Mike Michalowicz shares the steps and strategies you can follow to get the best out of your practice using his Pumpkin Plan system.

November 17, 2022

Learn more about Pumpkin Plan: https://mikemichalowicz.com/

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Mike Michalowicz: Imagine your best customer. What if you had 10 copies of them? Or a hundred? How would you feel? And maybe they’ll say, “It’s going to be a game changer for my business.” And I believe that to be true. So our objective, our goal is now to replicate those customers.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Hi, I’m Bethany Fishbein the CEO of Power Practice and host of the Power Hour Optometry podcast. It’s fall and one of the fun things about fall is that inevitably, a client or multiple clients or friends, someone will send me pictures of the prize-winning pumpkins from their local or state fair. And just randomly on my phone towards the end of October, Somebody’s gonna text me pictures of these giant pumpkins. And the reason they do that is because they know that I am such a huge fan of the book The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. It’s one of the most impactful business books that I read. And the idea is that there’s a huge business lesson that can be learned from the farmers who tried to create these gigantic, major, huge prize-winning pumpkins that are hundreds of pounds and the biggest pumpkin at the state fair. And the book talks about the way that these farmers grow these gigantic pumpkins and gives an outline that is very analogous to growing a phenomenal business. So there are things in there like starting with the right seeds, etc. And one of the things that always stands out to me is that once they plant the seed and they water it and they’re doing whatever things make pumpkins start to grow and the pumpkins start to grow. The farmers quickly identify the largest pumpkins on the vine, the ones that are most likely to grow into these gigantic prize-winning pumpkins. And they identify that and also identify the little pumpkins that are unlikely to lead to Blue Ribbon success. And part of being able to grow the big pumpkins is that they have to cut the little pumpkins off the vine to allow all of the nutrients and resources and everything to travel down the vine to nourish the big pumpkins and help them grow even bigger and bigger and bigger. And the analogy to the business obviously, is that so many of us are trying to be all things to all people. And by doing so, we’re giving equal energy and equal attention to our little pumpkins and our big pumpkins. We don’t really care what size pumpkins they are. We’re going to treat everybody the same and take great care of everybody. But in doing so, we’re dividing our resources and not being able to focus on the big pumpkins, which are the things that help us grow our business in a way that we truly want to grow. So I’m not sure I’m doing this justice. I’ll put the link to the book in the show notes. But I reached out to Mike Michalowicz. He is an author not only of the Pumpkin Plan but of many other books that are relevant to Optometry and have been discussed in Optometric Education. He’s written The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He wrote the Pumpkin Plan. He wrote Clockwork, Fix This Next, and Profit First. Many optometrists have heard from several other books. And they’re all about how to successfully navigate entrepreneurship. He’s an extraordinary thinker. And in a fit of confidence, I reached out to him to say, “Hey, any chance you’d be on the podcast?” He said, “Yes.” And so here is my conversation with Mike Michalowicz talking about the Pumpkin Plan. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. I appreciate it.

 

Mike Michalowicz: Oh, it’s a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me, Bethany.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Oh, I’m super excited. I’m a giant fan. And really, my thoughts today are around Pumpkin Plan. And can you just give your little two minutes summary on the whole general idea of what Pumpkin Planning a business means?

 

Mike Michalowicz: For sure. For sure. So I’ll give you the origin around why I use that title and what the story is. It’s as plain as this. I hired a business coach for my first business. I was in IT services. I was struggling to grow, living cheque by cheque, not having enough to cover payroll, in constant panic, and praying to get a new client. And I spoke with him. His name is Frank. And he said, “As you know, the problem most entrepreneurs have is we’re trying to fix everything but it’s actually only fixing a few things in the right order.” Because it’s usually about a 5% adjustment. And as I reflected on this, he said, “You know you are attracting prospects. You are delivering your services. You are getting money. And you’re doing 90 to 95% correctly if you fix a few things.” And he goes, “And to get started, I want you to check out a pumpkin farm.” And I’m like, “What?” He’s the weirdest business coach I’ve ever met. And he said, “Most specifically these colossal farmers.” And he said, “What they’re doing is they’re changing the traditional growing process by just a few things – different seeds selection and different watering processes. And the pumpkin’s response is explosive growth.” And you see these pumpkins. They’re on the cover, you know, especially in the fall season, on the cover of newspapers and so forth, these massive gourds. And he said, “I wanted to tell you that because that translates into business.” And sure enough, it does. In the Pumpkin Plan, I illustrate the steps. There’s seven steps but I really condensed it down to five core steps of how to grow a business. It starts off with the right seed. Make sure that your business is matched for the environment that you’re attracting and speaking to the customers that need you most. But speaking to them, that they feel that they’re cared for specifically, that they’re a community, and that you get them. Make sure that your offering is distinct and unique. Anyone can do IT services but a few people do the Geek Squad model and they distinguish themselves. Make sure you build systems. That’s another part. And then there were more steps. But Pumpkin Plan, in summary, is a way to healthily and organically grow your business so that you’re not surviving check by check, that you are caring for a community, and that you can scale it to any size that you so desire. That’s what it’s about.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So one of the things that tend to resonate with people when we talk about the book with optometrists who haven’t heard about it before. Is there almost always, in an office, able to recognize who their big pumpkins are and who their little pumpkins are? And the one thing that I love about it is that the wording gets adopted almost immediately. It gives just everybody like a shared language, right? So describe in a business what a big pumpkin looks like.

