Dr. Charlene Henderson joins Bethany on the podcast to talk about her experience owning a practice with a partner.

May 31, 2023

 

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Becca Starks: We have the ear with the students to hear what they’re looking for. They’re very, very few students that we’re working with, with the class of 2023 that will even consider an opportunity that is not private practice.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Hey, I am Bethany Fishbein. I am the CEO of The Power Practice and Host of The Power Hour Optometry Podcast. And I just want to first congratulate all of the new optometrists graduating this week from the optometry schools across the country. It’s such an exciting time. It doesn’t feel like that long ago since I and my classmates at New England College of Optometry in 1997 graduated. It goes fast. It’s really an exciting time. So congratulations, first of all, and this show is inspired by and dedicated to you and all of the people that you are hoping will hire you. Once you get your licenses and get out there into the world. So I’ve invited a guest, I have Becca Starks, Becca handles Enterprise Accounts and Operations for KMK Careers. And she’s here to help me sort out some of the things that today’s optometry students are looking for, and help educate some of the optometrists who are looking to hire young optometrists about misconceptions they may have or differing perceptions of this graduating class. So, Becca, thanks for doing this your second podcast ever. That’s awesome.

Becca Starks: Yes, thank you for having me. This is exciting. 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, thank you. It’s an interesting time because we work with mostly established optometric practice owners. So most of the people that I’m speaking to day to day are employers of young optometrists, and they have this vision of what today’s graduates are like, and then I get the opportunity to speak with optometry students and recent grads and they’re not necessarily like that perception at all. So hopefully, you can help us bridge the gap a little bit.

Becca Starks: Yeah, absolutely.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So, talk about yourself for a minute here. I want you to just talk about KMK and KMK Careers because when I want to data on students, I knew you were the one to go to. And so I want all of my listeners to understand your involvement with young optometrists today. 

Becca Starks: Yeah, absolutely. So KMK for those that don’t know KMK’s foundation is the KMK board review, which was started 18 years ago by Dr. Kyle Cheatham. And now fast forward 18 years we are inside of all of the 23 optometry schools nationwide. We have a team of optometrist instructors that traveled to all of the schools and we have a relationship with both third and fourth-year optometry students and 98, This is a big number to remember 98% of optometry students utilize KMK to pass their boards. So essentially we have a relationship with almost every single optometry student nationwide from the board’s perspective. And so we now have a new division of KMK specifically on careers which is just a natural extension of supporting those same students and finding their first career.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So you’re initially talking to these students when they’re students studying for boards. And then they hopefully pass boards and you know, move on and take more boards and pass those and move on. So what are the services that you’re providing for these students once they’ve graduated as doctors?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so it’s really fun. Personally, I am mostly an employee you’re facing so those that are looking for these candidates. However, we have a team of career advisors and all day long, they’re the luckiest ones in the world. They get to speak to these upcoming grads. So right now they are around the clock talking to those that are about to graduate here and a couple of weeks or maybe have graduated just recently. And uncovering what they’re looking for in a practice is really it’s a one-on-one relationship, so it’s totally free to students. They sign up to get a career advisor. They have calls with that career advisor to uncover what are they looking for what type of practice is it specific specialties, just anything that may be the true motivating factor as to why they want to go to a certain practice. And then essentially we play matchmaker so the career advisors speak to students all day long. I speak to employers all day long, and then we come together and get to build a bridge between the two and hopefully connect great candidates with a great opportunity.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Maybe it’ll be the next Netflix show after Indian matchmaking, Jewish matchmaking. It’ll be optometric career matchmaking. And be a celebrity.

Becca Starks: I think some of us would watch that, at least your listeners would probably enjoy that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: My husband and I would watch it so 

Becca Starks: same. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So I mean, you’ve got a line of sight into exactly who today’s optometrists or today’s graduating class, today’s brand new optometrists are, can you give some facts and figures of what that class looks like?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so essentially, from a demographic perspective, it’s highly female. The data is showing 70% female and 30% Male.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: 70?

Becca Starks: 70 Percent.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Wow. 

Becca Starks: Yes. And there’s information I believe you are going to be able to put in the show notes. But there is a really robust report. I believe it’s lots and lots of pages. I don’t remember how many but there are highlights within that on pages nine and 10 that give a really good but really quick summary of demographics of this class, within gender within race. There’s even financial information about how many needed to have financial aid, that sort of thing, and some really detailed information even about by school breakdown.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Are you able to roll through some of the things in there that kind of stood out to you?

Becca Starks: So the biggest thing that stands out to me is female and how as you it shows kind of year over year how that transition has changed from much more female than male as it was in the past. Same thing with race, I believe I don’t remember how many years ago it was but just not too long ago. It was predominantly white for professionals graduating and now that’s shifted to highly other races, whether it’s Asian or black or other races that are included in that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And what about the financial piece? Because I feel like that’s such a big topic for new doctors. Is this need to pay back student loans? Do you have any stats on the amount of debt that students are graduating with? 

Becca Starks: Yeah, so the report itself shows 85% of students are utilizing some type of support financial aid, loans, and the average for a graduate right now graduating is about $200,000 in debt. So definitely it is.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That’s just from optometry school or that’s including undergrad debt?

Becca Starks: That’s actually a good question. We just get the stat of 200,000 and I assumed it was just optometry school. But that’s a good question.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So young, female, and any change in like age demographic? Or is it typically right out of college a year or two out of college starting into Optometry?

Becca Starks: Yeah, So typically, it is kind of a typical route straight out of undergrad and to optometry school. There is about of the 16-1700 graduates there are about 150 of those that are considered you know, like other avenues whether that would be part-time or returning back in at a later point in time.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Okay, so out of 1500 you’re talking about? Very typically, right? 1000 young, female, probably non-white doctors. 

Becca Starks: Yeah. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: If you had to say this is what’s typical. This is the majority. 

Becca Starks: Yeah. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: With debt?

Becca Starks: Yes. A lot of it. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Okay. So, when you talk to this typical doctor and are getting into the field of matching into a career of their dreams, what are they telling you that they want? 

