[00:00:00] Speaker A: I've curated my LinkedIn to show me what I want to learn. And part of this is prompting. Part of this is then giving yourself time to do the work. And you just start Small, start with 5 to 10 minutes a day and then you figure out how it's working, how you're using it, and also getting your team to realize, guys, if you're depending on me as the CEO to know what's happening with everything, like, we are completely screwed.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to the AI Vantage, where modern leaders decode the futuristic this. I'm Solomon Williams, founder of Solana.
So here, no noise, no hype every week. Sometimes it's just me and sometimes it's the brightest minds in tech breaking down what it really takes to grow smarter with AI and automation. Let's dive in.
Hello, thanks for joining us for the show today. So today we have for Brianna, that's for the CEO for the Dr. Contact lens. So, Brianna, thank you so much for joining the show. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and so.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Sure. Thank you all. Excited to be here. As you're listening, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brianna Rue that E R I A N N A R h u e LinkedIn of my gam so please connect with me there. But little history. I figured out what I wanted to do kind of in second, third grade, I was a patient and needed glasses and went into an optometrist office. My dad had two optometry friends and just fell in love and then went to optometry school, became a doctor. Thought really I wanted to be a private practice owner, which I became in 2015, bought out my partner in 2022. So I had really good partnerships, really bad partnerships. And then in 2016, 2017, my girlfriend and I, we just saw what was happening in the eye care industry with patients coming in and asking for copies of their prescriptions. Like, guys, we don't make money on your eye exam portion. We make money on selling you what we prescribe. So when you come in and you get this great eye exam and you ask for a copy, like, that hurts you as a patient. And so we know that we weren't making it easy. So how hard could it be to build Solomon? So we launched Dr. Contact Len, which help private practice owners connect all their hard work back to their practices. And so it's a CRM. For two years I thought we were building a website. It is not a website. We have built this immense tech company and so now morphing from co founder, tech entrepreneur, female founder, having two kids along the way and becoming a CEO and all of that. That's what I'm excited to share with you here. Some bumps, obviously, along the way, how I methodically now have made that transformation myself.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: This is great. So from this side, from you started from, like you said it, from you and your girlfriend started what was, you know, starting from the software company. And so what were your challenges that you saw from the lead generation? How did you first get out there? Tell us a little bit about, like, those first customers. You seeing the challenges and going forward. Love to hear it.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So that we had no idea. Like, we weren't marketers, we were doctors. Like, we had private practices and we were in all these forums, all these Facebook groups where people were like, I just wish I had a system that did X, Y. And so we really did build it for our own practices. And then we like to say we stupidly decided to share it with our industry. And because now that's where you had to become a real company and we got really lucky. And so I'm a big reader, so you're going to hear me kind of quote books throughout this. So I will tell you one thing. If you are not reading as in your C suite position, you're doing yourself a huge disservice. And those around you and 10 pages a day, make a commitment, make those silent commitments to yourself. That's really where you get this over the edge. There's no magic bullet. You're not going to hear me talk about a magic bullet. It's showing up day in and day out for yourself first. You're not doing this for other people. Realize that you're doing it for you. Your family didn't ask you to be away all these times on these trade shows. So there is an ego side here, and that's okay. But figure out your purpose to where work for you is fine, but that looks like work for someone else.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: So with having it too, because you having to adjust for that and the books that you've read, you know, was that just a. An evolution of just taking those books and kind of picking up just, oh, we could have done this, we could have done that. Just help us to like, what were some big points that you've learned just from the books that you've remembered to help move forward as being a CEO, Being in this new role was trying to provide this new service.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I think what I'm beating myself up about is the consistency that you need early on, the focus that you need early on. And granted, like, when you're building a tech company, you're running dev, you're running partnerships, you're speaking, you're on the trade show floors, you're doing the demos yourself, you're trying to figure out marketing and HubSpot. And now you gotta make your first hire and then you gotta get them trained. And so it really is. We both know, Solomon, you cannot scale chaos. And so when you're going from zero to one, like Peter Thiel's book, zero to one was one of the really first books I read on in this journey about tech because I wasn't a tech founder. Guys like I built a tech company. I will tell you, I've never written a single line of code. I can tell you where the code is and I can look at it together with them and be like, this is the piece of this part that we need. Because this is what tells us what we need. I'm not doing any of it. I'm the, I've become the face of the company. And living in that area, that lights me up. And so one of my biggest parts of this, and the book hadn't even written, been written when I was like, God, why wasn't this out there? But I'm a big Dan Martell fan and his book buy back your time was my really life changing read. I was drowning in emails like this is before superhuman or all these things. All these tools could help you like parse through your email. So I do see email becoming a thing of the past, which is great, thank God, like we're all just this is someone else's to do list. And I couldn't manage it. But it was all these things slipping through the cracks because I wasn't focused enough. I was chasing the next thing to get the next deal without really figuring out why I got the first deal. Does that make sense?
