Why Strong Values are the Secret to Huge Results (ft. Dr. Steve Rice)

Dr. Steve Rice 0:00
As we’ve grown, and some of this is learned by, you know, sometimes growth is painful. You know, we didn’t all start out to be business leaders or business owners. They don’t teach it anything like that to you in optometry school. But probably the biggest thing as we’ve grown is being able to maintain and continue to strengthen and build a culture.

Brandon Welch 0:30
Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I’m joined by the one and only, Dr Steve rice, good morning, my mentor, my friend, my fellow Rotarian, a CEO mastermind, and honestly, just sincerely, my role model. And so no so much goodness has come from even our short time working together four or five years now, and I’m really excited for me, so thank you for being here. But I’m also excited for our audience, because I think if we can pull out even a tiny bit of what you’ve been able to do and some of the things you’ve upheld in your company, it would be extremely valuable. So generally, today is about values and building a legacy company. I’m talking company that doesn’t just make money, but does phenomenal things for your community, builds phenomenal things for the people that work for you. And so if you have ever woke up and been like, you know, I’ve got a great business. I make good money, but I want something more. I know that today’s episode is going to be valuable and impactful for you, and so what do you have to say for yourself? That’s

Dr. Steve Rice 1:48
man, I hope I don’t let people down here. That’s set me up pretty tall. But where do you want to start?

Speaker 1 1:57
Give us your life, life story in 30 seconds. That would be hard to do, because I’m an old guy. The camera guy is going to time you. So okay,

Dr. Steve Rice 2:06
well, I would say to start, I’m just I’m a normal guy that came from a loving family and been very blessed and fortunate to have a lot of decisions along the way, be good decisions. And, you know, I, I’m an optometrist. We we have five locations. We have 13 docs. My son, my daughter and my daughter in law are all docs and in the practice. And, you know, family is very important to me, community, community, and being a part of the community is very important to me. So, so

Speaker 1 2:44
the vision clinic is the name of the company. 56 years in business. And you came along somewhere about 20 years in, 20 years in okay? So you’ve been there just over 34/35 years, okay? And you’ve gone through a lot of change. You came in, you were the second doctor who was hired, or third. I

Dr. Steve Rice 3:05
came in as the fourth partner, but the two senior partners were essentially getting ready to leave. So it was Dr Lynn Herndon and I were the two, the two partners that kind of started off with one location and just continue to Yeah. So

Speaker 1 3:26
I have heard the story lots and lots of times, but you have gone through acquisition, dealing with partners entering, dealing with partners exiting, dealing with family expansion, dealing with holding a vision. And those are all things I want to talk to you about today, but probably the biggest, and the thing that everybody listening could just learn so much from you on is building what I call a values based business. And there was a there was a grand conclusion I had after doing marketing, gosh, probably four or five years. And that is that the best companies don’t need to advertise to get business. Advertising will make them grow faster. But the best companies and the truly successful ones, start with vision values and vows, and the stronger your vision values and vows, the more untouchable you are for your market. And so it’s not just about going in to work, to sell something, make something, deliver a product or service. It’s about a world you’re trying to create. And a little story, Steve and I are in rotary together, Rotary International. Shout out to our southeast rotary friends. And I think that’s, I think that’s how we originally got in contact. But just I’ve been in the community a long time. I’ve seen your company, but when we started to get to know you and the heart of the business owner, and kind of talking to my media friends here, the most important thing you can do, if you wish to help somebody grow their company is to get inside the heart of that company. So I’m on. Renewers have long forgotten that, or don’t. Don’t get asked that question often, but within four minutes of meeting you, it was extremely obvious what the heart for your company is and heart for your community. And I would call that, or what we call that in the Maven method, is a vision. What world are you trying to create? And I can, I can articulate it to my understanding. But vision clinic, what is the world that you’re trying to create that maybe is different than the category? Because you think optometrist, you think lens crafters, you think, you know, Pearl optical, you think any of these big box, national retailers, and what you have is so, so different from that. And how would you describe that?