Becca Starks: Yeah. So it’s been interesting to learn that so the things that I came into this thinking people would want my background was actually at LinkedIn for five years before coming on to help launch this division of KMK and I thought it would be very different. I would think pay would exceed everything else. But, interestingly, location is the top deciding factor for these new graduates in determining which practice they want. Obviously, that is the hardest answer because no one can do anything about the location of their practice. But we can touch on this later. Kind of some ideas and tips for those to try to recruit folks into harder locations but definitely the location. Again, before and above pay even this work-life balance coming into play that is much more of a topic. Then I think it has been in years past. Not necessarily meaning, Hey, I want to come in and I want to never work. But this generation is much more just passionate about having that work-life balance of the work to live not live to work mentality. And so location, work-life balance, obviously pay, and structuring pay in a way that is understood to the candidate as well too. So being very upfront about what that pay is so that they know before even applying and putting that in a way that they understand what they actually can make because sometimes it can be hard with percent of production, knowing what that means.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So let’s go into those a little bit more and I want to just go back one to work-life balance because I think that’s probably the biggest misunderstanding between a doc maybe in their 50s and a doc in their 20s. This idea of working to live instead of living to work and it’s respectable and it’s necessary and mental health is important and it’s and life has to work for you. But these older docs, that was not their world. And so when I hear it, it’s complaints. They won’t work weekends, they don’t want to put in 40 hours. They’re asking for a four-day workweek. They’re like it’s coming across as we’re lazy. We’re not dedicated to the practice. We don’t want to be here we’re not going to work as hard as you and it. It creates a disconnect from the start like somebody interviewing, who says I don’t want to work every weekend. All of a sudden has all these judgments thrown on them that they probably don’t deserve. Do you see that with the docs that you’re talking to and you’re matching?

Becca Starks: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it’s the same thing I hear to have. You know, that’s typically the demographic of employers that I’m talking to all day long to have, you know, they came out and maybe cold started or they came out and bought a practice and they’ve been doing it for 20-30 years and like. What?

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Right and they remember, or maybe they’re still working 70 hours a week and they’re there, you know, every day in the practice and their day off there when the cleaning themselves because that’s what the owners do. How do you coach of 50-something and 60-something-year-old practice owners into understanding that it’s not laziness and it’s not to they don’t want to work?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so that is it is a big misconception of the students that it is laziness, and specifically, most students are expecting to work at least one to two Saturdays a month. So it’s not that they’re coming in and saying I only want four-day workweeks, and I’ll never work a weekend. They are expecting a true full work week and one or two Saturdays per month. To your question about how to coach an owner in that situation. I think it’s just taking a step back and looking really high level at your practice as a business and I’ve had this conversation with many owners of I don’t know why we are open Saturdays, honestly, we’ve just always done it and so determined are we doing this because it’s just always been done or when determining this because it is a true business need. And so same thing with later hours or that sort of thing. If it is a true business need 100% voicing that to a candidate that’s a friend and that’s that’s great, but there may be situations where again, it’s just we’re doing this because it’s been done forever. And actually, our patients wouldn’t mind if we didn’t have a late night or we had a late night instead of a Saturday or vice versa.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Do you think docs have like a little bit of that? It’s like that hazy mentality? Like I went through it I put in my time therefore you you need to.

Becca Starks: I think it could be a little of that. Me not being an optometrist. I have to tread lightly because I have not earned my dues. But in the conversations that I’ve had, I think it is a little bit of that at least.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, I worked weekends for 23 years. I’ve never missed it Saturday. I’ve never called out sick. And now I’m going to change my whole practice because this 24-year-old kid doesn’t want to work, like there’s that so what are the students are the new grads thinking about these practice owners, doctors who are in a different demographic from them because there’s got to be misconceptions going that way also.

Becca Starks: Yeah, I don’t get to hear a ton of the misconceptions from the student side. But I think there’s just both sides can teach each other something right like maybe that student can come in and show this business owner who’s been doing this forever, like, wow, I could totally do this differently. And, wow, I’m kind of relieved that you came in and brought up the idea of work-life balance because I as the business owner, really needed that, and wow, my life is different because of it and vice versa. There’s obviously so much that the practice owner can teach and pour into these new grad optometrists. But as far as misconceptions from them, I haven’t heard any to be honest. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I hear that they look at a private practice. They think they’re not going to be paid as much. So they’re thinking that not necessarily that the owner is cheap, but that it’s not. It’s not as profitable, therefore there’s not as much money in it for them. You didn’t mention the mode of practice. You talked about location, work-life balance, and pay. Are students coming out looking for commercial opportunities? Are they looking for private practice or looking for MD offices? I mean, obviously, students are looking for each of those, but what are you seeing most frequently?

Becca Starks: Yeah, great question. So motor practice is very important and private practice remains. Top of the list for I’d say close to 90% of the new grads.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Serious?

Becca Starks: Yeah, because I hear the same thing. I hear a lot from private practice owners that say that almost come to the call with me very nervous, like “Becca, what’s going on? Why might all the new grads want private equity and why do they want retail? And can I really afford to hire them? Because it sounds like they’re throwing all the money in the world with them.” And then it’s interesting because we have that ear with the students to hear what they’re looking for. They’re very, very few students that we’re working with, with the class of 2023 that will even consider an opportunity that is not private practice. So there’s just a handful of folks that have said all maybe look at private equity or retail, but the vast majority say I truly, truly, truly want to private practice and there’s even a really good group that says, “Not only do I only one a private practice, but I already know that someday I want to partner slash buy this practice as well.” 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Do you think though that it’s, it’s like self-selecting a little bit because retail opportunities are so easy to come by? That they might not even consider needing to work with a company like yours? They just need to go on Ziprecruiter, Indeed, and type in optometrists job and the geography they want and they have their choice. Are you talking to them before they’re job-seeking?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so we actually start a process with them a year before they graduate. And so we have them fill out a profile with us it looks just like a LinkedIn profile, but it’s specifically for KMK, and go in and select all of the different types of practices that they’re open to. And so, we have both from the data from what they input on their profile and then they all have a one-on-one call with a career advisor as well. And so that’s where those points come from, both in the data they enter and then the conversations they have with a career advisor.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And is that when a student should be starting their job search is early in fourth year?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so we were really surprised in the timeline as well that a lot of students start having conversations about the fall before they graduate. So this class of 2023 they were starting interviews, October timeframe, and then a lot of them were during their Christmas break, timeframe holiday break, going on visits to practice owners. And then as soon as the New Year transitioned over there were many that were in contract. So definitely, Fall time is like you can feel good. About yourself being ahead of the game, wintertime is still very safe, you still have a lot of opportunity to be reaching out to candidates, and then as we enter into more of the springtime, a lot of I’d say probably half if not more of those that we’re working with are 100% in contract ready to go.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: When you start working with them. Is there any issue with students who are starting the search and still haven’t passed their boards or won’t have the credentials to work when they graduate?