So then you just create this flywheel. So like another one is Jim Collins flywheel. Right? Create this flywheel. Like in patient care, you make an appointment, I make it easy for you to see me, I get you in, I do a good job, I listen to you, I prescribe you something to take care of the problem that you pay for steaming, you buy it. Like that's scalable in its own right. But when you do that process over and over and over, you get bored. So as a CEO, you can probably go down this path. You get bored.
But remember, oh my God, I can just. So many books. The book is, oh my God. So you're building a story brand 2.0.
So in marketing you asked Me a marketing question.
He said, look, we all have this thing in our head that someone has to hear something eight times before they remember. That's a bullshit stat. Because in order to hear something as a human eight times, especially in all the noise, oh yeah, they have to see it 80 times. So you're going to get bored with your marketing and not think that it's working, but you didn't put the work behind it. So meaning person saw it then they didn't see it. Didn't see it. Didn't see it. Didn't see it. They saw it. They didn't see it. They didn't see it. They didn't see it. They saw it. They didn't see it. They didn't see it. So like, see how you get to 80? So you gave up on the 8th. So that's where really cool things, these LLMs coming in like instantly AI and the warm email lists. And you don't have to do all this grunt work anymore to grow how HubSpot is integrating, how Salesforce is integrating. It's making your Data like what Dr. Contact Lens does is I now that I'm like, I love having these conversations because it's where ideas stem from. But if you think about it like an electronic medical record system, okay, that I have to integrate with Dr. Contact Lens. I wanted to know who was overdue to come and see me for their eye health exam, who never ordered from me and who was due to reorder. So just knowing one of the stats, like an industry standard that we look at is capture rate. So how many people do I see as a patient buy from me? And we have been put to sleep saying that a 70% capture rate is good. But Solomon, that means one in three patients are walking out. But I never asked the hard question of why. I just got defensive. So that's where our product came in and we were able to say, okay Solomon, here's your capture at 70%. What am I going to do? Another staff training, another team training with my team to get them to sell one more year supply to a patient and move the data point 70 to 70.02%. Like that's just mind numbing. That's like, oh my God, just make me throw up right where data is. Now let's think of your HubSpot and even in my like HubSpot or, or Salesforce, whatever CRM you're using, think of all the data points that you have in there that you can monetize.
What you need to do as a founder but it's easier to live in the oh, let me just go check my email instead of making the five phone calls that I need to do to the right.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: And I love how you brought that up because now that we kind of gone it with everything else that you've explained, like with the whole thing now is automation and so forth and everything is AI is now going on as very big a buzzword. It's how do I, how do I implemented and so forth.
So to your point as the CEO of implementing these things, especially from someone that's coming in, that's learning from the tech side and so what are you seeing on the industry trends now and how are you going through all that? Like what are you preparing for seeing for the rest of 2025 or 2026? Because you're hearing all of this and as someone that's coming in from a, you know, small to medium business that's I want to implement this. I don't want to get, you know, stay behind. What do you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:09:34] Speaker A: I'm an 80s baby, so Flint Jetsons, like that was my jam. Like I do like more days than not, I feel like a Flintstone living in a Jetsons world is like the best way that I can like wrap my head around what's happening. But it doesn't mean you just don't keep taking little steps. So right now what I'm seeing, guys, AI is just a buzzword. It's programming. So what I've seen over like the last three to four weeks, like my LinkedIn I'm following, I'm not there doom scrolling, I'm there learning. I've curated my LinkedIn to show me what I wanna learn. And part of this is prompting, part of this is then giving yourself time to do the work. And you just start Small, start with five to 10 minutes a day and then you figure out how it's working, how you're using it, and also getting your team to realize, guys, if you're depending on me as the CEO to know what's happening with everything, like we are completely screwed. So it's the culture of continuously learning that I look for in my amazing team members. Because people are like, how do you do all this, Brianna? How are you a mom, a wife, you running two businesses? And my answer is I don't do it all. I can't.
But I pour into my people with learning and that curiosity. And that's, I think what really has set me up is books. Like I can't tell you Guys, enough. Like there's a quote and it says all leaders are readers. But not all leaders are readers. And a someone that re will live a thousand lives in their lifetime. One that doesn't read will live one let that sit in. So in 250 pages, if you bring away one or two little tidbits, that's a learning that you that that person learned the hard way that you don't have to go through.