Dr. Steve Rice 5:46
Well, I think at the at the heart of it, any decision we make is, is it right and best for our patient and our patient it we’re not transactional. We’re about relationship, and our goal is to take great care of not only the patient’s vision, but a lot of times, people forget that the eyes are the window to the rest of the body, and so we do a lot of medical Optometry. And so I’ve had literally patients I still see 35 years later from the first day that I started practice, and that means a lot to me. And I think when you look at kind of what we do, we have the ability to do that, which is very unique. And one of the reasons I think those decisions told you kind of you make as you go through life, when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, the reason I wanted to do optometry is because you could have those relationships, make an impact on people and be a part of the community, yeah, because that’s just a that’s just kind of in my DNA. Wow.

Speaker 1 6:50
So your industry lives in kind of a balance between retail and service, and then medical service at that, which is kind of unique, and I think that’s what gives you such a insight into maybe what various people in our audience might be talking about or thinking about on daily basis. But a lot of, dare I say, people you’ve worked with over the years, or people you’ve been around, don’t have that, don’t have that drive behind what you call patient care, what you call what’s best for the patient. And they their businesses, not that they’re bad people or anything like that, but they don’t thrive like yours does, and they certainly don’t. The market does not happily pay them, probably to the level that you’ve earned. What would you say that was the difference. Like, just you knew you wanted to help people, but your industry continues to go transaction, transaction, transaction, and buy one, get one, and this big, you know, coupon driven commoditization that happens with eye care, what? When the money probably was easier to grab at that point. What? What was it that kept you focused on this bigger thing, which is quality and patient outcome? And just, just real quick, we talk about vision and values and vows. Vision is, what do you see? Steve sees a better world for patients. Values is we will never do this, or we will always do this, no matter what. And things I’ve seen Steve never do is buy, you know, stock with cheaper products, with, you know, maybe overseas or compromised products, even though the public would buy them. He doesn’t stock them. I’ve seen him invest obscene amounts of money, even in technology and better doctors and better people and better locations for the for the heart of that vision. So the values are, what will you do? What will you not do? And then the Vows are like, just literally what you promised to your customers and so And with that, the I can say, as a patient, the vision, vision clinic experience is amazing, but the money grab would have been easy, right? It would have been a lot easier to go that transactional route, and many of your colleagues have been approached by private equity and sold out. And what do you say about all that? Because it’s always interesting to me, because somebody who’s really got the world by the tail could just take the money and

Dr. Steve Rice 9:10
run. Wish I had the world by the tail. But I think my mom used to say, be true to yourself. And I think that, you know, when you look at something, I like looking long term. I think as a leader, it’s our job as leaders to look one year, three years, five years, 10 years down the road. What is it that you want? And I think the other piece is that, fortunately, I learned a long time ago that to be successful, you need to surround yourself with success. With successful people, and people that, not only that, you don’t want people that are exact same thinking as you, because then you’ll get in a rut, right? You want people to challenge you, but you also want to be around people that have similar kind of goals and mindset in that. Is, I’ve been very blessed to be part of a group called Vision source. And vision source is independent, private practice Optometry. And our goal is to, you know, be the best providers of eye care that you can be, and you and we just don’t believe, and I don’t believe that transactional is the best way to do that. And so I just think that the best way to know a patient is to know and learn and understand where they’re coming from and what their needs are. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things as doctors, we do, the first thing is chief complaint, why are you here? Sometimes you have to dig to get through exactly

Speaker 1 10:38
why they’re there. That doesn’t happen in your industry. There’s a lot of, I mean, I can think of the optometry places that went before, and it’s and out. Flip the little, what do they call those corrupt or corrupters? Yeah, you flip the foropter, and they say, well, here’s your script. And you walk out and you buy some glasses and you leave, yeah. And what I’m hearing you’re saying that that the way you do that practice is rare, I think, to your industry as a whole, and it’s rare, certainly for our community, but there are nationwide you connected with other people that had the same values,

Dr. Steve Rice 11:09
leaders. And so we always want to be on the front edge, leading edge, of technology, because, you know, there are lots of ways to look at things, and I think one of the things that we have done years and years ago, has embraced change to the point sometimes my staff is like, bring me one more new thing. You’re going to be in trouble. I know

Speaker 1 11:27
this to be true as the marketing guy, Hey, I got another thing. Yeah, I know that ad

Dr. Steve Rice 11:31
Brandon, and is very well aware of how that works, but, okay, but, but that allows us, and I think our Mo and our patients understand that we’re going to do everything we can to make make it accessible to them. They don’t have to go somewhere else to get some new technology.