Becca Starks: Yeah, Yep. There is information from ASCO also about passage rates. And it goes into detail even of school by school, but it essentially shows year over year the decrease in passage rates, and I think we’re at about 70% passage rate, right now. 73%. And so there’s a huge population of students that don’t pass typically it’s part one where the struggle is and so there are some students that will even graduate and still have not passed boards. And another misconception there is, “Oh, these students are lazy or they’re not understanding the information, and I don’t want those students because they won’t be good doctors”. And completely not true. Those are students that could either be not very good test takers. These are also the population that came into optometry school right in the heart of COVID. There are some that have just had really rough life events around the time that it is to take boards and so but they are all great people that will be great doctors, they simply just need to pass this test. Many of them have had really great GPAs some of them have other degrees that help them with the practice management side and so it’s just a matter of getting past that one test or many of them.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And how does, how did they navigate that with the job contract like, will an employer sign something with a student who hasn’t yet passed boards?

Becca Starks: Yes, we are running into that actually part one. Board scores were just released this past week. And it was a lot of that there was a lot of celebration and there was a lot of sadness around those that didn’t pass. And the good news is, I don’t know that I’ve come across a single employer partner that we work with that isn’t at least open to the idea of bringing on someone that’s graduated in kind of a super tech role. It’s kind of how we position it to practice under that optometrist owner until they graduate and we even have some that say, “Hey KMK I know that you, as an organization, do great at coaching them and helping them after they fail boards.” I will even invest in that side of the house to ensure that they can pass boards not only to show that, hey, I believe in you and the hardest time in your life student but also that gains them a really loyal employee that again, is going to be a great doctor has just had trouble taking this one test.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Coming in as a super tech though, obviously, they’re coming in at a lower pay scale and they would come in as an optometrist, and they have those student loans. So let’s talk about compensation of obviously it’s going to vary around the country and regionally and how many hours and all of that but what is it that a new OD is looking for as far as the ability to earn money?

Becca Starks: Yeah, good question. So, specifically with this new grad population, the way that I kind of coach, the employer partners that we work with private practice owners is, a lot of times they’ll come into the call and say why pay 16% of production, but with this new grad population, they aren’t able to really wrap their brains around what that is, you could have a $1.5 million, your practice and they still just don’t, they can’t really understand that. And so the recommendation that we give is to at least have some sort of salary and we have information and concrete data on specific areas of the nation. So by all means, if, if we can support you in any way with that, I’m happy to to make sure that you’re competitive, but having some type of salary listed up front is what’s going to entice these new grad population because they can wrap their brains around 140,000. They can’t necessarily wrap their brains around 16% of production. And so totally understand, then obviously the argument private practice owner, I hear you what’s going on in your head is. “Well, I need to motivate them to work hard. Like if I just give them a salary, then what’s the motivation to work hard”, and so there’s been kind of this really nice avenue that we’ve taken with a lot of partners that’s worked well in that advertising a salary a little higher than you probably would have normally, but then decreasing to a really low percent of production, so that there’s some salaries that’s there that’s enticing to a new grad, but a lower percent of production. So for the first year only, so year one higher salary and lower percent of production, and then having that shift for year two and year beyond your two to a lower salary, higher percent of production. And so what that does is again, entices this new grad to apply, and even want to learn more about your practice because there’s a salary, but that little bit of percent of production will get them to realize in their first year of working well. I’m doing the math, and if I would have went on the percent of production, I probably would have made more than my salary. This is making sense this is motivating me to work harder. And then again, you can even have it in the contract that upon year two that shifts to a lower salary that’s guaranteed and a higher percent of production. So as they’ve gotten their feet wet, they’ve learned they’ve been mentored that first year shifting then into percent of production.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So you’re coaching your doctors to do a salary plus a percent of production?

Becca Starks: Yeah, that’s pretty typical. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And what about benefits and stuff like that is that important? Yes, it is important. Is that something that a brand new grad is going to give enough importance to that it’s going to help them decide one place versus another? 

Becca Starks: Yeah, such a good question. So I’ll give both sides just agree very important. I would say the majority of private practice owners that we’re working with are offering some sort of benefits, whatever that might look like. Some are very comprehensive, some are very “Hey, we will pay 50% of your medical and leave it at that.” But now that we are in this lane of there is competition from private equity and from retail. Those are just a no-brainer. In those avenues. And so to remain competitive from that regard. They will get a full package of 401K’s with matching with benefits with PTO, all of those things, if they’re considering a retailer or a private equity opportunity in comparison to your private practice opportunity. And so, again, I think most I talked to very few that say “Hey, I’m just percent of production and I don’t give any days off you just you if you’re here you make money if you’re not, you don’t but you can take whatever days you want type of thing”. I have a handful of those but for the most part, most private practices are offering the salary with percent of production, at least something towards medical, and then most do have a 401K whether there’s a match or not with that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Are there other intangible benefits, other things that would make a practice more attractive?