And in the informational age that's why it's sped up so fast. That's what makes this fun. But it also does rock your purpose.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: I think on and as you mentioned use you know with, with having. With books and so forth because I'm beginning to read more as exactly to the point of what we discussed earlier. You know, with that and taking away because everyone now is trying to read online and trying to kind of keep up with the short bits and kind of keeping into the fact of you know, generation how you've implemented LinkedIn and how you've picked it out to point into what you want to look for. And so how has that impacted the business side on you taking. Because the whole part of the automation as you said is just programming so you're taking time back from those repetitive tasks and so forth. So how has that improved on you know, doctor contact lens as a, as a whole?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Part of that is just realizing in healthcare especially and I've, and I've really learned this the hard way. So if you're building a gas company in healthcare. So 75% of AI companies are actually coming into the healthcare arena. So Solomon, that doesn't tell you what I'm doing as a doctor, as a physician that somebody takes care of patients that it's inefficient. I don't know what will. Okay. But what we do to take care of patients is so inefficient. But now in the healthcare space and healthcare stats and that's where I get so frustrated is because it is one by one by one. Yes, you can get these bigger deals and but again you have to like show that you're. You're going into a workflow and health care is trust. If I mess up on someone like yes, right now it's box of contacts or glasses. It's pretty easily fixable. I'm not like going to kill somebody but they can get a serious eye infection if something goes wrong. Right. But that's the difference in healthcare staff is it does scale so differently than just a normal SaaS company and it takes so much Patience. The joke in my family, my sister's a first grade teacher, is she has patience. And I see patients. And so what I really had to work on is my own patience. And again, that high achiever. Another great book is Positive Intelligence. Like, what are your limiting beliefs? Because you re we all have them given to us as kids.
So there's a quick quiz you can take. It's like four or five minutes long. And then you can do the course with it if you like, if it's calling to. But oh, my God, the limiting beliefs that you have to overcome to go 10x or go from 2x to 10x, it's massive. And you're gonna leave people behind and they're gonna be pissed that you left them behind.
Another Dan Martella, he's like, leave them in the reality they created for themselves. That could be your spouse, it could be a friend, it could be your colleagues. Like, I get punched in the face all the time by my colleagues because they won't spend 300amonth on something that's going to make them a million dollars. Like, I just can't hear stupidity. I just can't. And so you have to go got really tough skin and you got to go on to the net. X. And now I get all. I mean, it's fun because I'm like, bring it on. Like, I was a cheerleader, as you could probably tell in college and stuff. But the competitive thing, it's so fun. But, like, I found what lights me up and I ask those hard questions to find the niche. And yeah, I did get lucky that I said yes to this opportunity with Jen Baldwin. I mean, I was nine months pregnant, Solomon, when Dr. Contact Lens was born.
So not only did I bring a baby to this world, but I also brought the end of this world at the same time. That's insane.
So, like, I think part of it is being ready for the right. Yes. And it's never going to be the right time. You're never going to have enough money, you're never going to have enough time. You're never going to have the right resources.
But, like, what's your gift that you want to share with the world? Like, quit playing so small.
And I'm like, I'm telling you everything that I myself, like, it's all right in here in my journal. Like, if we went through. These are like my things that I tell myself every day. It's right here. Next me. And this is my fun one. Like, my son picked this one out.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: This is my. I Journal, I write a lot.
Again, you gotta have fun with this man. Like you're never. We're all not gonna get out alive the same shit. So how are you using your time?
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Right, so that's on the time management side. So everything on exactly as you said. As I think especially for myself as being owner, it's mindset, right? It's the, the beliefs. Because as you said, there's always going to be disbeliefs about I'm not doing enough or you know, I'm not getting those right leads or you know, things are going on, I'm not staying up to date or you know, as you said, marketing because it's continuing. Am I doing enough ads? Am I putting enough spin into the ads and you know, am I doing a proper workflow within in a. You know, so you're all of these spots of you coming back.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: But Solomon, when was the last time you actually picked up the phone and called five customers to try to get a demo?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Right, exactly. So that's the part and then that's you to utilize automation now with AI, now you can utilize. There's tons now where you can utilize now with phone conversations of having that in. Have it sound like someone at clone your voice. And there's so many more creative ways now that you can.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah, they're gonna sell better than me. I was at a conference and they.
We were. It was an AI kind of thing. And one of the speakers played the Tesla conversation. I don't know if you've seen this. You can go to YouTube and find it. And it was. Someone was searching on the Tesla website and I don't care what your political affiliation is, it's fine. Like let's just listen just a second.
But the Tesla bot called the person that was on the website, they had a better conversation than a human ever could have had to get them to the Tesla dealership for an appointment, which the guy ended up doing and ended up closing a deal 24 hours later. Think about that for a second. It was more distinct and asked better questions and didn't get defensive in the sale. So I think it's that belief of like when you hold on to something so tight, like I need this customer so bad cause I gotta make payroll tomorrow. Like I live that guys. I do too. But it's that lean back mentality as a founder because you have that deep belief that you know what you're building is so cool and a lot of people aren't going to see it. And that's okay.
