Driving Growth in Independent Practices With Amanda Van Voris

Amanda Van Voris is the Senior Director of Client Solutions at Cleinman Performance Partners, a consulting firm that helps independent optometry practices grow through strategic, operational, and people-focused support. With over 20 years of experience, she leads her team in delivering solutions in areas like finance, systems, and organizational effectiveness to help clients achieve both large-scale growth and incremental improvements.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:39] Amanda Van Voris’ career journey from dentistry to consulting with Cleinman Performance Partners
[4:34] Helping a young couple grow from one to four practices
[7:24] Why people, finance, and systems are the three pillars of practice growth
[9:50] How to pivot during unexpected challenges and build leadership resilience
[13:49] What consulting really means

In this episode…

Growth is the dream of every independent practice owner, but the path to achieving it is rarely straightforward. From navigating financial hurdles to managing teams and creating systems that actually work, the challenges can feel overwhelming. So how do thriving practices make the leap from surviving to sustainable growth?

According to Amanda Van Voris, a seasoned business consultant with over two decades of experience, growth begins with clarity around people, finance, and systems. She highlights that long-term success often comes from consistent planning, benchmarking, and being willing to pivot when unexpected challenges arise. The impact of this approach is evident in stories of practices that expanded from a single location to multiple thriving offices. Amanda emphasizes that true consulting is not about quick fixes but about behavior change, leadership development, and building confidence in owners. This is how practices not only grow but also evolve into resilient businesses that balance personal and professional goals.

In this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast, host Kim Carson sits down with Amanda Van Voris, Senior Director of Client Solutions at Cleinman Performance Partners, to discuss driving growth in independent practices. She explains how to use people, finance, and systems as the foundation for scale, why pivoting builds stronger leaders, and the role of future visioning in practice success. Amanda also shares a simple tip any owner can use tomorrow to elevate patient experience.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“Public speaking for me comes from a place of personal passion about what I do.”
“The backbone of a lot of what we do is the analytical side, operational benchmarking, financial planning.”
“With every stage of growth, you know, they have a new set of needs and new challenges.”
“If we are faced with a change, what are all of the options to move forward?”
“I think what consulting ultimately means is behavior change, personal growth at all levels.”

Action Steps:

Walk in your front door regularly: Experiencing your practice from the patient’s perspective reveals blind spots and opportunities to improve the client experience.
Build plans around people, finance, and systems: These three pillars ensure growth strategies are well-balanced, sustainable, and address the most critical business functions.
Anticipate and practice pivots: By preparing for unexpected challenges, leaders build resilience and confidence to navigate change without losing momentum.
Engage in long-term strategic planning: Mapping out a future vision helps owners make informed decisions that align with both business and personal goals.
Seek external consulting when needed: Opening up to expert guidance fosters behavior change, builds self-confidence, and accelerates professional growth.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by POD Marketing Inc. — the team behind Marketing4ECPs, SmileShop Dental Marketing, CITIZEN, and Cleinman Performance Partners.

Serving over 1,000 clients across North America, POD provides digital marketing, consulting, and practice growth solutions for optometry, dental, and senior living businesses that exist to help people live better.

Discover how POD can help your practice grow at PODMarketingInc.com.

Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:07

Welcome to the Cleinman Connect Podcast, where we discuss marketing, ownership, growth strategies, and everything else surrounding the business of optometry. Cleinman is Optometry’s trusted business partner for over 35 years.

Hello, I’m Kim Carson, hosting the incomparable Amanda Van Voris on this episode of the Connect Podcast. Past guests of this show are Dr. Dwight Barnes, as he shared about his leadership journey and Dr. Melissa McCulley on what she learned in moving her eye care practice. Those episodes are available if you would like to go listen to them.

So, Amanda, this episode is brought to us by POD Marketing, Inc., the parent company of marketing for SmileShop Dental Marketing Citizen, and of course, Cleinman Performance Partners, serving over 1000 clients across North America. Poured marketing is a full service digital marketing agency, business consultant and growth partner for the optometry, dental and senior living industries to help people live better. Discover how POD Marketing’s divisions can help you reach your goals at PodMarketingInc.com. I always forget the inc. So for over 20 years, Amanda has been helping independent odds conquer business development challenges as the Senior Director of Client Solutions.

She leads by delivering strategic and operational consulting services in the areas of people, finance and systems. Her expertise ensures you can successfully navigate everything from large, complex business development plans to incremental operational improvements. And I’m honored that you said yes to chat with me today, Amanda. Thank you.

Amanda Van Voris 01:47

Well, thank you for having me, Kim.

Kim Carson 01:49

Yeah. Of course. Very excited to be here with you. I’ve been lucky enough to meet you a couple times now, in person. and hear you speak on the panel that we had back in July.

Oh, I guess, as well as at the Cleinman Performance Network, that meeting that we had in May. You’re a very good public speaker. Was that always like a skill of yours?

Amanda Van Voris 02:13

Oh, I think it’s definitely something that’s kind of grown over the years. But I have found public speaking for me comes from a place of personal passion about what I do. Yeah.