Becca Starks: Yeah. So I think the thing that’s so such a great opportunity with all of the listeners that would have that are trying to hire than our private practice owners that have been doing this for years to a new grad specifically is mentorship. And so those that are willing to do that are excited about that. Well, maybe “Hey, I haven’t really even thought about that. But I’m gonna share over the last 20 years, I really have learned a lot that I could pour into this next upcoming generation”. And so being very vocal with that, even in a job description, or whatever it is that you’re creating, to entice candidates to come your way and some people put a really extensive plan behind, “Hey, we have a weekly meeting, and you get lunch hour with me every week and we will cover XYZ and some it’s kind of informal of just “Hey, I’m going to be with you I’m alongside you. You can call me when you want”, whatever that looks like, or even if you haven’t, some team members that are fairly recent grads, being able to vocalize that to have hey, we’ve got folks that I brought on board as new grads and couple years later looking them go and so the mentorship side is again that intangible free opportunity that I think a lot of people don’t even necessarily recognize they have the ability to give.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Is it mostly clinical mentorship they’re looking for? is it practice ownership? like when you say mentorship, what are they hoping to learn from you?

Becca Starks: Yeah, definitely medical at the top of that, but there are again, those those candidates that just know that they know that they want to be very involved in the practice management, the business side of the house. And so for those candidates that are interested in it, being willing to say “Hey, here’s I’ll show you all of our programs and all of our software and how I design the day and this is how I designed the business side of the house”, and so in those situations for folks that are interested in that side, I think it’s important to have just kind of an open door policy of “I’ll show you all that. I’ll show you that number. So I’ll let you in on this.”

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So for practice in a particular geographic area, if you can get your salary and benefits close, but they don’t necessarily have to be higher. They just have to be within range and you can kind of check off all the other boxes. Is there a type of practice like heavy medical versus refractive versus specialty that people are looking for?

Becca Starks: Yeah, so definitely looking at highly medical. And then what I would also say is kind of another somewhat intangible, but if practice owners are open to new specialties that maybe you don’t have in your practice right now. But hey, if there’s somebody who comes in and is passionate about whatever it may be, and they want to bring that into my practice, that’s a really enticing thing for a candidate to really see themselves. They’re in the long haul of “Wow, I’m passionate about myopia management and this practice says, by all means bringing that on.” That’s such a great thing to be able to offer to a candidate and so definitely, medical and specialties are really where the candidates are wrapping their brains around of how do I see myself there.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And what if you’re in rural Wisconsin, where there’s just not a huge population of optometrists looking to settle? What’s the best way for a practice like that to set themselves up to find somebody to join because so many of those are great opportunities to become part of a community to ultimately partner buy a practice have a really low cost of living like it’s how do they make themselves attractive or show how attractive they are I guess I should say.

Becca Starks: Yeah, and I think that so often because I get the luxury of talking to these practice owners in some of these more rural areas. And every time I’m just like, Wow, if I could just record this and let all of these candidates see this owner care about the type of patients they get to see a lot of times it’s the smaller communities that because there’s not a nearby ophthalmology or another office like those are the most medically focused practices. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Absolutely. 

Becca Starks: Yeah. And so, so often I feel better. Oh my gosh, if I could just package this up and get a candidate to truly wrap their head around it. So one of the things that we do on the candidate side is our current advisors do as soon as a student comes in and says, “I only want Miami in New York and LA”, we try to mentor as well and show your kind of cost of living and let’s truly take a look at this and let’s look at your lifestyle and look at

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Miami, LA, how about rural Wisconsin?

Becca Starks: Right? Yep. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And consider Minnesota.

Becca Starks: Exactly. We play that game all day long. Yep. And then to the practice owners, a lot of what I tell them is, they’ll tell me I say they get to brag. So give me your brag book, when they come on as a partner to me, tell me what’s so great about your practice. And then they’re typically ready to end the call and I say, “Okay, based on your area, we also want you to brag on the geographic location just as much as the opportunity and so getting a candidate to truly understand what their life is going to be like, not just when they’re at work with you all day, but once they leave work, and what does this community look like and what can I do there? Is it great for hiking, is it great for the music scene, and the art scene? Is it great to raise a family and maybe I’m not thinking about that right now. But in the next couple of years, I will be.” And so I always say “Somewhere in your job description, however, you want to do it. It’s a post that you’re putting on to kind of an Indeed or an AOA. Having information, just typed information about your geographic area and what makes it so great. And then also, the other added thing you can do is you can always create videos.” Videos are I feel like that’s kind of how we’re all digesting content at this point. And especially this generation of these new grads, and so if you can even do a quick it doesn’t have to be professionally shot but videos of you just speaking informally, almost as if you’re speaking to a candidate who wouldn’t be right in front of you talking about again, envisioning their life there, the more that a practice owner can make a job description or job post about the candidate instead of themselves. The better that that’s going to relay to the candidates have just really getting to understand “Okay, this isn’t what I thought I was thinking Miami, but now I can kind of envision how my life could be in Wisconsin.”

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That’s a really strong and valid point. Because when I think about a job ad, it’s all about what we need and what we want. We’re looking for an optometrist to work these hours to do this and when I’m interviewing candidates for Associate optometrist, but really for any position I’m always sensitive to an applicant, who all they’re telling me is what this job is going to do for them. Right. So I’m very critical of it as an employer when they’re like, I’m looking to build my clinical confidence in myopia. I’m looking into, you know, whatever. And I think what are you going to do for me? But in the ad, maybe it should be the other way off, Here’s what I’m going to do for you so that they’re interested and intrigued by the post enough to then come in and want to tell me what they are going to do for me so

Becca Starks: Absolutely 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Cool. 

Becca Starks: We even have one it’s a Power Practice member that wrote a personalized it looks just like a letter you would receive from your grandma in the mail and it was so different and so eye-catching and so engaging. It was truly just a personalized letter, Dear Candidate, and then it just spoke really informally like, Hey, I get it. Words are hard, school is hard, but here’s what it would be like living here. Imagine if you could leave work and go out and do this, this, and this and your two hours within this big city so you can go catch a basketball game and be back home at night. And so it was just very, again trying to get that candidate to envision their life not only with that practice but in that geographical location. And so that was an incredible example. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Did it work?

Becca Starks: We’ve gotten some interest. We don’t have anybody signed on yet, but it has enticed interest.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And talked about KMK a little bit again, just before we close. So if a practice owner is looking for an associate, they can reach out to you or how do they go about tapping into this database network matching service that you guys have?