Eventually they will see it. Because my product started at$49 a month, now it's at3.49. So can you imagine, like five years ago when I called on my friend, I was like, guys, it's only $49 a month. And now they're like, do I get the Brianna Rue discount? And I was like, no, your price is now 5.99 because you've wasted my time for five years again. You're getting feisty, Brianna. Today.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: I love to hear the authenticity. It's just on the leadership side and kind of seeing it on the. Because, you know, you really. People don't really. You only see, as you said, the highlights and so forth. That was the art, right? So with that in the current state, now with Dr. Contact Wentz, and what do you see that's working well with you now? And what. And what has been frustrating and so forth?
[00:18:14] Speaker A: And I mean, what's so frustrating again, where no matter what objections you come over, I just can't cure stupidity.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: And I can't if I care more about your business than you do. We are mismatched. So I think it's understanding that early in the conversation that there are so many other leads you can do that in between all of the no's, there are those yeses. And just like we're wired to always go to the no or always go to the bad thing that happened that day. Like, you saw 25 happy patients today and one left you a bad review. And you're worried about the bad review when 24 said something good. That sucks. And you're making a decision off that one time. Like, we call them zebras, Solomon. So in the healthcare space, our unofficial mask at abductor contact lenses, the purple zebra. Okay, so the story is if you hear you're in New York City and you hear hooves behind you, most likely it's a horse, not a zebra. Okay?
But when we're doing sales, you're like, this one time in 1998, I had a patient that could that ordered four years supplies of contact lenses. So I will never trust something like Dr. Contact Lens. And I'm like, that's a zebra. So you're missing all these opportunities because of this one thing, and you're making a decision based off that one thing without asking yourself really good questions. That's where these LLMs, ChatGPT, Claude, all these systems. As a founder, if you've not created your personal board of directors and asked yourself like, one good prompt is just about your beliefs. So in like the chats that we've had show me my five blind spots. Show me how to overcome them. You can have these conversations and then it can prompt you back questions, right? So it is this back and forth because you can't ask those questions to your team. You can't ask those questions to yourself. Spouse. Yes. You have maybe one or two people that you can bounce ideas off. Like, this is as much therapy for me, Solomon, as any of the listeners. So when I go home and I'm like, oh, I got a big deal today, and my husband's like, well, my life hasn't changed yet. And I'm like, he's like my number one hater because it's been a lot on him, right? And he didn't ask for this, but what he did ask for is to. And I've had to realize that I didn't like the reality I was in. I didn't seeing patients day in and day out, that was. It wasn't going to be me. There was something bigger. So it was the calling to do this. And I've had a lot of bumps. I've had my product stolen from me. I've had a cartoon character that looks like me made out of me. And I was told, business is business. Brianna FEMALE TECH founder Like, I swear to God, if I had a something in between my legs, I'd be in a very different arena than I am now. So you still have to overcome that as a tech female founder. But again, those are the, the doors I get to break down.
See how I use the word get? So it is. It's mind talk, it's mind speak, it's mind tracks. Like, I closed a deal not too long ago, and I mean, it was just years in the making. It took me five years to get this big deal. But the one I'm telling you about is really funny. So we got to know each other really well. And he had said that he'd just taken his kids to the Limp Bizkit concert. And like, Limp Bizkit was like my days, like in the 90s, right? And I texted him, I said, before you open your email that I just sent you, listen to this song. And I sent him the Limp Bizkit rolling song. I was like, keep rolling, rolling roller.
Like. And so he opens, he's like jamming. And that's again, it's the genuine connection that you have as humans to humans doing business. Yes, your product has to work and it has to fit into their flow and all these things, but it's relationship. So all your followers, all your stuff on Instagram, all your LinkedIn people, do you actually reach out to them?
99.9% of you guys don't, right?
[00:22:07] Speaker B: And I think on the side of having it, as you said, you need to continuously. It's everything. What it is nowadays is all about value, making someone feel human. You mean able to connect with them, be able to consistently talk with them on that side. So and as you point on that, you successfully got that, that lead that you've been working for five. So on that point, because it's, it's interesting so because other leaders have said the same, would you say that your biggest thing, your metric for, for the next, for the next six months to 12 is always lead generation or is it something else on the side for your product?
[00:22:40] Speaker A: For Contact Lens right now, what we're going really heavy into partners because you can't do this by yourself and you can't fail. One by one by one, it gets more and more painful. It doesn't get easier. And so it's about right now just in building, I did not realize all the stuff we had to build, I mean it was EMR systems, it's our own dashboard, it's credit card processing, it's insurance verification, it's rebates, it's distributors, it's the process to onboard a practice. It's coaching.
I mean like this is a massive entity and I built like 1% of what a practice has to do. So what it really is, is it's that getting a customer on, getting the KPI you need to look at is from sale to success.
And the faster you can do that, the faster you can scale.