Kim Carson 02:25

And that was actually one of the questions I wanted to ask, kind of right off the top, you know, the 20 odd years that you’ve been with Cleinman. I wondered what drew you to Cleinman or helping independent odds in the first place?

Amanda Van Voris 02:39

Oh, yeah. Couple right hand turns in the story of my career. So I’ll try to give you the short version. So believe it or not, I actually came out of dentistry. I was a clinical dental hygienist for, oh, gosh, 3 or 4 years.

But I was always having real difficulty staying in the lane. I was much more interested in what was going on at the front of the house. So let’s see. From there I had an opportunity to jump into hospital based re-engineering. I did that as a full time job.

We spent some time in outpatient and sometimes inpatient care, and that kind of gave me the bug for business development, took a couple right hand turns, spent some time in hospitality sales and marketing management, another right hand turn, real estate. And then I found this ad with the funny looking giraffe in our local newspaper a long time ago. And, you know, smart, smart aleck me. My first step was to say, I wonder if these folks are online. And sure enough, the ad was.

And so I had an opportunity to start as a business analyst. And of course, the company has changed quite a bit since then, and the journey really was just UST finding those similarities between dentistry and optometry, and really enjoying the vibe of working with independent business owners, which had been probably the my the favorite parts of all of the aspects of my career was that independent business model.

Kim Carson 04:10

Yeah. Oh, that does take a lot of turns.

Amanda Van Voris 04:14

A little bit. Yeah. It’s like, oh, maybe I’ll try this, maybe I’ll try this.

Kim Carson 04:17

And then trying to find the connections between them.

Amanda Van Voris 04:20

Yeah.

Kim Carson 04:21

So in your journey with Cleinman, do you have a favorite kind of story or like a favorite client that you worked with? Maybe not personally your favorite, but the story is your favorite.

Amanda Van Voris 04:34

You know, there are so many stories, and I guess because I’ve been around for a while, one of the things that I’ve seen is like a common denominator is what happens when you look at the life cycle of a practice, especially with people who’ve been with us, working with us for many years now I’m on second generation. Our founder, Al Cleinman, is on third generation owners, which is kind of cool. Well, for me, when the the stories that resonate probably more over time with me are the stories where I look at what has been accomplished over, say, a decade or even more. And there’s one in particular. They’re very dear to my heart.

I tease them and I tell them sometimes they’re almost like my kids. We began working over, I think, well over ten years ago with a young couple in western, sorry, eastern Texas. And when they first came to work with us, they had acquired a practice we’re still trying to figure out how to, if you will, disengage from the previous owner who was still working in the practice, and they were growth minded, and they had all sorts of really great ideas for how they would envision their practice model of the future. And so one of the first things that we did with them was to help them to retire the previous owner. We worked with them in strategic planning.

The next phase was to help them work through the decisioning around building a new facility. And over the course of that journey, they continued to work with us in other operational areas, for example, bringing on a chief operations officer. Well, fast forward a little bit and they still had that deep hunger to grow. And over the I want to say now, it’s probably been like five years or so over the course of the last five, maybe six years, they have grown from their one location to I think now they are I believe they are now at four locations.

Kim Carson 06:35

Oh my.

Amanda Van Voris 06:36

Gosh. And so they’re natural growers. And with every stage of growth, you know, they have a new set of needs and they have new challenges. And it’s just gratifying to be part of that journey, and it’s gratifying to also watch their kids grow up and see how they progress in life.

Kim Carson 06:58

Yeah. That. Yeah, that’s very sweet. Do you find that, like, you know, you you have this expertise in the areas of people, finance and systems. How do you and and even in this story where they, they had the one practice and there was things that you had to do in order to get them where they are now. How would you say you you use those three kind of areas to get there?

Amanda Van Voris 07:24

Well, I think there are three fundamental functional areas in any business people, finance and systems. But then there’s also subcategories there. And some are mission critical. For example brand. One of the first things that we tackled was how do you define your ideal brand.

And that was related to how would you define your ideal future home when they move from the Sephora, the existing location, to the new location, what would that look like? What would that feel like? What would you want that to deliver for you and for your patients and for your your staff?

Amanda Van Voris 08:00

Yeah. Really. The backbone. The backbone of a lot of what we do is the analytical side, operational benchmarking, financial statement benchmarking, budgeting, planning. But then there’s the other side of the equation, right. That says do you have the right people on the team.

Do you have the right structure for growth. Are you paying attention to all of the mission critical elements that are going to help to get you where you want to go? And that’s a lot of work. And, you know, nobody can tackle all of that work at one time. It’s a journey.

It’s a progression. And very often in these stories, the common thread is, you know, work, build your creature plan and then work to your plan and also anticipate course corrections, because things don’t always go exactly the way you want them to and you have to pivot. I think all of these areas, people, finance and systems are super important. And within all of those spheres, if you will, those spheres of influence. There’s a lot of work and there’s a lot of interconnection points that are all really important parts of helping practice owners to meet both their business and their personal goals.