Becca Starks: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I would be the point of contact Becca Starks. And I’m sure you can put my email in the show notes, but it’s just Becca@kmkodcareers.com. And yeah, we typically just do a really informal introductory call and learn about the practice, learn about what they’re looking for. And then go over kind of our offerings. We’ve got two different offerings to choose from, just depending on what the practice owner is looking for. And then yeah, we just go from there. It’s really simple. It’s free to be in agreement with us and having us promote a practice. And so basically, we get that agreement going and then our current adviser starts promoting any of our partners that we’re working with. And then essentially once we have a student that is a great fit, we play the matchmaking game. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I love it. Thank you. I think this is valuable information for new grads to help them understand what they’re going out into and some of the misconceptions they might be facing. But hopefully, we did our part today to try and reduce some of those and really give today’s employers a more real picture of new grads who are looking for jobs. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this and give this service to all of the optometrists out there.

Becca Starks: Absolutely. My pleasure, Bethany. Thank you. So much. 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Thank you

 

Read the Transcription

Dr. Charlene Henderson: There’s so many things in the financial, growing, patient care that it’s hard to keep your brain wrapped around everything all the time. You know, and we’ve often said over the years, it’s so good to have another brain to share that with. And you can’t care about everything as much all the time, but when you have someone else that person might be caring more about the finances. When you’re caring more about patient, new education, or vice versa.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Hi, I’m Bethany Fishbein. I am CEO of The Power Practice and Host of The Power Hour Optometry Podcast. A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to have the opportunity to talk to the students at New England College of Optometry they put together a program called Grad Strong, which invited all the students regardless of their year to come and hear speakers about things relevant to them after their graduation. And as we were talking, one of the students asked a really interesting question about going into practice with a partner what would be involved if I wanted to go into practice with a best friend or husband or somebody I know. And talking to the students, I realized that a lot of the students were wanting to ultimately own private practice, but just felt totally overwhelmed by the idea of doing all of it themselves. And so in their minds, a partnership was a way to share that responsibility with someone else to have that other person in the business and it led me to think more about the topic. So I invited my guest today Dr. Charlene Henderson. Charlene is an Optometrist. She and her partner Tracy MacIntyre are owners of Blink Eyecare and Eyewear in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Charlene is also one of our Consultants at The Power Practice. So I thought she would be a great resource for firsthand information on the topic. And Charlene, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Good! Talk about your history a little bit like just kind of your journey from school to deciding you want to have a practice to actually making the choice to open.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Okay, so I graduated way back in 1996. And I like a lot of optometrists married another optometrist, I think you know, a little bit about that to Bethany. So when we graduated from school, the thought was not there that we could open a practice right away, we needed two jobs in the same place doing the same thing. So that added a little level of difficulty to that. So we both worked in a private practice in Maine for about four years, and realized that wasn’t necessarily where we wanted to be. So again, in looking to relocate, it was also hard having both needing the same jobs and leaving the same job at the same time. So we decided when we did relocate, we were not going to work at the same place just to give us more freedom and not have all our eggs in the same basket. So we moved to Charlotte in 2000 and worked at different settings. I worked for an ophthalmology group and my husband worked for an optometry group. And that continued on for a while always in the back of my head. I wanted to own a practice my husband, not so much he loves being an optometrist, not so much the business side and then after having kids in 2004, another doctor that I knew just briefly Dr. Tracy MacIntyre called me up out of the blue and I was just working part-time then for some retail places while my kids were babies, and said “What do you think about opening a practice together?”, And I literally said, “Yes”. And we started from there to try to figure out how to make that work, because we both had wanted to do that. And we decided that we’d be a good match. And we kind of started the ball running from zero right there.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So I’m sure you’ve talked to Tracy about it at this point. How did that call out of the blue come to be like you guys knew each other.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: The crazy thing was Tracy is also married to an optometrist. Maine had relocated to Charlotte in 2001, I believe, but we are both originally Canadian from different provinces. I’m from Newfoundland and she’s from Nova Scotia. But after moving here, and I would meet people, they would say, “Oh, do you know Tracy MacIntyre?”, Because we had very similar stories. Canadian optometrists married to optometrist, and she was hearing the same thing, but we never really met. And then my husband and I went to a conference in South Carolina and just happened to be talking to this other optometrist standing next to me. And he said his wife wasn’t there because she was back in Nova Scotia. And I was like, “No way. You’re married to Tracy MacIntyre”. And so we put it together. We soon found out that we lived in neighboring neighborhoods. We have the same wedding anniversary. I had twins her kids were nine months apart. Our husbands played in the same softball league, and they had the same number on different teams with all these crazy things in common and so we didn’t know each other very well, but we certainly had a good match and we kind of went out to lunch and met each other and it was just a few conversations after that, that she called me up and pop the question. If I wanted to start a practice, and it was the perfect timing because my kids were about to start kindergarten, and her kids were in first and second grade at the same school of course. So we decided that we wanted to build a practice. Where two moms of kids could thrive and flourish and make the practice work to support our lives so we could cover for each other if one needed to go to be this mystery redirect school or get to the doctor’s appointment. So we had that kind of framework from the beginning that we would make it work so that our lives and our family’s lives would be made better through having our own practice.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I don’t know why Charlene. I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve kind of known your story, but I think in my head I concocted this long-standing friendship between you and Tracy. Now that you’re saying it I’m like, right that is but in my head that’s so hard to phantom, having a couple of conversations, saying should we open a practice together and getting to yes, right away.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: It was very quick, but we recognized in each other a lot of similarities. I mean, we’re like from two different places in Canada, but very close. Tracy and I have so many coincidences and similarities. It’s crazy. The list it sounds ridiculous, like we’ve made it up but there’s so many but we recognize that we were very similar people and knew we could trust each other and had the same kind of focus. Like we both wanted to be able to do things with our kids. But we’re both very goal-driven and career-oriented. We wanted to have this great practice. And you know, we were going to support each other to do that. And the other good thing is as much as we are alike, we’re different. And that’s really helped us because we always say that, you know, I kind of like to look at how to grow and what’s new, and what’s next, and what else can we be doing. And Tracy says, “Well, how are we going to pay for that and how?”, you know she’s the sensible one kind of keeping us on the straight and narrow and “Yeah, we can’t do that right now. We have to look at it” and I’m the one like it’s still funny to me how much everybody in the staff laughed at me when I wanted to get the solar glasses for the Eclipse like two years before the Eclipse was coming and how I thought that was gonna be a big deal and they all humor me and laugh at me and that was still the best marketing thing we ever did. But Tracy and I decided early on if something was important to the other one didn’t matter if we really agreed on it or not. If that was important to you, well then let’s do it. You know, so we would kind of divvy up decisions like that. Like it really means a lot to you when I’m we’re gonna give it a try.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That’s so important. I mean, you know, I’m in practice with my husband. And so we’re business partners and that’s been one of our philosophies to is sometimes if we’re disagreeing on something, it comes down to who cares more, right? I may not think it’s a good idea. And if he really is passionate that this needs to be done, he wins and vice versa.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Yeah.