And just again, remember, you cannot scale chaos. And. But that's where over the last year, Dr. Contact Lens has grown up. So through the life course of your business starts off as that baby and you enter it and it's just you that is about like can do it. And maybe you have one or two people that are help you. I'm like, I'm fortunate to have a founder, you know, a full founder. And then it grows up and you get your first employee and then your next employee and you keep chasing that. Like if I only had this product that did this or this, if we only shipped this, I could get 50 more demos or 50 more leads and they just don't come right. And then you build this next thing.
So now that we have it all built is now where we can focus on making all that chaos into that flywheel. And that's a really hard thing. You have to slow down like we put a hiring freeze on, like we're not hiring anybody else until we are at a certain level.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Knowing that's okay to take a breather and get it all wrapped up together. So give yourself these pauses. It doesn't always have to be like, you know, there's the book traction, which is like, what are your rocks? Every. Every 30 days, every 90 days. Are you on track, Solomon? Okay. I was like, we've actually changed it into the little frog game.
So this is.
I have these little frogs right here. A funny story again. Like it's how you keep getting back up, right? And when you lose faith is get the F out. Because that you have to find your tribe, you have to find people like this. You have to continually put yourself out there if that's what you enjoy doing. So I was, it always comes back to my babies and like some of the life lessons here. So I was four weeks postpartum with my second, he's now three. And Dr. Condiglens was on fire. Like we had hired these three salespeople that promised the world. They put us into a 400000 hole.
My issue has always been not making people decisions fast enough where I will just give and give and give and hope that it comes back. And it guys, it just never does. Like just realize you also have to put your own oxygen mask on first. So I've gotten much better at that.
And again, that comes to metrics. What metric are you watching? Make sure that it moves. And if it doesn't, you gotta make some hard decisions, right? Because number one rule is don't run outta cash.
So I needed a COO to come in. I had, was running the practice. I just had another baby. We went through ivf. It was like two full cycles of ivf. So that was like its own story. Then I had an advanced maternal age pregnancy, so it was a little bit early. Who was born at a little under 35 weeks. But he's happy, healthy, would never even know, right? Little father. And he's my star. So I was on this call, I was outside 9 o' clock at night and on this call with this potential coo and he goes, brianna, do you ever walk in in the morning and write down the three things you need to do that day? And I was like, oh my God, Mama bear like went off Solomon. Like, I don't earn bridges.
Well, I burnt one that night. I have rekindled it, okay. Just in full transparency because industries are small, so don't burn bridges. Like all you have at the end of this is relationships and your integrity and just who you are as a human, right? That's it.
And I go, three things.
You think I have three things on my list? I said, what I don't need is a list of three things.
What I need is a freaking wife who's gonna come and take all these appointments that I have to do, all the things that I have to do for just to run the household. And my husband, give him credit. Like, he really picks up his stuff, right? And does where I need him. I really wish I had a chef. That's, like, where we really struggle. But it's come.
So, I mean, you can see just like, I blew up. And when I reflected on that, when I gave myself time to cool down, then he told me, like, he's like, you gotta fire a salesforce. You gotta get marketing. It's just not these little things. So he telling all the things I need, I knew I needed to hear. But it was delivery. Okay? Like, understand where I am. I just had a baby, and I have two businesses that I'm trying to take care of. Dr. Contact Lens is scaling, and it can either go up or it's done. So I'm ask. I'm in a very vulnerable place right now. Honor that. But give someone. If I'm asking you for knowledge, make sure I can hear it, and if I don't hear it, make sure. Change the delivery a little bit. Okay? So I replayed the conversation. I was like, three things. Three things. What did he mean by three fricking things, Solomon? Like, using different words in there. But it hit me so, like, six months ago, I was like, oh, my God. It was three things. Not three things. Just on your never ending to do list. We all have that.
Okay?
It's three things you need to do that that will move your business forward.
So what we came up with, again, I'm all about fun, was your three frogs. And they're very heavy. They're very psychologically heavy frogs. Get these on Amazon or you can find me on LinkedIn. I'll sell you some. So your one frog is one hard thing you need to do that day.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: One easy thing you need to do that day, and one thing that will bring you or somebody joy and you move the frog. And so this is my joy frog. Today. I knew I was getting to talk to you. And I love shooting podcasts of he moved over to the side of my death. And I know what my hard thing is to do today. I know what my easy thing is to do. So if you do that day in and day out, by the end of the year, that's 720 tasks that you accomplished. So in Atomic Habits, it's about the little thing.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: So with that kind of using your analogy on the part of you know, the three frogs and so forth. So with it being for the next because you said you're focusing on partnerships and everything else you've accomplished and utilizing those three things, what would you like to see for Dr. Convict Liz within the next six to 12 months from now, what are those three frogs that you want to see?