Speaker 1 11:48
So I’ve worked with a lot of entrepreneurs over the years that have shiny objects object syndrome. And we all we have a code around here. It’s like, SOS right, shiny object syndrome and and those I’ve learned are the ones that I probably shouldn’t work with, because what we build is long term understanding and long term bonds with the communities that our clients are in, and generally, somebody who’s bouncing around always has a new thing for the sake of a new thing. Is not a is not a business that it can consistently grow, at least with my method, but you do these things out of, like, this hell bent, oh my gosh, there’s something new. We have to rush and bring it to our community or our patients and like, that’s so, so cool, so quick, quick difference. Like, just a observation I had while we were sitting here talking, is just, you can have shiny object syndrome, or you can have like hell bent on my customers, best life syndrome, and you certainly have the latter. So but break that down. Answer to the question, by the way, we didn’t rehearse this. I have no idea what he’s going to say, but I think that’s I think that’s key. That’s something I we may not often think about. You may be very rare and alone in your pursuit of that better life for your customer, and I promise you, working with 1000s of business owners, that is a rare thing, and if you can uncover it, have the courage to bring that to the world. But there are probably people like you and other communities, and that’s what you found through vision source, right? I’m familiar with the vision source, so I kind of know what he’s talking about, but it’s just essentially a group of essentially a group of like minded independent healthcare providers. Speaking of independent that’s not so easy in your world, that’s harder and harder, right?

Dr. Steve Rice 13:36
Well, it is in, I think, not only our world, but in in medical in this small business. We were at a meeting this morning, as we were and I don’t know that I should talk specifics, but in an industry that I never even thought private equity would be a part of, a pretty big industry that private equity is a part of. And so anyway, that is something that has changed a lot through the years, and one of my roles is in the vision source while I’m an administrator. So I work with a lot of other private practitioners. And, you know, we talk about encouraging plagiarism. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If somebody’s come up with something awesome, let’s do that. But I am a strong believer in the best patient cares between the doctor and the patient. And I think the great thing about being independent is the buck stops with you. And when you are venture capital, private equity purchased, that isn’t always the case. There’s somebody in the middle there, or if you’re in a corporate setting, or whatever, shareholders have expectations, exactly, and so that’s why I’m gonna I’m fiercely independent on that side of things. I just, and it kind of destroys me a little bit my soul, when one of my colleagues sells to private equity. And there are lots of different reasons why. And sometimes it’s a good thing for everybody, but it’s. But anyway, that’s independent is I happen to know you’ve been faced with that

Speaker 1 15:05
shiny pot of gold more than a time or two, and it’s not, no, it’s a hell no, right? Exactly, speaking of fiercely independent, something you all should know about. Steve, how many years? Has it been since you’ve been in a Walmart? So think about that for a second. I just want to tell you, I know a lot of people that are like, yeah, local business, yeah. Small Business, yeah. Entrepreneur, you’re buying your groceries from Walmart, but not Steve rice, and not anybody Steve rice ever puts a seal of approval on When did you stop doing business with Walmart? When did you stop shopping at Walmart for groceries?

Dr. Steve Rice 15:46
Well, first of all, the good news is that I don’t do much shopping, so it’s not that that hard. But so when I was a kid, I went to 13 different schools for graduated high school, so we moved all over the kicks you out of every one of every one of them, and what I saw in small communities that Walmart would come in and they would be kind of the shiny new thing, but then small businesses would be basically taken out of the taken out of the picture. And I had a great uncle that had a small milling and lumber company in a town, and Walmart came in and took a lot of their a lot of their business. And as I kind of started to realize what was going on, I was probably in my teens, it’s like they would come in, destroy the small businesses, and then they would go, leave that building, build another building. Now you’ve got this atrocity of a building sitting in a small community, and they’ve hurt the small business. And I’m like, This just doesn’t seem right. You know, I think it, it certainly didn’t start out to be like that. Sam Walton didn’t, I don’t think have that concept, but so as a small business guy, and that’s always what I wanted to do. I come from a family that, you know, they’re, I would say they’re entrepreneurs by in spirit and heart, but so I just didn’t think that was right. So I had just a long time ago, so I’m never gonna go to Walmart. So I haven’t