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein:  Wow. So I mean, you had that shared vision. And that’s really important because I can imagine the disaster it could be if you go in saying I want this to be a place where a working mom can have something that serves her life, and you end up in a partnership with someone who says building a business is my life’s work and I need to be here 24/7 And if you really cared you would be to that would not have worked. What else besides the shared values and the little coincidences I mean, as potential business owners what were the other really critical things?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Like we’ve had same kind of family background and had those things in mind. We also had very similar sense of style and taste, our staff would laugh at us because lots of times we’d show up wearing almost the exact same thing or like in reverse colors and not planned at all our houses look very similar decorating styles. So that made that kind of thing easy. So the vision for how the practice was going to look, we agreed on that, you know, but we did right from the get-go. We were advised, you know, make a partnership agreement because it’s easy to have good feelings now but something could happen whether it’s an argument or someone gets sick or someone God forbid in an accident, and you have to have a plan for how things are going to go if there’s bad times versus good times. And we kind of hashed that stuff out right in the beginning with a lawyer and that partnership agreement is there and it sits there so that if anything ever happens, we kind of know what’s going to go on. So that that’s important to you can’t just rely on just good feelings, you know, but it is like a marriage. You know, you have to get along with person and you have to respect the person. And we did find early on we were so excited and so giddy with all the new things that we spent a lot of time together and then we did kind of dial it back a little bit and decide you know what, we spend a lot of time together during the day and during the week. We kind of dial back some of our outside-the-office stuff just so we wouldn’t be kind of sick of each other or you know how it is with your own spouse or your kids. You might not always show your best side but this way we kind of kept that relationship to where we’re always still excited to catch up with each other on a Monday like, Oh, this is what’s going on or whatever instead of already knowing all the details. So but yeah, our kids are in this we’re in the same schools and everything. So we our lives were very intertwined and very kind of equal for how things were and where we were in life. I’m six months older than her so we have very similar things going on in our life. So that made it very easy to.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So when you talk about the partnership agreement, and then you talked about how you kind of have just have different strengths and different things that are important to you. Did those things come out as you worked together? Or were those things that you knew from the beginning you were going to be this person and she was going to be that person?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: No, it came out over time. I think in the very beginning when you’re slower like how we started was we you know, I think we had a 2100 square feet practice and we both worked in the practice two days and we were both working two days retail like opposite of each other. But we were always in and out on our other days. You know, just because we were excited and doing trying to do everything to grow the practice but in the beginning, I think we both did just about everything and then it soon became evident what you liked, you know and what was better for you to do. And we both kind of said when you have a practice there’s so many things right? There’s so many things in the financial, growing, patient care that it’s hard to keep your brain wrapped around everything all the time. You know, and we’ve often said over the years, it’s so good to have another brain to share that with and you can’t care about everything as much all the time. But when you have someone else that person might be caring more about the finances when you’re caring more about patients, new education, or vice versa. So it’s like you can drop the ball a little bit in one area because someone else can pick it up. But we kind of figured out our roles in that you were really good at this part and really good at this part. So let’s just kind of keep going with that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Was that a conversation? Like you actually said, I’m going to let you handle this, I’m gonna step back on this. I’m gonna kind of take this role or?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: I think it just evolved in a bunch of small conversations over the years, you know, and we just knew what had to be done. And so in the beginning, somebody was doing this and somebody do that and then you’d find that, like, in the beginning, she would pay all the bills, and I would enter it all in QuickBooks, you know, and that we thought that was a good way so that we both had to be aware of what was coming in and going out, you know, so that it wasn’t just all on one person’s plate, things like that. And so it just evolved over time that that there was an exact moment when we said, “Oh, you’re going to be doing this”, but it just kind of turned out that way. But I’m sure there’s a smarter way to do that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Were there times where something didn’t work in the beginning like because it’s hard, right? There’s a lot going on you care deeply. You have to make decisions in the moment that might not be the same decision she would have made.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Right, We do text each other or call each other if something’s coming up like “Hey, do you think we should sign up for this or do you think we should have this”, but I trust her and she trusts me to make the best decision for the practice and we both realize that if the practice is successful, then we’re successful and I know that’s her best intention. And that’s my best intention. And not everything has been a home run. I mean, we started out and we were very passionate about sports vision and we did sports vision for a good long while and then when COVID hit. We weren’t doing that in that amount of time face-to-face with people. And we kind of phased that out. And we both realized, you know what, that’s not where our passions lie anymore. And so we’ve switched gears and we’ve always been passionate about dry eye but now we turn our sports vision room into a dry spa and we’re really going after that. So, you know we’ve changed our minds and change directions and we have been for the most part, we get to the same page like one of us might get there sooner, but we kind of get to the same page.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: As we did. I know you guys worked with Power Practices Consultants coming in talk about the role of consultants in your practice, but also in practice for an owner that doesn’t have a partner to work with.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: So what I think I have seen is really interesting is if you’re a solo practitioner, having a consultant can take that position of a partner because there’s someone that will know your business you can bounce ideas off of, they’re invested in your success, obviously, and it gives you that second thought before you’re like “Yeah, I’m just gonna buy this new space or I’m gonna get this new piece of equipment”. You’ve got an invested person to talk to but as a partnership, what’s been really great and why we kind of sought out having consultants was you have two people who are very passionate with strong ideas and don’t want to step on each other’s toes and a consultant is a good mediator between that and not even that you’re arguing, but that you can say we’re thinking about doing this and the consultant can kind of act as the user what you think and kind of put it together. So it definitely helped us do that. Or if one of us was more passionate about one thing than the other. That consultant was a good third party to say, “Well, this is why you might want to do this thing first versus the other”. So it was without making one person feel bad or one person always making decisions. That consultant kind of acted like that bit of a tiebreaker or a bit of an outside party that gave you another view.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It’s an important role because being outside parties, we don’t have our own skin in the game. So we’re really able to look at a practice objectively about what’s best for the business and help separate some of the emotional pieces from it to make the right decision in the moment.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Exactly. Yeah, so that’s what I feel when I look at this the solo practitioner, I see how the consultant really is their sounding board and I feel like in a multiple Doctor or partnership, it’s a really good outside unbiased opinion that can really help be a deciding factor for the partnerships.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: As the practice grew. What were some of the inflection points that you remember, both in the practice and outside the practice? So you start you’re there two day? She’s there two different days. How does that develop into a chap now?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Yeah, so as we got a little bit busier, and we realized there’s always that thing where you can’t leave shore, if you’ve got one foot or you can’t push off your boat, if you still have your foot on the shore, we realized, okay, let’s let go of the retail practices. And if we’re here in this practice, we’ll get more patients, you know, and so we started doing that.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Did you do that together? Like at the same time