 

Mike Michalowicz: There’s many flavors to it. When it comes from the customer aspect, it’s one of my favorite things to do in the business, which is we can do a client assessment. And a big pumpkin client represents the intersection of two things. One is that client that generates sustainable, larger volumes of revenue compared to your other clients. So who brings the most money to you particularly if they repeat? And why this is important is those clients are demonstrating through their actions that they see your value. They’re not running over to Costco or they’re not doing these other things. They’re coming back to you so they see the value. The second part of this intersection though is how much do you like working with them. If they bring you joy or not? And it’s a really simple evaluation but it has a big indicator. If you don’t enjoy working with someone, there’s a reason behind that. Your services are going to degrade in quality. You’re gonna call them last. You’re going to kind of, you know, rub your temples before you deal with them. But the customers you like to work with, you’re inviting them in with open arms. So they inherently are gonna get higher quality service. It is the intersection of clients who pay you the most and who you like working with them. So it’s not always the number one client on the list revenue-wise. It could be a few down. Those customers are the ones we want to clone. And the example I share with people is, imagine your best customer. What if you had 10 copies of them or a hundred? How would you feel? And maybe they’ll say, “It’s going to be a game changer for my business.” And I believe that to be true. So our objective, our goal is now to replicate those customers. But you can’t clone your best customers until you first identify them. So step one, identify those big pumpkins. We are going to have to have the discipline of availing the space to serve more great pumpkins. So I have to get rid of the lower-hanging clients. In the same evaluation, you’re gonna identify some clients that they don’t pay you much money and actually may cost you to be delivering service to them. Because they always say, “This isn’t right. You got to redo the service. I don’t like the products. I don’t like these glasses. Blah blah blah. And if you don’t fix this at your cost, I’m gonna go on every review site and slam you.” Those customers cost us financially but they also cost us emotionally. As someone, we’re trying to go to bed at night and you go, “Oh god, I have to deal with this person yet again.” That thought time could be availed to focusing on your best customers. Do we have the discipline to remove the bad customers? And I want to say they’re not necessarily bad people. I’m just saying they’re a bad fit. We want to remove those customers, put them back out to market, and let them go to your competition. Focus on your best customers and then go through a cloning process. And there are certain steps we can follow to clone those people.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I mean, in business when you’re talking about this and you talk about those people that keep you up at night. And you know, you can identify individuals. But in practices like ours, these are optometry practices that are seeing hundreds of people a month. It’s really impossible to make very individual decisions or it’s not going to be impactful to make individual decisions. So can you decide by some like grouping?

 

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: So how does that work?

 

Mike Michalowicz:  Yeah so you look for community commonality. And so you may find that “Oh, elderly patients are better for me.” Or worse, right? Males versus females. Maybe certain religious beliefs. Maybe certain life dynamics like the single parents that raise their kids. Or maybe we realize, “My gosh, I get a lot of athletes and those are the best.” And maybe you can become an optometrist who specializes in that community. So we look for common traits. It will only happen if you start tracking it. So most people just sign in the person that comes through. But what we need to do is make observational judgments or assessments. How old is this person? What kind of group do we put them in? Are there certain other elements that we noticed about them or they’re willing to share? And then you can start qualifying this. For example, imagine you had a funeral home. Speaking about something random here. A funeral home could serve any community and they have a unique dynamic as they always get a client once, right? It’s a one-and-done in their industry. There’s never a repeat business. So you really have to kind of look at the community. And you may realize, “Oh, wow, there’s veterans. Military veterans really get engaged with our facility.” So what if you become a funeral home that starts catering more to this? That you have links to the color guard and so forth. You have symbolism that supports that demographic. All these different elements that speak to them. Now you start building a reputation for excellence in that community and the word gets out. Most people become generalists. They’ll say, “Well, anyone who needs glasses or anyone who has vision issues, that’s who we serve.” The problem is there is no congregation for that community. I have astigmatism in both eyes. I am not in that community of hanging out and saying, “Hey, you know, I got a doctor you gotta see but I participate in sports.” So I am in an athletic community and we all talk about our best practices. And there is one person there that has special corrective glasses and says, “This is the best optometrist to play lacrosse.” And I’m like, “That’s the doctor I need to see too.” So, who’s the community that you can speak to? The more generalized you are, the less the word circulates around you. The more specialized you are, the more that community puts you on a platform and everyone starts to come to you.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: There’s the balance. So you’re talking about doing that and really honing in on those best customers, best patients, and big pumpkins. And to make space for that you’ve got to release some of the little ones but you can’t make a general declaration, right? Yes, we want to make a community for premier athletes but we don’t see couch potatoes. We only see elderly men here. So how do you make a change in your business that’s going to push you in that direction without a sweeping, we don’t see you?