Speaker 1 17:10
I’m serious, like, he’s polite about it, but there’s been a couple times where I’m like, I’ll run to Walmart and get that. He’s like, we could figure it another way. Yeah, we cooked a dinner a few weeks ago, and I wasn’t even thinking. I was like, let’s go to Sam’s Club and grab some stuff. And he’s like, Okay, I don’t have a car. He got he got anxious. He got flat out nervous. It was, he was, I was asking him to go against his religion. But in all seriousness, I mean, that’s, that’s a real thing for him. I’ve seen it. It’s a joke. It’s a running joke. My staff gives me a hard time. I think, I think I was seen in a Walmart, literally, anybody in a three state area would like be pointing I think you would just just disintegrate. I think you would just catch on fire, on the spot. But in all seriousness, though, that on the question, how do you say so focused on your vision and values. I think anybody listening right now, you have an origin story. Steve’s origin story, or in part, is that experience with big box coming in and putting his small business under and that we call that in the Maven market, we call that your pissed off moment. That’s a pissed off moment. And whenever I’m trying to get the heart of a business owner out, and our job is to understand what is special and what actually makes them a real, living, breathing, authentic, better solution for a client or for the world, like when I’m trying to write ads or I’m trying to grow a business, that’s where we start. And the origin story is the thing we’re always trying to get out, and sometimes it takes hours to do that. I don’t think it took hours for you, but, but I guess I would say, if you’re sitting here going, Man, I’m a I’m a medium player in my category. I want to steal more market share. Why is this so hard? Why am I losing to competitors? Why do I only have a 30, 40% close rate or lower? I’m telling you, people want to deal with people, and stories are the fastest way to bond with people and to make them see you as REAL, instead of some other, you know, empty, big box, transactional corporate machine, right? Even if you are a local business. So I would encourage you to say, what is your origin story? If you’re listening, Steve has one. We all have many, but have the courage that is behind Dr rice to live on that and build a company off that. And so what else would you say, just kind of going through about your experience dealing with partners, because it’s it’s easier to do that when you’re the only one that has stake in the game, but you’ve had to split the ownership over the years with other people, or that’s just been the scenario when you’re the guy that’s hell bent on that, and they’re not as hell bent. And what is your advice for leading through that change and holding to some of those values? Well,

Dr. Steve Rice 20:05
I think again, lucky on the decision front right? And so the great news is that all of my partners, current and former, were all very like minded. And so there’s a lesson there. Yeah. I mean, I think you want to bring in people that your mission is clear, you know, your heart is clear, yeah. And so there’s not that doesn’t mean there aren’t disagreements. But I think at the end of the day, if you say, hey, we want to do what’s right for the patient. We want to create relationships, we want to be a part of the community, then, then you’re going to have similar, you know, kind of folks with with you. So that’s, wow, yeah, that’s been, I’ve been lucky on that front that

Speaker 1 20:50
comes to choosing the right partners, though, and and obsessing over, are you that should we enter a business deal together? It’s like a marriage, right? If you were married to somebody who had a different value system than you, that does not end well, right? 100% Yeah. So that do that’s a key takeaway, like, choose your partners wisely. I was consulting a client yesterday who got some money flashed in front of him, and somebody wants to buy into his company, and he knows this. I’m not I’m not saying I had to preach to him, but I was like, dude, that’ll never work. You’ll never be happy with that. And most partnerships aren’t, because the reason they get into partnership has to do with some sort of financial leverage that they either have together or one of them has the money, one of them has the talent. And they don’t bond, going back to the Maven method, they don’t bond on values. What world are we trying to create? What we always do no matter what? What will we never do no matter what? And that’s where all good things fall. Where all good things flow. And so learning from Steve, learning from some situations I’ve seen play out in not so great ways, start there, and if you are trying to create the same thing together, then you might have synergies partnerships. But that’s rare, right? You’ve seen some other partnerships not go so well, I bet. Yes, I’m sure all of us have, yeah, sure. So, yeah, anything you would add to that?