Dr. Charlene Henderson: We did we both decided, You know what, and it was getting pretty hectic keeping up both sides of the equation, you know, and when so we were starting to get some money and we’re like, okay, we can actually instead of just putting money back into the practice, we’re starting to get some money in and so let’s if we’re here, we’re gonna have more patients more money. Then we won’t need that retail kind of side of it.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So you went from four total days a week between you right up to eight days?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: No, then we went to like three days each patient care and then the other day in the office kind of doing our CEO or kind of running the practice, but really soon not so we leased the space when we first built because to put it in frame, we opened our practice in the fall of 2009, August of 2009, which was right when the economy was crashing. And literally when we were going to get our practice loan. Wells Fargo was the only person who was given loans to any optometrists anywhere, and we were like, well they don’t like us. That’s it, but you know, it worked out. So we started at kind of a crazy time in the economy and we leased the space, but there happened to be right in front of the building that we were leasing a plot of land that was sitting there. And I had said to Tracy like we had a three-year lease. And I said that earlier too. Would it be crazy if we thought about buying this land and doing this? And she was like, you know, I think that’ll be a good idea. And we looked into it. So we made the plans to build our building like in end of that year. So by the year three and a half, we were moving into our new building, which is 3800 square feet and we own the building. So that was a big inflection point because that was a big risk. We went from Hey, we’re building this place to oh great for loans and but we knew that that was the right path for us and we’re in a such a growing area. And you know, that’s probably been the number one biggest success is having our own real estate in that growing area too. So that’s been very good for us. But that was a that was a big inflection point like it was stressful building out a new space and are we crazy because we’re only two and a half years into this game, but it was definitely worth it.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: What’s another one?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: So another one besides that was then when we’re in our new space, we have all this space and you know, when we’re hiring more people, we really decided to go after specialty care. So our original thing was because both of us had worked in retail we had seen all the money that would go into optical and how profitable the opticals were next door to these retail places. So we thought well we’re the doctors were the best ones to recommend this. So we always had in both our rental space and our when we built out big nice optical that will catch your attention and have all kinds of really make a person feel like we have lots to choose from. It’s not an afterthought. So we had that in place. But then the next year was when I was looking really hard at OrthoK. So I started that it’s close to over 10 years ago now and had to go and get there all these things and took on that and Tracy about a couple of years later decided her next venture was going to be Debby Feinberg’s Binocular Vision Disorder so she went and got training and everything for that so that kind of shifted our gears from we still have our optical and we still want to make sure our patients have the best glasses. But we also have these other niches that we felt in uncertain times or if AI or whatever comes about these are physical face-to-face personal touch kind of niches that we just can’t be replaced by a click on a computer. So we’ve got to went after those.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And I think he gets to a point in your optometrist career to where it becomes important to do something new that you’re passionate about and find that thing that gets you re-energized and re-excited clinically, as well as the management side.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Yeah, because you want to feel like “Oh yeah, I am making a difference and I am doing something that makes a life-quality change for your patients”. So those are specialties that make the patients feel good makes you feel good and the staff enjoys it. It’s something a little bit different. But it’s a lot to go learn something that you haven’t really had as much training in as you know is your kind of routine care and in there’s highs and lows with all of that too. But that was a big inflection point. And you know, I really every time we had to hire or grow your staff, that’s always difficult to but I do feel like when you hire somebody, they all like as long as it’s a good hire. It always pays for itself. You know, it’s like when you’re worried Oh, should I get this person it usually always, always works out for the best but it’s difficult to as in a partnership, that human resource side of it. I don’t think you manage and say nobody likes that. I have both of us. That’s our least favorite.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein:  One of the things that we have dealt with with staff members over the years is staff members kind of playing playing one of us against the other like in our office we call it if you don’t like what Mommy says, ask Daddy, did you guys run into that with staff?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: I don’t feel it does not just asking one or the other but we definitely find there are certain staff members who when because as we work right now, I don’t see patients on Fridays and Tracy does see patients on Mondays and there are definitely certain people that like to come on Mondays and complain to me about something and there’s other people like to come Fridays. And complain to her, you know, so there’s different things like that, that we found, but we tried to mix it up so that there’s not camps, you know, like, “Oh, this is this person’s team, and that’s that person’s team. If someone’s coming to her all the time with a problem”, then she may tell me so I’m the one that goes and says “Okay, this is what we’re going to do and vice versa.”