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Double. I want to double. I need to double. I just. It's time. It's time to go pro. It's time to show the industry what we built. It's time to do it like we have all the things but I didn't realize how much we still had to build even two years ago. I thought we were ready then. And again you just keep doing it. So doubling that's focus. So through partnerships, through leadership, through like my LinkedIn part of coaching. Like if you are a CEO without a coach, what the f are you doing man? You have to have some form. And I've got like three I can call upon one is regularly but also my COO kind of acts as my coach too sometimes because they'll we ask really deep questions and there's a lot of tears that get cried in this office.
So but again you have to know each. It's just focus. So follow one course until successful.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: So it's always on that side. So kind of goes into scaling it and bringing it forth. So that's the big. Would you say that that's kind of like the major challenge now is having it to like how do we. How do we show the market that. That we're ready, that we, that we've scaled to this catalyst as you could say. So now we're trying to showcase else. So it's now seems to me it's so it seems it's now it's going to the niche of finding the right partners. Is that fair to say on like.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Which we have now it's like accountability. So now we've made this partnership. It's not one sided. So again that comes to ethics like who you're dealing with. I was just on a call right before this and they're with like a hundred locations and I go so what's your big goal? Like you're at a hundred. To me, that's dying like a coach and he's like yeah, our next thing is over. The next three years, we want to get to 200. And I was like, well, like I like, literally I was like, what? Only 200.
Like, to me that's like we're not speaking the same language because that's with how we can be reached to each other right now through this scale the model. And my question to him, I challenged him, I said, why?
Why only 200? Well, we want to stay niche and we want to stay this and want seriously. So what I said at the bottom of that meeting, I said, have your own meeting.
Because he's not going to get it, he's not going to scale it.
So if you have this community, why aren't we using it? Like, that's our big question. So it's utilizing the community to grow.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: So on the community side, and I know like on the side because, you know, this is. We're getting really into what I'm really taking away from this and I love like listening to you and kind of hearing like your story is. It's really just on utilizing one. The key thing, especially as a, as a founder myself is now is into all about relationships with value. You know, benefit for me, benefit for you, benefit for everyone. Right? So on that. So on that side, on the utilizing that your community, what have you worked? Is it mostly on your LinkedIn side? So for someone coming in other foundries onto our audience, that's looking in specifically on the technology, who are you linking, reaching out to your community as it always been through social media. Is it been through now on the side? Tell me a little bit about.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah, great question. Social media is used for newly. That's not where we nurture the community. The community now is us doing like a monthly webinar where we invite and we. That's what I've learned from this book is you have a customer that's red, yellow, green or purple. Purple are those are your jam. Those are your people that you're going to learn from. Those are the people that you want to pour into that are like with you, the red people, one foot in, one foot out, somebody comes and discounts them for $5, they're going to jump. Like, don't waste your time on the shit. And so when you look at the community now, that's again where we were chaotic and that was me as a founder just wearing many, many different hats and I've had to offboard the stuff that I'm just not good at and that I hate doing, like do a time audit. Mine was my email. Now my amazing executive assistant. Sade is my boss and runs my schedule. Like, I'm not allowed to touch my calendar and my calendar is focused on partnerships in the community.
Does that make sense?
[00:33:50] Speaker B: No, it makes perfect sense on that.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Or doing it as like individual reach outs, individual emails, me maybe jumping on a call with one of our top accounts and then just bringing that together, like doing a webinar with the seven of them. Guys, what are we working on in our business? Like, not just a doc or content lens side, but, like, what problems are we all solving? What instrument are you bringing in? What marketing are you doing for your practice? So becoming more of a thinker tank.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: So how many times do you think it's effective to do those webinars to implement these things and so forth? Do you. Is it maybe on a quarter?
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah, try. We're going to try for weekly, just kind of weekly office hours.
Or it's just like the YPO model, which is just having individual forums and because as CEOs, I'm again part of two of these groups. Like, one is individual coaching, the other one is guys, it's. It's lonely up here, but it doesn't have to be so in. I think one takeaway here is you have to learn to ask for help and you have to offload that stuff that's stuck in your chest and your heart and your throat. I'm a big yogi too. So it's like when you're talking and something comes up, where do you feel it? Where can you release it? So work, family, business, we talk about all that and you do your up date and you realize just if you look back, you can connect all the dots. That's the big, you know, thing looking.
Yeah, but it, it is about the little pieces of momentum.
So if I look back and somebody like, would you do this again, knowing all that, you know, I said, hell yes, I would. It's been really, really hard. I didn't think. I knew it was gonna be hard, Solomon, but I didn't know I was gonna be.
But it has been.
I've gotten a whole nother education.
I've become again. You can change your beliefs. Your beliefs have to change. Your beliefs have to evolve. Not your core values, your core values. There's another great book. It's called Business Outside. And there's one part in the book, it's 50 words. And this is where my marriage, like, it was. There was a lot on our marriage. We have two little kids. We both have demanding jobs. I'm traveling a lot. Like, there's a lot and he's my husband. I love him to death, but he's such a scientist, and I'm such an ops person.