Dr. Steve Rice 22:08
No. I mean, I think communication and clarity are key to success, is one of the things we say. So we try to make sure there aren’t surprises. We want to, you know, try to vet things as a leader. Sometimes it’s you’ve got a lot of things that you’re doing behind the scenes, and a lot of decisions are made with multiple inputs. And when you bring it to, you know, other owners and partners sometimes, you know, it’s a little tricky on getting them to understand, kind of the again, the vision. But you know, there’s got to be a lot of trust. Trust is important part of a partnership, I think, which is true with patients and it’s true with our staff. I mean, one of the things I think that has contributed to our success through the years is that kind of, like you said, it’s a marriage. We when we when Dr hernand and I first started, and we did all the hiring and all the we did, all the HR we did, we did everything. Yeah, yeah. I think there were eight employees, you know, we used to say that, you know, you come into work for us and with us. It’s kind of like family, because you’re spending just as much time with us as maybe more with your family. And so we wanted people that you know were, were platinum hearts, solid, solid people and

Speaker 1 23:21
the camera guys, right that now, Platinum heart. I need your platinum heart card. Yeah, I

Dr. Steve Rice 23:28
need a platinum heart. And it’s that’s harder to find. To be very honest with you, we’ve talked about that in some of our groups. It’s just absolutely, it’s, I don’t know what’s going on in the world, but anyway, so I think that, you know, communication and and clarity and being honest and trying to let everybody know where we’re going and why we’re doing it, we always, we start with the why. Many times we got something new, it’s like, what, what’s in it for me, and what’s the why? Because I think once, once the you are trying to, especially trying to influence something new. If you just come in and say, okay, got this great thing, this is what we’re going to do. Everybody jump behind Let’s go. What I have learned is that doesn’t work very well. Either I’m not that can, you know, persuasive or so. So what we’ve learned through the years is to have, you know, get, get key people, managers, owners, partners, doctors, whoever, all on the same page before we kind of start taking it out to the to the group. You all

Speaker 1 24:29
need to rewind that. You need to listen to that. There was a there was some humble, there’s some humility and struggle. That was that was wise. First of all, I don’t know if you realize what you just did, but that was a value statement in and of itself. You hear that. You hear the term Heart of Gold a lot to have a to have a strong vision, means you have a higher standard. And so platinum heart that I’ve never heard that I’ve never heard you say that, write that down, and but the other thing you you just. Lab so eloquently espoused there was just get your key stakeholders on board with a bigger belief before you go start doing top down. And I think we think of our job as managers and leaders, and we look around what’s culturally or corporately acceptable, and we say, I’m in charge. Now go do this. And the reason that’s rare, in my experience, is that a new generation has seen a generation or two before them, that doesn’t lead to happiness and fulfillment near as much as I think we would like to have been. So I think we’re all calling us, meaning millennials. And I’m a very old soul, so a very old millennial, but Nate the camera guy is calling BS on just that downward chain of command, and they’re going, why? What’s the purpose? And that that has everything to do with the vision and the values you built with your business. And it should be obvious to you by now, but the thing that vision clinic has built, and you have so many awesome people that work for you, and so many people I’m proud to know and work with, but what they built is phenomenally bigger than the average practice in a town where that’s actually really hard to do, like an independent medical practice, I think is tough anyway. It’s tougher by the day. It’s especially tough in this town not to go into details, but it’s extremely tough in this town because there’s two big hospital systems that try to keep that from happening, and just the general fight of being a small business is hard anyway. And I would say, just for those who aren’t aware of this, not to go into any particulars. But every practice I’ve seen, you’re probably 567, times bigger than that. You continue to grow. And that’s not I know you don’t like that. I know you’re probably one to like shrink, because you’re one of the most humble people I know. But the connection there, that strong vision, that strong Dang. It. It’s going to be this way for the betterment of our customers, for a bigger outcome, because that has so much to do with why you’ve been successful and why you continue to be an anomaly in your category. So would you agree with that?

Dr. Steve Rice 27:17
I’ve been called an anomaly. I don’t know if it’s a positive thing. Nice, nice of you to say,

Speaker 1 27:25
just, just own it. So, and I didn’t, I didn’t bring you here to do that too, but it’s just the truth. So, so you have just under 100 employees now, what would you say has been different as you’ve grown through employees, because you started with what, four five, probably eight, eight. Okay, eight,