 

Mike Michalowicz: Correct and I don’t think we should do that. There’s a difference between niche specialization and niche exclusivity. And I’m not after niche exclusivity. Niche specialization means we start catering to a community where we can develop specialized talents for that community. For many people who deploy the Pumpkin Plan, ultimately their entire customer base is maybe 30% to 50% in that community. But they start becoming so well known there that there’s the secondary communities who say, “Wow they have such a reputation for excellence. I want to go there too.” So perhaps the couch potato says, “I’m not an athlete but maybe I could benefit because athletes are benefiting.” So you still try that community. What we need to do is take on any business that would support the health of our business. So we mark it to our niche community. We really make an effort there. If the secondary community learns about us and if it’s good for our business. Absolutely. We’ll accept it. That’s how you become a niche specialist. I have companies that are doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue because they went to a niche where before they were struggling to break into the million-dollar point. And it’s interesting when I break down these businesses, and the most I can think of is one client that has 70% in their niche and the rest are secondary communities. One fear people have is well what if athletes go away? What if the housing industry collapses and I focused on people who own houses? I can lose my business overnight. And that’s a great point. So I studied every community collapse and I can’t think of any instance where a community goes away overnight. They usually fade. They can fade quickly over a few years. The beautiful thing is when you start focusing on a community, it takes six months to a year of concentrated effort. You got to stay in that community for six months to a year before you start seeing a bug because your name is now circulating so often. So you can grow in a community much faster than the community could ever evaporate in these weird circumstances. So if you do see an indicator of that happening, then we have to focus on a new community and get the traction there.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: One of the objections we run into sometimes is sometimes the practice owner will be all in and they start to try and bring this idea to their staff members and the staff members misinterpret or kind of get the idea somehow that this is about reading people. You know, this person’s not good enough, this persons better than that person, and they find it distasteful because we’re in health care. You gotta take care of everybody. That’s like we care. How do you explain it in a way that just reflects what we’re really doing here? It’s not about valuing people. 

 

Mike Michalowicz: No, no, no. And I truly believe that all humanity is of equal value. We are all extraordinary beings on this planet regardless of our life’s circumstances or situations. What we are judging is our ability to cater to and to serve this person to the highest level. And the clientele that are not happy and you are not able to serve and it’s demonstrated by saying, “I’m not happy here.” Our job is to then give them or direct them to a better alternative to help them find other help. So we’re not valuing people. We’re valuing our ability to be of service to people. That’s what we’re rating.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Talking about the athletic community that you’re a part of if that doctor starts to realize, “Well, I’m getting a lot of lacrosse players and by extension, they’re referring their kids who are tennis players, field hockey and you know, everything else.” What can an office be actively doing to encourage that to continue in addition to just providing really good care for athletes?

 

