. You know, but but again, we you similar to me, you tend it seems to me that you tend to find the positive, you tend to find the answers to here's what I can do, here's what I can to connect. Uh you're not here not here just to say what something can't do. Here's what here's what the other thing can do for you. You know, it is, yeah. Largely I largely use it for sports because the athletes say stupid stuff all there. And most of the time it's it is stupid, most of the time it's really profoundly idiotic and wasteful. And I I it's the one I spend the least time on. But there's no question that it is also the one that knows how to push your buttons better than the others, which is not cool. You know, I don't I don't like that about it, and it's probably why I spend less time there. That's wise. No. I can't see that happening at a hardcore level for you anyway, but you know, it you're right. Any anything can happen if you're gonna if you're gonna spend enough time absorbing you are what you eat kind of thing. So if you're absorbing, you know, negativity, it's it certainly ends up oozing back out. Well, before we wrap this up, we've been going for an hour and 15, which is feels like 10 minutes to me. Is there any is there is there any is there any perfect message you want to pass forward or have uh thoughts or advice uh regarding technology and eye care and just in general regarding the future of uh the Golden State and Outtigen work?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

I know that yeah, everything takes years. You know, just because we're introducing legislation in the fall, you know, we know darn well that nothing's gonna really hit the ground running until the end of 27 in terms of implementation and probably into fortune, into 20, into 28. But if you're laying the foreground for how you're gonna take care of who's here and doing the work already, and how people are going to be initiated and brought in at certain education basic levels going forward, it's a win-win for everybody. But optometry ought to feel a little encroached upon, not just from Tela, but from a lot of other lanes. So partnering and coming together is really, really good. I believe in it. I think it's wise, I think it's the future of everything. All of us, optometry, ophthalmology. Yeah, that's cool. I think that's great. Out east, people would probably disagree with you, and they would not want them on the you know involved at a legislative level, which is ridiculous. No, right, right, right. What was your best takeaway of Chicago before we wrap everything up for good? Right. Oh cool. Now, was that that's a specific product or field? Field, right, right. That's really cool. Right, right, right. Well, and if and eventually that's as you create that or as you throw ideas into a system to have it created, you know. I mean, obviously we don't want to, you know, we don't want to go too far down that AI road, but that is building those ridges is gonna make connecting ophthalmology optometry and opticianry way, way, way easier. You know, when you when they're all in place and things can zoom across from place to place for patients all over the place, i everything should be easier. Everything. Every every bit of it, you know. As mad as we want to get at a post for some ding bat who knows damn well they shouldn't have left their toric lenses in the hotel and they're two states away and whatever. Oh, they haven't had an eye exam and you know, they're six months past it. Yeah, there's a thousand reasons to chasize and get mad about something, but fix the damn thing. Let's give everybody a pass, but let's have it all interconnected somehow. And I get yelled at about that. People don't like that idea. But at the end of the day, all your other healthcare is that way. So boom. I think that we just got caught off. Boom. I don't know if we're gonna have this up with or without Rick. But this has been, um wait. I don't know if he's coming back in or not. This has been a fantastic interview and episode with Rick Peralta, the Optical Jedi. I'm your host, Peter Preck, Themptometry Profits Revealed. Thank you so much for another episode. Oh, is he coming back again?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

Of course, we drop right there at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

No, it's perfectly good. You know, it's all good. Thank you so much uh for being here. We'll we'll we'll edit out the blips and the blurbs and whatnot. But this has been a fantastic interview, and I've been very, very happy to do this. And I do really mean that we're probably connect again between now and fall or whatnot, and and and actually talk talk about branding.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

That sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Personal branding as an optician, I think, is is something that people would be very interested in. I know I am, and I think it it's actually part of the future of what we're doing. In my own mind, it is. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. This has been another episode of Optometry Profits Review, and I'm your host, Peter Precked. Thank you so much.