Dr. Steve Rice 27:44
as we’ve grown, and some of this is learned by, you know, sometimes growth is painful. You know, we didn’t all start out to be business leaders or business owners. They don’t teach it anything like that to you in optometry school. But probably the biggest thing as we’ve grown is being able to maintain and and continue to strengthen and build a culture. So one of the greatest compliments that we get is if a patient comes in, we don’t know them, they come back and they say, Gosh, as soon as I walked in, I could tell that you guys care. This is different, yeah, or if I’m out in the community and someone says that, that that’s really what we’re striving to get, that’s the proof. I have said for 35 years, if you’re happy, tell everybody you know. If you’re not, please come back and tell me I can’t make it unless you, unless you tell me. And so when people do, most people won’t say anything. They’ll be unhappy. You know the thing, if you’re unhappy, they go out and tell 10 people, yeah, that whole thing, I think the research actually is 17 by the time it multiplied. So we, we don’t want that. And so we when patients come in and they’re really sheep patients saying it, and I just like, thank you so much, because now we can learn from that. And I think that you always strive to be, always strive to your best, but that culture, that that feeling that, hey, you’re you’re home, we’re here to take care of you. We do care about you. We care about your family. I’ve been very fortunate to see multiple generations of folks. You know, it’s not uncommon. I saw somebody when they were six, and now I see their six year old granddaughter, you know, or something like that. It’s just like crazy, you know, you don’t look that old, yeah.

Brandon Welch 29:35
What are you drinking?

Dr. Steve Rice 29:37
But anyway, that’s, that’s pretty awesome. And that’s, again, just fortunate with the business that we’re in but, but I feel like we have built that and, and I hope to continue to do that. I hope, I hope that the docs that we brought on and and that they and the people that have surrounded ourselves within management, which like, if you would have doubt, said something. About management, like, that sounds bureaucratic. That’s like, as far away from independence as you could be. So that took some time, you know, learning and understanding the importance of an SOP. It’s like, oh, it’s an SOP standard operating procedure. How important is that? That was? That was counterintuitive for somebody who has, oh my gosh, yeah, 100% was. But you also realize that, you know, you’ve got different practices at different locations, and you can’t be there, so you have to get, you know, people that think and act and believe in the things that you do, to be able to, you know, have that everywhere. And so that’s probably the biggest challenge, honestly, is the culture piece, and we’ve been we actually have someone that is like, if you’d told me 20 years ago you’re gonna have an HR person, it’s like, what are you crazy? But as we’ve gotten bigger, and especially through COVID, if we didn’t have our HR person, I don’t know how we would have survived, because it was, it was not easy. But we actually have somebody now, Mindy, who is our people and culture, so she does. HR, but that’s so important to us, because I think that that’s what keeps us cohesive, and you should be able to feel the same experience. It doesn’t matter if you go to our office on Ozark or nicks or Brandon or Springfield. Yeah, that same feeling. So I don’t remember what the question was. The

Speaker 1 31:23
question was, Has it changed through 100 people? And what I heard is that you have to be you have to realize that your skill set as a leader of an eight man crew has to get phenomenally different and better with 2040, 80, now almost 100 people, I heard that you have to be willing to do some things that are counterintuitive, including, you know, people that lead with vision and have such a passion, like the idea of putting that passion in a box and putting boundaries around it just seems like agonizing, because you’re like, Oh, you’re killing the magic, but to sustain The magic, you have to boil it down, right? There’s a there’s an excellence there, and then more what I heard than anything is just humility as a leader and surrounding yourself with those people that have figured it out before you or you’re subjecting your ego to be willing to them have help you out. And I’ve learned so much from you over the years watching that so that is so cool. Rewind that too. Play it on half speed. Pull over. Get your legal bet out. There’s some, there’s some platinum in them, words right there. But speaking of adding people, you have now three family members, not, not. First of all, I want to say this, you have one of the most awesome marriages, and just relationships with your wife I’ve observed in the business community valor, and I look up to you and Karen, and you’ve raised two awesome kids, and one of them happened to marry another doctor. And you now you’ve got now you’ve got this thing called family dynamics inside the business, and you’re a leader, and you’ve got partners. How in the world do you navigate that? Because we didn’t hear that. Dr rice has two doctors. Both his kids became doctors, and then they married a doctor. One of them married a doctor. How do you navigate that? That’s gotta be tough.