Mike Michalowicz: I love this question. And I think there’s three things we can ask our best-fitted customers that will then amplify the community. And these are all, I call them Jedi mind tricks that you can tell me if they are. But the first question is, go to that best customer you’ve identified and ask them, “What am I doing right? Why do you keep coming to me?” And I ask this of all your best customers and look for the common thread. Here’s why it’s a Jedi mind trick. The customer will never tell you what you’re doing right. They will tell you how they judge you. And this is the thing you actually need to improve. When a customer says, “What you’re doing right is whatever that is.” That’s the thing you actually need to fix. So as an example, I go to my optometrist and say, “You know what? The reason I come to you is the fitting of the glasses. You take a special effort to ensure I have well-fit glasses. Lacrosse is a contact sport and things get jostled around. If my glasses are half-cocked when I’m playing, I’m gonna get hurt or not be able to perform well. So fitting, you do fitting very well.” What I’m actually saying is, “I am judging you on your ability to do fitting.” So that’s the one thing you better do better and better. And if you become so extraordinary at that, now you’ve solved my biggest problem. I’m going to tell everyone in my network saying, “You got to go to this doctor.” So whatever you do right, do it better. The second tip is to ask your community, “What’s wrong with the industry?” Don’t ask, “What we’re doing wrong?” or “What can we improve?” Ask what is wrong with the industry. The reason you ask about the optometry industry is cause now you’re talking to the person outside the room. We have a candid conversation. If I asked you, “Hey what’s wrong with my optometry business?” You’re not gonna tell me the truth because there’s a social consequence. And if you’re critical of me, I’ll come back and say, “Well, that’s not true.” and it can cause conflict. So we know the social game. If we talk about outside the room, you may gain insight. Someone goes to another optometrist and they say, “You know what? They treated me like a product or a box just to put on or slap some glasses on and to do some tests. They didn’t treat me like a human.” And if you hear that over and over again. Oh my gosh, there’s an opportunity to change the industry. Just bring the human aspect in. Cuddle and care for that customer and just their personal regard as opposed to just helping them with their sight. The third question is, and this is my favorite, “Tell me about the other vendors you deal with or your health.” And now we’re talking about the general category. The reason is that I am going to an optometrist for a reason. I am likely going to my other healthcare providers for a reason and perhaps other vendors. Those are the biggest Alliances. There’s that saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” So if you’re targeting the athlete community, go there. And it’s interesting my chiropractor has a secondary market client. His specialty is children athletes and particularly those in contact sports. He said the damage these young children are experiencing is horrible, but we can take chiropractic measures to support their skeletal health. He went to the parents and mostly it’s the moms. They were coming in and he’d say, “Hey, what other vendors do you go to?” And they rattle off. One of them was, “We go to a lot of these camps so that our children can get experience and so forth, developing their skill, playing softball, whatever the sport is.” He then started going to the camps and said, “Hey, I can’t do an adjustment here but I can tell you how to care for your skeletal structure.” And he’s got a swath of opportunities just by teaming up with camps and coaches. We as optometrists can do the exact same thing. When we know who else is in the network of our best customers. You’re going to find those best customers all over there. My one tip is don’t call those other vendors. Don’t call my chiropractor and say, “Hey, let’s do a referral exchange.” That’s not what it’s about. Instead say, “Hey, I have a great customer Mike, and I understand he shared he’s a patient of yours too.” What can I do as an optometrist to make your experience better serving Mike? So I read things that I’ve been telling him about his skeletal health that I could assist in. Do what you can to serve that chiropractor in serving that common customer. Because now you’re serviced them both. When that happens, that chiropractor will say, “My gosh, there’s this optometrist who cares not just about my clients or my patients. They care about me. I’m gonna refer all my patients to you.” So build that relationship out of genuine service.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Yeah and that makes sense. And then that chiropractor, because they’re seeing the people that are absolutely in the community that you want to see, they’re seeing other people who haven’t seen you yet and then you get those, and then that just continues to grow.

 

Mike Michalowicz: Yes it builds up and you may be able to refer stuff to her and that chiropractor just keeps that positive spin.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: And is there an outside marketing effort like this for personal relationships?

 

Mike Michalowicz: For sure. So I asked my customers, and I call them my congregation points, maybe not the best term. It’s a little chunky. But what congregation point means is where do you consume knowledge and information? Where do you gather with the like community? So is there a podcast that you listen to? And maybe there is one. Are there magazines you subscribe to? Then I will want to be the expert there. Most of my advertising that I suggest in a space like this is sharing expert knowledge. So get that podcast and share your tips. It’s the best way to show authority and to be of service. So you build that know, like, and trust just for these podcasts as an example to get new opportunities. There’s a magazine people read, write an article for that. Keep transferring knowledge and it builds the know, like, and trust. If you go to the communities where I gather and all my like people or all my like clones gather, you will be perceived as being everywhere. And so it takes a very minimal budget, just a little bit of effort and time. And maybe a little bit of money if you have to buy an advertisement. But you are seen over and over again. With these multiple touches, I will absolutely see you as the definitive authority for my need and come to you.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for your time and for your writing not only this book but the other books. And links to all those in our show notes. I appreciate what you’ve given to me as a professional by writing the books that you have. Really, for many, many years, it’s changed how I personally think about business and have shared it over and over and over with my clients. And I’m just appreciative of the chance to get to know you a little bit and to share it with an even broader audience today. I appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Mike Michalowicz: I thank you for that and I’m proud of you. Congratulations on implementing it. It’s been a joy being you. Be well.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Thank you so much. For more information on how we can help you get the practice of your dreams, seeing patients that you want to see, being paid well for what you’re doing, please reach out to us. Our website is www.powerpractice.comThank you for listening.