Kim Carson 09:18

Well, you said, you know, and everyone knows this in life, like sometimes things come up and you have to kind of change your plan. I know with the Cleinman consulting services, when people come on, they, you know, they get a certain amount of calls with you, they get roadmaps, they get this great like accountability and insight tool in you. What happens when they do have to pivot like you set out this roadmap for them. And then something happens. Something comes up.

Like what? What do you guys do? How do you solve that?

Amanda Van Voris 09:50

Well, you know, after you’ve done this a little bit, the pivots are most often not surprising because you’ve you’ve seen the pivots, you know.

Yeah. It really comes down to excuse me at that point helping to pivot. And you know that really that really is the essence of it. If we are faced with a change, a course correction that we weren’t expecting, what are all of the options that are available to help us overcome and move in a new direction? And that’s another kind of a cool way to see the growth, because oftentimes what I experience is once practice owners have been through 1 or 2 or even three hard pivots, they start they they already start practice in that critical thinking process to say, well, we’ve been through something like this a little bit before, so how do we start figuring out our pivot? And then it’s less about, oh, what do I do?

And it’s more about, hey, these are the three, 4 or 5 things that we’re thinking of. Do you have anything else to add? I love those moments because that’s when leadership, that’s when leaders are showing they’re demonstrating true growth.

Kim Carson 11:01

Yeah, yeah. They’re able to kind of anticipate a bit more. They have taken their head out of, you know, working in the business and, and on that to actually working on it. Right.

Amanda Van Voris 11:11

Yeah.

Kim Carson 11:12

Oh that’s great. I never thought about that being, you know, a gratifying or satisfying part of it from, from your standpoint in helping.

Amanda Van Voris 11:22

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kim Carson 11:26

About a month ago, you were up in Calgary, where I am in Canada, and you hosted a little panel on a lot of it kind of focused on client experience or how to make something less mundane, if you will. Perhaps that’s not the right way to put it, but there was a great question that came up of, you know, everyone strives to have great customer service. Is there anything that you could say that would elevate someone’s practice tomorrow if they implemented a certain change? Is there at all? Like, I know that consulting is not quick fixes, it is digging through everything and taking your time and learning to do things right. Is there a singular quick fix that somebody could do tomorrow to elevate some of their stress and to give their clients a better experience?

Amanda Van Voris 12:22

I got one, this is an oldie, Goldie, and you’d be surprised how often owners don’t do this. You ready for this walk in your front door. Stop walking in the back door and the staff entrance and zipping into the office to check your email. But pretend. Pretend that you’re a patient. Walk in the front door with fresh eyes to see what you experience, to see what you observe. You’re not going to get away with that for very long, because the staff’s going to say, oh, the doctors came in the front door.

But it’s amazing how that can change quickly. Change your perspective of what really goes on at the front of the house day to day, when you start looking at your operations from your patient’s perspective.

Kim Carson 13:06

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That’s honestly that’s amazing. I was like, I’m going to throw her this question.

See how it goes. I don’t I don’t know if there will be a quick fix. But yeah, that’s a great point. It’s it’s just a different perspective on something you think you know a lot about.

Amanda Van Voris 13:22

Right, right.

Kim Carson 13:23

Yeah. So I have just one final question for you. And then I’ll, I’ll let you get on to your very busy day helping out all the Cleinman partners. What is consulting really about when you when you get to the end of it or at the end of the day, what can you sum up for consulting and the work that you do with Cleinman?

Amanda Van Voris 13:49

I think what consulting ultimately means is behavior change, personal growth at all levels. I think consulting is an opportunity to help business owners to create self confidence. I think consulting is future visioning. It’s dreamscaping I love. And this is an old Al Cleinman.

If I had the magic wand and I could give you anything that you want or need, what would it be? I guess probably the headline is helping people to make their professional dreams possible, helping them to get organized, to get where they want to go. Ultimately, for these folks, their optometric practice is a very key part of their whole world. Practice affects the personal personal effects, the practice. Those two things have to work together in balance.

And it is. It’s not a small lift for a practice owner or a business owner to say, I think I need help. And when somebody comes to us to say, I think I need help and we find that they’re open to that help and that they want to learn, that’s where the magic happens.

Kim Carson 15:16

Yeah. A certain level of vulnerability is what I’ve. I’ve.

Amanda Van Voris 15:20

Yeah.

Kim Carson 15:21

Taken out of all the conversations and videos and, and going through our website and everything is that if you want to, if you want to see real change, you have to be willing to like open the book, show the vulnerability and be receptive to it, too, I guess. Yeah. Okay, well thank you. Thank you so much for talking to me today for agreeing to that is the show for the day. So if you want to hear more of the podcast, you can at cleinman.com.

And you can get it wherever you like to listen. If you would like to possibly work with Amanda, go to cleinman.com as well and she will be more than happy to get that contact form and we’ll see what we can do. So thank you so much, Amanda, and thank you to everyone listening. Thank you for listening. At Cleinman, we take pride in helping our partners unlock their full potential. Subscribe to get the newest episodes or visit us anytime at cleinman.com.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

In this episode…

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

Action Steps:

Sponsor for this episode…

Episode Transcript:

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