Dr. Steve Rice 33:16
You know, it isn’t tough and kind of interesting. So my original partner, Dr Lynn, heard and his daughter, Mitzi, is an optometrist. Yeah, I forgot to add that. And so when she went to school, she met a young man who became an optometrist, and they married. And so they both are in the practice. Dr Brad, who’s Dr Herndon, son in law, is my boy as a partner. And you know, people ask all the time, so how did you how did you make your kids become eye doctors, like I wanted, and I would like to know, number two, we never talked about it. The first time, my son is my oldest, we were at the University of Arkansas, and he was trying to sign us on a school, and we were doing an Honors College thing, and they go around with a group of, like, there were six kids or something with parents, and it’s like, so the person that was leading the thing, so what do you want to do? And I’m sitting on one side of Kevin, and my wife is sitting on the other, and they get to Kevin, so I’m going to be an optometrist. I’m like, Okay, good to know. So he was probably a little more kind of, that’s what he wanted to do, but we really didn’t talk about it. He worked in the practice some. And then my daughter, when she went to school, she did, she was going to be, you know, she was going to be four different, five different things to her credit. And I was so proud of her, because she went and explored that she was going to be a wedding planner. So she went and kind of did that. She was going to be a florist, and she went to that she was going to be a sports like a athletic trainer. She was going to do all these things, and she would be brilliant at all of those too. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Yeah, but one thing I would say, what you said, is, I did have an incredible wife. Karen is pretty amazing, yeah, wife and mom. So, yeah, that’s why my kids are true folks. So I can, but anyway, so it’s, it’s certainly something that is not normal. Hmm. And in I in the eye care world, it is not uncommon for children to be, you know, following the parents footsteps, because it’s a great profession. Uptime is a great profession because it’s, it’s healthcare, and you do have those relationships, and you have life outside of the office. And so I think that’s really it, that what it boils down to, but the family dynamics. You know, I think I coached a lot, and was a scout leader, so my kids when they were young, right or wrong, because I’m a I just like being a part of things, and I coached them, and I had this conversation with them when they were young. It’s like, kind of sucks to be a coach’s kid, yeah, because you have to be better than everybody else to and if you’re not, you know, that’s how life is, you know. And so I think that that probably plays a little bit of a role. And then I think the other is just trying to, you know, make sure that everybody’s on the same page where this all kind of shakes out and ends up, I don’t know, but I believe in my goal is to continue the vision clinic in our community and the legacy piece. I’m hoping that, you know, everybody that comes into vision clinic as a doctor has an opportunity to be an owner at some point. Yeah, so Wow, we’re working, we’re working through what that all looks like. That’s, yeah,

Speaker 1 36:20
that’s unique in and of itself. I don’t I know we have time to dig into that, but so that’s a lot to dig into. I’m gonna go back. I’m gonna say it again. And I was pretty sure that’s what this episode would end up being about, but it just came back to values and determination. So I heard, because you’re hell bent on that outcome, you’re the coach, and so you’re holding everybody to a higher standard. But, man, I wouldn’t want to be

Dr. Steve Rice 36:48
Kevin or Stephanie,

Speaker 1 36:50
and they’ve done an amazing job of I’ve just admired that happening. I don’t know if Jude Jovi Anna Archer will ever want to be in the consulting and business and advertising business, but I’ve learned from you already on that and but, but that if you just had this, oh, I’m the guy and I’m the, you know, control this practice and I can do what I want. That’s that’s not how it’s happened, and you’ve held them to a higher standard, as you has have everybody else. So values, people, my friends, values, values, values, get close on what is right, get very comfortable talking about that, what your standards are. And I think if they were sitting here, and actually, we’ll probably follow up with them on this, and maybe we’ll have them on the podcast someday, but I think they would tell you that they got a sampling of just seeing, even through college, what, you know, other businesses and what other opportunities were like, and none of them felt as authentic, probably, as what you built. And that’s not the case for every family business. I did not want to go into either the family businesses that I had presented to me necessarily like they weren’t as attractive, so not because they weren’t great businesses, or my parents grandparents weren’t great people. It just when you have something as cool as you’ve got, I think it’s would be hard to not we want to be a part of

Dr. Steve Rice 38:13
it, so I do want to, while we’re talking about family, real quick, I will throw out this. So Brandon is talking about, he’s an old soul, and he is, he is an old soul, but he is probably one of the best husbands and dads and multitaskers I’ve ever seen.