 

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Mike Michalowicz: Imagine your best customer. What if you had 10 copies of them? Or a hundred? How would you feel? And maybe they’ll say, “It’s going to be a game changer for my business.” And I believe that to be true. So our objective, our goal is now to replicate those customers.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Hi, I’m Bethany Fishbein the CEO of Power Practice and host of the Power Hour Optometry podcast. It’s fall and one of the fun things about fall is that inevitably, a client or multiple clients or friends, someone will send me pictures of the prize-winning pumpkins from their local or state fair. And just randomly on my phone towards the end of October, Somebody’s gonna text me pictures of these giant pumpkins. And the reason they do that is because they know that I am such a huge fan of the book The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. It’s one of the most impactful business books that I read. And the idea is that there’s a huge business lesson that can be learned from the farmers who tried to create these gigantic, major, huge prize-winning pumpkins that are hundreds of pounds and the biggest pumpkin at the state fair. And the book talks about the way that these farmers grow these gigantic pumpkins and gives an outline that is very analogous to growing a phenomenal business. So there are things in there like starting with the right seeds, etc. And one of the things that always stands out to me is that once they plant the seed and they water it and they’re doing whatever things make pumpkins start to grow and the pumpkins start to grow. The farmers quickly identify the largest pumpkins on the vine, the ones that are most likely to grow into these gigantic prize-winning pumpkins. And they identify that and also identify the little pumpkins that are unlikely to lead to Blue Ribbon success. And part of being able to grow the big pumpkins is that they have to cut the little pumpkins off the vine to allow all of the nutrients and resources and everything to travel down the vine to nourish the big pumpkins and help them grow even bigger and bigger and bigger. And the analogy to the business obviously, is that so many of us are trying to be all things to all people. And by doing so, we’re giving equal energy and equal attention to our little pumpkins and our big pumpkins. We don’t really care what size pumpkins they are. We’re going to treat everybody the same and take great care of everybody. But in doing so, we’re dividing our resources and not being able to focus on the big pumpkins, which are the things that help us grow our business in a way that we truly want to grow. So I’m not sure I’m doing this justice. I’ll put the link to the book in the show notes. But I reached out to Mike Michalowicz. He is an author not only of the Pumpkin Plan but of many other books that are relevant to Optometry and have been discussed in Optometric Education. He’s written The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He wrote the Pumpkin Plan. He wrote Clockwork, Fix This Next, and Profit First. Many optometrists have heard from several other books. And they’re all about how to successfully navigate entrepreneurship. He’s an extraordinary thinker. And in a fit of confidence, I reached out to him to say, “Hey, any chance you’d be on the podcast?” He said, “Yes.” And so here is my conversation with Mike Michalowicz talking about the Pumpkin Plan. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. I appreciate it.

 

Mike Michalowicz: Oh, it’s a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me, Bethany.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Oh, I’m super excited. I’m a giant fan. And really, my thoughts today are around Pumpkin Plan. And can you just give your little two minutes summary on the whole general idea of what Pumpkin Planning a business means?

 

Mike Michalowicz: For sure. For sure. So I’ll give you the origin around why I use that title and what the story is. It’s as plain as this. I hired a business coach for my first business. I was in IT services. I was struggling to grow, living cheque by cheque, not having enough to cover payroll, in constant panic, and praying to get a new client. And I spoke with him. His name is Frank. And he said, “As you know, the problem most entrepreneurs have is we’re trying to fix everything but it’s actually only fixing a few things in the right order.” Because it’s usually about a 5% adjustment. And as I reflected on this, he said, “You know you are attracting prospects. You are delivering your services. You are getting money. And you’re doing 90 to 95% correctly if you fix a few things.” And he goes, “And to get started, I want you to check out a pumpkin farm.” And I’m like, “What?” He’s the weirdest business coach I’ve ever met. And he said, “Most specifically these colossal farmers.” And he said, “What they’re doing is they’re changing the traditional growing process by just a few things – different seeds selection and different watering processes. And the pumpkin’s response is explosive growth.” And you see these pumpkins. They’re on the cover, you know, especially in the fall season, on the cover of newspapers and so forth, these massive gourds. And he said, “I wanted to tell you that because that translates into business.” And sure enough, it does. In the Pumpkin Plan, I illustrate the steps. There’s seven steps but I really condensed it down to five core steps of how to grow a business. It starts off with the right seed. Make sure that your business is matched for the environment that you’re attracting and speaking to the customers that need you most. But speaking to them, that they feel that they’re cared for specifically, that they’re a community, and that you get them. Make sure that your offering is distinct and unique. Anyone can do IT services but a few people do the Geek Squad model and they distinguish themselves. Make sure you build systems. That’s another part. And then there were more steps. But Pumpkin Plan, in summary, is a way to healthily and organically grow your business so that you’re not surviving check by check, that you are caring for a community, and that you can scale it to any size that you so desire. That’s what it’s about.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So one of the things that tend to resonate with people when we talk about the book with optometrists who haven’t heard about it before. Is there almost always, in an office, able to recognize who their big pumpkins are and who their little pumpkins are? And the one thing that I love about it is that the wording gets adopted almost immediately. It gives just everybody like a shared language, right? So describe in a business what a big pumpkin looks like.