Where. That's where we met. We met in a hospital.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Really?
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Well, actually, I popped out of his cake. I gotta pay for med school somehow. But I'm just kidding. No, I didn't.
But we didn't meet at his birthday dinner. And I never could thrive in that environment. That's why I love private practice. I can control it. I can make it better, I can make it more efficient. Like, even just walking through the airport, where it's like the bins, and you see a person like, push the bins back and forth. And I'm like, oh, my God. This is like, we pay millions of dollars to people to push bins. Like, why is this not automated? Like, so do you see, like, where my brain is?
[00:36:50] Speaker B: I do.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: So he'll come home and remember everybody in a conversation. This is marriage, relationships, friends, whatever. Okay? You go into a conversation wanting to be hugged, helped, or heard are the freak. So you need to know what kind of conversation you're having. So he'll come home bitching about work. Okay. And I go into, like, fixed mode. Well, you're the CEO of your clinic. You ought to get on these people and make sure that the tests are running efficiently so that you can get out on time and you can get home at 5 o' clock so you can see all 25 of your patients.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm similar. Yeah.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: And he's like, that's not what I'm saying. Because I know he's not going to change it. So why do I keep having the same conversation? I know he's not going to change it. I'm just, like, making myself insane.
And so with the book, the. The 50 words really helped our marriage and really helped me because that's. Again, you have to grow together. You're still allowed to grow individually. Like, this two people becomes one. Now we're going into marriage counseling here, guys. You're still. You're still you. And they're sending people that want to grow and want to learn in their own ways. And so when you start to honor and respect that. So we. I had him do. Because I read and he's like, not. And I'll send like a. I'll tell him, like a quote from a book. He's like, yeah, that's fine. You know, he's like, not into it. He's like, Mr. Research, let's plan trips. Like, I hate that stuff. So it's off Just tell me where to go. Tell me what to pack. I'll be there. I don't even know where we're staying or where we may be going. So the 50 words like mine are, it becomes 50 becomes 10, 10 becomes 3, 3 becomes your core values. It's a great team thing to do. Okay. And make sure everybody that's on your team shares their words before you share yours, because they will change.
Mine are personal freedom. As you can tell, entrepreneur. Let me work a hundred hours a week for myself. The sporting perennials. Mine are risk. Like, let me jump off a cliff. Let me like just go, like risky stuff. Okay. It's fun. Like I. You can see that throw any up as high as you can, right?
[00:38:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: And my other one is joy. Like real joy. Or my three words. His were happiness in like a different form. Adventure. Like, let me take a walk. Let me take a hike. But not be too close to the edge.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Get it. And the other one was security.
And when I started to realize that him having that allowed me to be. This was when we really started to jive.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Again, like it's in that messy middle of marriage. Right. But you really have to work on that. But when I realized what his core values were, I don't think I. I knew what they were, but I couldn't like speak it. So knowing what your core values are personally, again, when it comes to team building and hiring the right people, it is that. So listen to your gut. Like you really as a founder have to get good at that, but you also have to realize you have to make a decision decisiveness and that's what's going to separate you from the rest.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: And I know we're going on. It's just been so great.
So on this side and to your point, just with marriage, how it's so interesting how that plays into a part not just on the relationship, but with team and you know, other it. It feeds into so many different aspects of like. It's because human beings are just utilized on that relationships at the end of the day. So what you pointed to the fact of what the C's job says is connecting back. And I always love that on what you said because when. When you start off as an entrepreneur myself I didn't think I would be one. It just kind of morphed. It just things one thing led to another and so forth else. You know, I really like going off. I love like the Neville Goddard and everything on that side and kind of placing in. But it's interesting on the. The End goal, what you see as entrepreneur, the end goal of what you want to see yourself and the vision, as you say, and then the journey. And as you said, the journey. If you had no idea all of these things kind of. And sometimes you focus more on the outcome versus there's different parts. You have to enjoy the journey and the outcome because it helps you to build up. All certain things come into your. Into your. In my personal opinion, things come like, fit in and you can kind of reverse engineer and see, oh, this is what I had to do. And this happened and this happened. And you kind of look back, connecting into it. So I love that to your point, because I think of the same process and that helps you to grow by the end of it, of where you got to contact lens in the next year on the partnerships and so forth. On the. In your. Congratulations on that. On that partner, you can say, oh, all of these pieces come in the webinar, you know, making sure. On your values, on what you've had with your husband, listening to security and, you know, all of those points, you know, comes in and helps you as a woman and just as it helps you to become, to get to that vision that you had and, you know, you don't see them until at the end. So I love that on that side.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: This element when we're talking about vision, because I. I think it's like a fluffy word that no one's really been able to really kind of pin down. The best one that I found talks about this really specifically is beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. And he talks about the vision, mission, core values. So your vision and I lived through this both ways. Your vision should be so big that it's something you will never reach. It should outlive you. Okay, Meaning my dad, my mom, they had a furniture business their whole life and so much knowledge there that he didn't have a big enough vision. And I suffered actually with that. Now look back, that my dad's vision should have been so much bigger than what it was like. He was so good. He's so good.