Brandon Welch 38:33
Well, multitasking is a myth,

Dr. Steve Rice 38:36
but he’s getting ready to so they homeschool their kids, and they do an amazing job. And Valerie is an amazing job. Valerie does an amazing job. And so you and I, the one thing we haven’t come we have a lot of things in common. One is that we married way above our pay grade. No doubt about it now, but, but you amaze me, and how, I don’t know how you keep it all together. I think I’m busy, but, holy cow, you are crazy fooled, my friend, but, but anyway, you’re, you’re a great I’ve seen you. And you are a genuine, you’re a genuine man and father and dad and and you should be very proud of that. Well,

Speaker 1 39:15
thank you for saying that. But it’s, it’s only by looking up at the Platinum, for those of you that are still here, I have a couple final questions. What’s your advice to somebody who’s you know, maybe has the seedling of a vision, maybe has their own origin story, but either the pressures of their market or the pressures of their partnership or the pressures of their family or just the industry, or whatever is asking them to compromise on that vision. What would you tell them?

Dr. Steve Rice 39:53
So this is an this is an old guy thing, and sometimes that because I am older and my staff. Of 80, I’ll say things and they’ll look at like, What are you talking about? But Jiminy Cricket, let your conscience be your guide. And I think if, again, if you do things for the right reason, rarely will it turn out to be a bad idea.

Speaker 1 40:19
Wow, we do things for the right reason. Rarely will it turn out to be a bad idea. Love it. I could end there, but I think this is I think I actually this is a selfish question. There’s two questions, who has been key to your growth over the years, other than the people we’ve talked about, like mentors and people, and maybe, how did you find them? Or maybe they found you, but who’s been influential in upholding you in the way that you have upheld so many others? Man,

Dr. Steve Rice 40:57
I have lots of mentors professionally. Rotary has been an awesome piece of my life because you’re surrounded by business owners and managers that are, you know, typically successful, yeah. So I’ve had lots of good advice and counsel from friends through rotary vision source I’ve been blessed and fortunate to be with industry leaders, not only eye doctors, but some of the, you know, national sales folks from a lot of our material side of things. And, you know, I try to learn from from everyone, because I think you can learn from everyone, yeah, but I just, I don’t know that it’d be, you know, any one person, my wife, keeps me grounded. She, she is just a huge supporter. You know, my, my, my partners. I learn things from my partners every day. Yeah? So I don’t know I’m, I think I’m always, I try to encourage this for my staff, and that is to be a lifelong learner. And you know, always try to make yourself better today than you were yesterday. And so my mom again, you go back to your parents, and it’s just, it’s just at the core, you know, just stop and think, Is this is, are we doing this for the right reason? Wow, everybody has something to teach, if you’ll just let them. This is true. I believe that. Yeah, last thing, any books you would recommend that everybody should read, other than the Maven marketer, oh my gosh, given this check. Would you take PayPal?

Venmo, yeah, I am some I love to read. I have to read a lot of industry stuff. So it leaves littler time than I would like to have, but, but I like, I like John Maxwell, I think he’s a heart guy. I think, you know, leads, leads with intention, yeah, right. Jeffrey Gitomer, you know this is, these are things I’d like to bring to my staff, right? Yeah. Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer Loyalty is priceless. That’s important to us, right?

Speaker 1 43:22
Yeah, he’s so good at that too. Get him. Get him, or was one of the early guys I read when I was getting into

Dr. Steve Rice 43:27
business. So things that things that I like to read, are things that that I can take to my staff to make us a better organization. So

Speaker 1 43:37
it’s a very selfless way to look at that, but I’m looking out for where the voids and what can I encourage and what can I what book titles look like? They could, you know, empower people, rather than empower me as a leader. That’s that’s powerful, right there. Maxwell, the first book I ever got, like business book, right? Brett Palin handed it to me, and it was the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and it changed my life. And I think it life. And I think I was 15 or 16 when I read that, guys, I’ve said this a lot of times. I think this will go down as the best episode to date, if you are looking to grow a business based on values. And I’m so thankful you were here. Thank you so much. Opportunity got deep there for a minute. We didn’t know how deep we’re gonna get. I

Dr. Steve Rice 44:25
tend to ramble so you never know. Like, call me a verbal process. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 44:28
if you have any questions, I bet I could get Dr. rice to answer them. You can send those to mavenmonday@frankandmaven.com thank you so much for listening. We’ll be back here every Monday taking your real life marketing and business questions and bringing you legendary leaders, because marketers who can’t teach you why? Just a fancy lie, just a fancy lie. He did it. We didn’t even put him up to that. We didn’t rehearse. Is that it is that the right answer? That’s the one. Thank you guys for watching. We’ll talk to you next week.