 

Mike Michalowicz: There’s many flavors to it. When it comes from the customer aspect, it’s one of my favorite things to do in the business, which is we can do a client assessment. And a big pumpkin client represents the intersection of two things. One is that client that generates sustainable, larger volumes of revenue compared to your other clients. So who brings the most money to you particularly if they repeat? And why this is important is those clients are demonstrating through their actions that they see your value. They’re not running over to Costco or they’re not doing these other things. They’re coming back to you so they see the value. The second part of this intersection though is how much do you like working with them. If they bring you joy or not? And it’s a really simple evaluation but it has a big indicator. If you don’t enjoy working with someone, there’s a reason behind that. Your services are going to degrade in quality. You’re gonna call them last. You’re going to kind of, you know, rub your temples before you deal with them. But the customers you like to work with, you’re inviting them in with open arms. So they inherently are gonna get higher quality service. It is the intersection of clients who pay you the most and who you like working with them. So it’s not always the number one client on the list revenue-wise. It could be a few down. Those customers are the ones we want to clone. And the example I share with people is, imagine your best customer. What if you had 10 copies of them or a hundred? How would you feel? And maybe they’ll say, “It’s going to be a game changer for my business.” And I believe that to be true. So our objective, our goal is now to replicate those customers. But you can’t clone your best customers until you first identify them. So step one, identify those big pumpkins. We are going to have to have the discipline of availing the space to serve more great pumpkins. So I have to get rid of the lower-hanging clients. In the same evaluation, you’re gonna identify some clients that they don’t pay you much money and actually may cost you to be delivering service to them. Because they always say, “This isn’t right. You got to redo the service. I don’t like the products. I don’t like these glasses. Blah blah blah. And if you don’t fix this at your cost, I’m gonna go on every review site and slam you.” Those customers cost us financially but they also cost us emotionally. As someone, we’re trying to go to bed at night and you go, “Oh god, I have to deal with this person yet again.” That thought time could be availed to focusing on your best customers. Do we have the discipline to remove the bad customers? And I want to say they’re not necessarily bad people. I’m just saying they’re a bad fit. We want to remove those customers, put them back out to market, and let them go to your competition. Focus on your best customers and then go through a cloning process. And there are certain steps we can follow to clone those people.

 

Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I mean, in business when you’re talking about this and you talk about those people that keep you up at night. And you know, you can identify individuals. But in practices like ours, these are optometry practices that are seeing hundreds of people a month. It’s really impossible to make very individual decisions or it’s not going to be impactful to make individual decisions. So can you decide by some like grouping?

 

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: So how does that work?

 

Mike Michalowicz:  Yeah so you look for community commonality. And so you may find that “Oh, elderly patients are better for me.” Or worse, right? Males versus females. Maybe certain religious beliefs. Maybe certain life dynamics like the single parents that raise their kids. Or maybe we realize, “My gosh, I get a lot of athletes and those are the best.” And maybe you can become an optometrist who specializes in that community. So we look for common traits. It will only happen if you start tracking it. So most people just sign in the person that comes through. But what we need to do is make observational judgments or assessments. How old is this person? What kind of group do we put them in? Are there certain other elements that we noticed about them or they’re willing to share? And then you can start qualifying this. For example, imagine you had a funeral home. Speaking about something random here. A funeral home could serve any community and they have a unique dynamic as they always get a client once, right? It’s a one-and-done in their industry. There’s never a repeat business. So you really have to kind of look at the community. And you may realize, “Oh, wow, there’s veterans. Military veterans really get engaged with our facility.” So what if you become a funeral home that starts catering more to this? That you have links to the color guard and so forth. You have symbolism that supports that demographic. All these different elements that speak to them. Now you start building a reputation for excellence in that community and the word gets out. Most people become generalists. They’ll say, “Well, anyone who needs glasses or anyone who has vision issues, that’s who we serve.” The problem is there is no congregation for that community. I have astigmatism in both eyes. I am not in that community of hanging out and saying, “Hey, you know, I got a doctor you gotta see but I participate in sports.” So I am in an athletic community and we all talk about our best practices. And there is one person there that has special corrective glasses and says, “This is the best optometrist to play lacrosse.” And I’m like, “That’s the doctor I need to see too.” So, who’s the community that you can speak to? The more generalized you are, the less the word circulates around you. The more specialized you are, the more that community puts you on a platform and everyone starts to come to you.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: There’s the balance. So you’re talking about doing that and really honing in on those best customers, best patients, and big pumpkins. And to make space for that you’ve got to release some of the little ones but you can’t make a general declaration, right? Yes, we want to make a community for premier athletes but we don’t see couch potatoes. We only see elderly men here. So how do you make a change in your business that’s going to push you in that direction without a sweeping, we don’t see you?