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So communicating with each other about it behind the scenes so that you’re at least consistent in your answers to staff is important.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: I should say to that too. We are in an office with our desks facing each other. Okay, so what divides us are computer monitors and that is good and bad. You know, it’s good in that if something comes up, we’re going to talk about it because we’re right there. The bad sometimes is that we get distracted when we’re trying to do things because we’re friends. So we’re talking and we’re chatting with like, oh my gosh, now we’ve got to get this plan done for whatever. And then also sometimes you know you don’t have a private space to go to if there’s something going on but you know, we’ll kind of walk and leave each other if there’s a you know, personal phone call or whatever. But we have said over the years I do think that helps us run the practice because you know, you’re so busy. It’s not like I have to go down to her office and go “Oh, I gotta remember to tell you this”. She’s sitting four feet away from me.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, I think that that’s really a key. I’ve been in a lot of offices and where the doctors, the owners, the partners have shared office space. It’s always such a different environment of conversation and collaboration and not having to hold anything because it’s all right out there.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Right. Yeah.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So it’s easy or easier to have this great relationship when the practice is really doing well. And everything is rosy. You want to go in our visual medicine. Okay, sure. Go ahead. We want to invest in this Yeah. We’ve got the money. Like, was there a point where things weren’t going well? because that puts a whole different stress on the relationship between the owners.

Dr. Charlene Henderson:  We joke that like it’s in the staffs best interest to keep the books full and busy because it’s when we’re not busy. That we go around and we’re like, “Oh, why isn’t this or whatever”. And you know, that they’re like, “Oh, gosh, here they come”. Because if we’re so busy, we’re not commenting on everything. And so it’s like that with us, too. If there’s a time where you’ve got cancellations, or you’re not as busy, that’s when we’re like, you start to wonder, well, what’s going on here? What should we do so or you know, you feel bad if there’s a day where she’s running around crazy seeing patients and I just had three no-shows or I just had a family not cancel and I’m sitting there you know, and you feel bad, but I don’t think that makes us argue we’ve had we’ve gone through the life like we started this practice when we were just about to turn 40 And now we’re in our 50s. So there’s been a lot of light changes. I might unit gardeners are graduating from high school or they’re in college. So both our families are in Canada, so we both had to rush off to another country when someone got sick or you know, all that kind of stuff. So we’ve seen big picture things where we don’t argue over little picture things, you know, so if I had to drop everything to run to see my mom when she was going through some stuff Tracy covers me that without a question, and vice versa. You know, we did that for each other. So I think that helped us not kind of nitpick over things but in my we’re human we’ve had arguments over things, but I feel like if you know who the person is at heart, you’re not going to have his bad time. You know,

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: for sure. Was there any like relationship development, stuff that you had to do along the way, like, the way that you’re describing? The friendship and the business relationship? Like when you’re so aligned with most things, you don’t develop the same conflict-resolution skills. If you saw everything differently for the beginning, either you wouldn’t have been partners or you would have figured out how to fight right, but yeah, Jonathan and I, We agree most of the time. So we’ve been married 25 years and we can’t effectively argue we’re just not good.

Dr. Charlene Henderson: Right? Yeah. We really have had over all these years, just a couple of times where someone’s been mad or hurt or upset, but it hasn’t lasted, you know, and most of that, I would say has not ever had to do with our business relationship. It’s like life stuff going on, you know, and someone’s under stress and things like that. But yeah, I just feel like and I know it’s different, where you work with your husband. I work with my husband just for four years and another practice. And I felt like we would have to leave at the end of the day and we were driving home and we would say “Okay, this is the time when no more talk about work”, because it was like all we did at the end was talk talk talk, where I do feel like we’re tracing I go home to separate houses. We’re not talking about that, you know, all night, and she could talk to her husband I could talk to my husband like they don’t care is invested or don’t care because they don’t know all the characters in the story as the person who’s there you know, all the time. So I think because we can like go home and sleep that night come back the next day. It’s there’s not as much like underlying frustration and you know, really, we’ve been very fortunate in that we agree on most things and a lot of the other things don’t matter that much.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So for somebody considering this, like the optometry student who asked a question that started this whole thought process about is it a smart idea to go into business with he was asking you with the best friend what advice would you give somebody before they even make that decision?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: I definitely think for myself I having a partner has been way better than doing it on my own because I can bounce ideas. I have someone there like I said if I have to go to a sick child or sick then there’s somebody there. You go on vacation or somebody there all those kinds of things are you know, simple, but also you have to make sure that you are aligned with the person like you said, if I had started a practice out with somebody who only wanted to work a day a week for their whole life and I was trying to grow the place like to have seven offices that’s not gonna work, you know, or if you had someone who is very medically oriented and the other person only wanted to do refractions and you couldn’t find a way to say “Okay, you handle your part and I’ll handle mine. I think it’d be very difficult. So your framework has to be for the same reason like we were starting a practice so that we would have control over our own destinies. We always say that we live and die by our own sword and that makes us feel really good. And we were going to have a quality of life. We do not have hours on Saturday. We have not had that since like our first year because we wanted to go to the soccer games. We wanted to go to the football games, and it wasn’t worth it to us. Could we have made more money? Yes, but did we want to do that? No. So you know, we agreed on that. Things like that. You have to have your core values had to align. But don’t be afraid if you have different strengths and weaknesses, because I think that actually complements your partnership.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Absolutely. Charlene, thank you so much for this kind. And it just brings in so many elements of conversations that I’ve had with other people in the last days and weeks and months. I think there’s something in our minds as highly educated people because we’ve been in school for so long, that this period between end of May and beginning of September is like like it’s almost like New Years for people who spend 13,17,21 years of their lives in school. And this is fantastic. Thank you so much. Any last thoughts? Anything that you’re thinking that you wish you had the chance to say?

Dr. Charlene Henderson: I don’t think so. I just think that having a partner. I also want to say it’s a two-way street. We have a partner you want to make sure that you appreciate them for their strengths and weaknesses too. And you kind of look at the Partnership for not just what you can get out of it, but how you can enrich their art of the practice to because that’s the ultimate way that you’re going to be the most successful.

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Charlene, thank you again, if someone wants to learn more about your practice and check you out and see what you’re up to share your website

Dr. Charlene Henderson: We are www.blinkcharlotte.com

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Very cool. And if things that Charlene is saying make you think about things you want to do in your own business, you can certainly reach Charlene through The Power Practice as well at www.powerpractice.com. Thank you so much for listening.

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