But he got to the end and he didn't have a successor, so they just shut him down. All that knowledge, all that equipment, seeing it sold off piece by piece by piece. I mean, it like it killed me. Okay, so his vision didn't outlive him, and that knowledge wasn't passed down. So in my practice, where I joined a private practitioner, his vision has outlived him. It's living into its second generation. The practice, the family practice, that's so cool. Like, he literally. Our joke is the patients, when they're like, oh, Dr. Ramiso isn't here anymore. Like, it was, you know, it's hard because they've been seeing him for 35 years, 40 years, some of them.
And I'm like, no, at the end, like, he just transferred all of his brain into mine. Like, it's fine, you know, like, we just make a joke about it because it's all in charting. And his charts were amazing. You have. See what I'm saying? With vision so big. So big. So the problem that you may have is you're just not dreaming big enough because you're scared what's on the other side. So you really do have to practice that. Then you have your missions, which are the little mountains you're climbing. So, like, this partnership was one of our missions. And remember, when you're climbing to the top of the mountain, you can't stay up there too long because maybe you'll run out of oxygen, maybe it's too cold, you're going to get hit by a storm, whatever, you still have to come down, right? So your, your missions are these little mountains you're climbing. Those are the journeys that you're honoring, that you're respecting, that you're living, that allows you to live in the moment. Right? We always talk about that, which is such a bullshit term, but, like, nobody's doing it, especially with the odd to the next syndrome that we all are suffering from. And then you had your core values, so your calendar should reflect that. And you're allowed to say no.
You're allowed to say no to a conversation. Like, you and I, we interviewed people like before the podcast and that's when we both said yeah, and we can easily say no. So it really comes back to that.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: No, it is. And I like taking over, but I just, I've been enjoying it so much on the fact of it, you know, where, where can people. Because I just love the energy left. Like, I would love to learn and showcase our audience. Where can they learn more about, like Dr. Condit. Lynn, about the webinar. You know, tell us, where can they find you at?
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Brianna Roo. I post every single day or wouldn't mind non negotiable. And so you'll see my therapy session there for myself. Because what you're putting out there is what you need most of. But if I could ask you, Solomon, a question.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead, take.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: We've been talking about this for an hour. What's your biggest Takeaway, I think on what you've.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: And I really liked where you put in the three frogs because it makes sense on it. Like when the CEO would like, what? I just only have three things, you know. You what? How? Yeah, how can we just. Just break it down? It's just these videos to three. Like I have. So as you said, like your, your mom, your wife, like, I have all this going on and you know, you're putting up a practice some way. So I think on that side it really spoke. And that's what I'm trying to understand is, okay, you have so many 20, 30 things as a, as a founder and all. Like you said, I could have done better with this, on optimizing this, optimizing that and so forth. But really, if I scale down, what are the three things on the parts and I just love how you've taken those, broken it down. It's just these three. I think that's the key thing and it reinforces it. And as you said, intuition. Because sometimes on the intuition side, you think of it and you're like, oh, okay. But then as you said, someone says it again and you think back like that that's what I need to focus on these three. Well, let me break it down. So I think that's.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: You've kind of the conversation that keeps on giving. There was some healing that had to do out of that one. But.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: I remember that. Oh my God.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: It's triggering. It's like, what?
[00:45:58] Speaker A: And here they are.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. I have to grab a piece. I have to go grab these pieces and have it on my.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: We'll send you some frog. I'll send you some frog.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: I'll just put three right here. I always remember and I do, and.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: It'S a game that everybody plays. So I'm like, if you see too that like all of my teams, both of my teens have them and we actually send in our welcome boxes. We send everybody in the practice, they each have their own three frogs. So it's an accountability game where I walk in, I'm like, what are you, Three frogs today? Everybody should be able to list them. And if now it's 2 o' clock and your frogs haven't hopped. So like one girl puts her frogs in frog jail. Another I've had frog frogs throwing at me. I've like had them tape to like something that I forgot to do and not with their frog that day. So it again, this accountability that you need and responsibilities that you need everybody to be doing.
[00:46:52] Speaker B: Brianna, thank you. So much for being on the show and so forth. So I'm going to have to have it to where we can bring you on again and we can discuss, you know, another topic that we're going to be placing with my marketing team on that side. It's going to be figured out. So you're going to, like, love to ask.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Love to, love to be back. Thank you for the, for the hour.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: All right. Thanks for everyone joining on the show, and we'll talk soon on the next episode. Thank you.
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