 

Mike Michalowicz: Correct and I don’t think we should do that. There’s a difference between niche specialization and niche exclusivity. And I’m not after niche exclusivity. Niche specialization means we start catering to a community where we can develop specialized talents for that community. For many people who deploy the Pumpkin Plan, ultimately their entire customer base is maybe 30% to 50% in that community. But they start becoming so well known there that there’s the secondary communities who say, “Wow they have such a reputation for excellence. I want to go there too.” So perhaps the couch potato says, “I’m not an athlete but maybe I could benefit because athletes are benefiting.” So you still try that community. What we need to do is take on any business that would support the health of our business. So we mark it to our niche community. We really make an effort there. If the secondary community learns about us and if it’s good for our business. Absolutely. We’ll accept it. That’s how you become a niche specialist. I have companies that are doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue because they went to a niche where before they were struggling to break into the million-dollar point. And it’s interesting when I break down these businesses, and the most I can think of is one client that has 70% in their niche and the rest are secondary communities. One fear people have is well what if athletes go away? What if the housing industry collapses and I focused on people who own houses? I can lose my business overnight. And that’s a great point. So I studied every community collapse and I can’t think of any instance where a community goes away overnight. They usually fade. They can fade quickly over a few years. The beautiful thing is when you start focusing on a community, it takes six months to a year of concentrated effort. You got to stay in that community for six months to a year before you start seeing a bug because your name is now circulating so often. So you can grow in a community much faster than the community could ever evaporate in these weird circumstances. So if you do see an indicator of that happening, then we have to focus on a new community and get the traction there.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: One of the objections we run into sometimes is sometimes the practice owner will be all in and they start to try and bring this idea to their staff members and the staff members misinterpret or kind of get the idea somehow that this is about reading people. You know, this person’s not good enough, this persons better than that person, and they find it distasteful because we’re in health care. You gotta take care of everybody. That’s like we care. How do you explain it in a way that just reflects what we’re really doing here? It’s not about valuing people. 

 

Mike Michalowicz: No, no, no. And I truly believe that all humanity is of equal value. We are all extraordinary beings on this planet regardless of our life’s circumstances or situations. What we are judging is our ability to cater to and to serve this person to the highest level. And the clientele that are not happy and you are not able to serve and it’s demonstrated by saying, “I’m not happy here.” Our job is to then give them or direct them to a better alternative to help them find other help. So we’re not valuing people. We’re valuing our ability to be of service to people. That’s what we’re rating.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Talking about the athletic community that you’re a part of if that doctor starts to realize, “Well, I’m getting a lot of lacrosse players and by extension, they’re referring their kids who are tennis players, field hockey and you know, everything else.” What can an office be actively doing to encourage that to continue in addition to just providing really good care for athletes?

 

Mike Michalowicz: I love this question. And I think there’s three things we can ask our best-fitted customers that will then amplify the community. And these are all, I call them Jedi mind tricks that you can tell me if they are. But the first question is, go to that best customer you’ve identified and ask them, “What am I doing right? Why do you keep coming to me?” And I ask this of all your best customers and look for the common thread. Here’s why it’s a Jedi mind trick. The customer will never tell you what you’re doing right. They will tell you how they judge you. And this is the thing you actually need to improve. When a customer says, “What you’re doing right is whatever that is.” That’s the thing you actually need to fix. So as an example, I go to my optometrist and say, “You know what? The reason I come to you is the fitting of the glasses. You take a special effort to ensure I have well-fit glasses. Lacrosse is a contact sport and things get jostled around. If my glasses are half-cocked when I’m playing, I’m gonna get hurt or not be able to perform well. So fitting, you do fitting very well.” What I’m actually saying is, “I am judging you on your ability to do fitting.” So that’s the one thing you better do better and better. And if you become so extraordinary at that, now you’ve solved my biggest problem. I’m going to tell everyone in my network saying, “You got to go to this doctor.” So whatever you do right, do it better. The second tip is to ask your community, “What’s wrong with the industry?” Don’t ask, “What we’re doing wrong?” or “What can we improve?” Ask what is wrong with the industry. The reason you ask about the optometry industry is cause now you’re talking to the person outside the room. We have a candid conversation. If I asked you, “Hey what’s wrong with my optometry business?” You’re not gonna tell me the truth because there’s a social consequence. And if you’re critical of me, I’ll come back and say, “Well, that’s not true.” and it can cause conflict. So we know the social game. If we talk about outside the room, you may gain insight. Someone goes to another optometrist and they say, “You know what? They treated me like a product or a box just to put on or slap some glasses on and to do some tests. They didn’t treat me like a human.” And if you hear that over and over again. Oh my gosh, there’s an opportunity to change the industry. Just bring the human aspect in. Cuddle and care for that customer and just their personal regard as opposed to just helping them with their sight. The third question is, and this is my favorite, “Tell me about the other vendors you deal with or your health.” And now we’re talking about the general category. The reason is that I am going to an optometrist for a reason. I am likely going to my other healthcare providers for a reason and perhaps other vendors. Those are the biggest Alliances. There’s that saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” So if you’re targeting the athlete community, go there. And it’s interesting my chiropractor has a secondary market client. His specialty is children athletes and particularly those in contact sports. He said the damage these young children are experiencing is horrible, but we can take chiropractic measures to support their skeletal health. He went to the parents and mostly it’s the moms. They were coming in and he’d say, “Hey, what other vendors do you go to?” And they rattle off. One of them was, “We go to a lot of these camps so that our children can get experience and so forth, developing their skill, playing softball, whatever the sport is.” He then started going to the camps and said, “Hey, I can’t do an adjustment here but I can tell you how to care for your skeletal structure.” And he’s got a swath of opportunities just by teaming up with camps and coaches. We as optometrists can do the exact same thing. When we know who else is in the network of our best customers. You’re going to find those best customers all over there. My one tip is don’t call those other vendors. Don’t call my chiropractor and say, “Hey, let’s do a referral exchange.” That’s not what it’s about. Instead say, “Hey, I have a great customer Mike, and I understand he shared he’s a patient of yours too.” What can I do as an optometrist to make your experience better serving Mike? So I read things that I’ve been telling him about his skeletal health that I could assist in. Do what you can to serve that chiropractor in serving that common customer. Because now you’re serviced them both. When that happens, that chiropractor will say, “My gosh, there’s this optometrist who cares not just about my clients or my patients. They care about me. I’m gonna refer all my patients to you.” So build that relationship out of genuine service.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Yeah and that makes sense. And then that chiropractor, because they’re seeing the people that are absolutely in the community that you want to see, they’re seeing other people who haven’t seen you yet and then you get those, and then that just continues to grow.

 

Mike Michalowicz: Yes it builds up and you may be able to refer stuff to her and that chiropractor just keeps that positive spin.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: And is there an outside marketing effort like this for personal relationships?

 

Mike Michalowicz: For sure. So I asked my customers, and I call them my congregation points, maybe not the best term. It’s a little chunky. But what congregation point means is where do you consume knowledge and information? Where do you gather with the like community? So is there a podcast that you listen to? And maybe there is one. Are there magazines you subscribe to? Then I will want to be the expert there. Most of my advertising that I suggest in a space like this is sharing expert knowledge. So get that podcast and share your tips. It’s the best way to show authority and to be of service. So you build that know, like, and trust just for these podcasts as an example to get new opportunities. There’s a magazine people read, write an article for that. Keep transferring knowledge and it builds the know, like, and trust. If you go to the communities where I gather and all my like people or all my like clones gather, you will be perceived as being everywhere. And so it takes a very minimal budget, just a little bit of effort and time. And maybe a little bit of money if you have to buy an advertisement. But you are seen over and over again. With these multiple touches, I will absolutely see you as the definitive authority for my need and come to you.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Awesome. Mike, thank you so much for your time and for your writing not only this book but the other books. And links to all those in our show notes. I appreciate what you’ve given to me as a professional by writing the books that you have. Really, for many, many years, it’s changed how I personally think about business and have shared it over and over and over with my clients. And I’m just appreciative of the chance to get to know you a little bit and to share it with an even broader audience today. I appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Mike Michalowicz: I thank you for that and I’m proud of you. Congratulations on implementing it. It’s been a joy being you. Be well.

 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Thank you so much. For more information on how we can help you get the practice of your dreams, seeing patients that you want to see, being paid well for what you’re doing, please reach out to us. Our website is www.powerpractice.comThank you for listening.

 

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