[Growth] Stocked Right: The Training Guide to Better Board Management

Michelle Kelley is the Director of Ophthalmic Materials and Services and a licensed dispensing optician at the Southern College of Optometry, a leading institution for optometric education in the US. Under her leadership, the college dispenses over 20,000 frames annually and trains future optometrists in best practices for optical management, including board management and customer service. Michelle recently completed her MBA while balancing her professional responsibilities and personal life, and enjoys teaching innovative business strategies to the next generation of eye care professionals.

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

[04:18] Michelle Kelley explains why optical sales should drive 70% of revenue
[05:55] How hands-on customer service training shapes future opticians
[07:21] Why personal stories inspire optometry students’ passion and success
[09:40] The science behind effective optical board management
[13:30] Why knowing your local demographics shapes your frame selection offering
[24:31] Avoiding costly overstock with strategic vendor partnerships and returns
[33:24] The perfect men-to-women frame ratio for happy clients

In this episode…

Every optical board tells a story, but not every story leads to growth. Some practices unknowingly let thousands of dollars sit frozen on their shelves, while others thrive by treating every frame like an active investment. What if managing your board felt less like guesswork and more like a reliable strategy for financial health and patient satisfaction?

According to Michelle Kelley, a seasoned expert in optical operations and training, the answer starts with seeing your board for what it truly is: money on display. For Michelle, the key lies in understanding not just how many frames you carry, but why those frames deserve a place on your board. Instead of buying blindly or filling space with whatever looks appealing, she walks through a data-driven approach that ties inventory to actual patient behavior. Michelle explains how the right mix of vendors, assigned board spaces, and consistent turn rates can transform a chaotic board into a predictable revenue engine.

In this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast, Kim Carson is joined by Michelle Kelley, Director of Ophthalmic Materials and Services at the Southern College of Optometry, to discuss how to build a smarter, more profitable approach to board management. You’ll hear how to calculate the ideal number of frames for your practice, why assigning board space to vendors keeps your spending in check, and how to choose styles that actually reflect your patient base.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“You don’t want it to sit stagnant, you know, and be there for two years.”
“Men typically will come in and they say, you know, I want something like I had last year.”
“Women, you know, they’re typically the ones that purchase multiple pairs.”
“I look at your frame as money on the board.”
“Oftentimes, opticians find the career finds opticians, not the other way around.”

Action Steps:

Calculate your annual board turn rate: Identifying how often your frames sell helps you avoid overstocking and improves cash flow.
Assign fixed board space to each vendor: Creating dedicated “parking spots” for brands prevents overspending and keeps inventory balanced.
Analyze your demographic before selecting frames: Matching styles to the real needs of your patients increases sales and reduces stagnant inventory.
Review vendor performance every 6-12 months: Regular evaluation ensures each line earns its place on the board and supports your revenue goals.
Limit the number of vendors you work with: Focusing on fewer, stronger partnerships saves time, improves discounts, and streamlines board management.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Marketing4ECPs!

Working with them is like hiring a full-time marketing professional who knows the industry and understands your goals. Except, instead of one experienced marketer, you get a whole team in your corner.

Whether you’re an optometrist, ophthalmologist, or optician, they can help you grow your business with a plan that’s completely customized for you. Learn more here.

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.

Kim Carson: 00:27

Hello, I’m Kim Carson hosting Michelle Kelley on this episode of the Cleinman Connect Podcast. Past guests of the show include Dr. Kimberly Friedman, the chief medical education officer for the Penn Vision Group, and Cleinman’s very own senior director of client solutions, Amanda Van Voris. Those episodes are available at Cleinman.com or wherever you like to listen. This episode is brought to you by Marketing4ECPs. Working with them is like hiring a full time marketing professional who knows the industry and understands your goals. Except instead of one experienced marketer, you get a whole team in your corner.

Whether you’re an optometrist or ophthalmologist or an optician, they can help you grow your business with a plan that’s completely customized for you. Learn more at marketing then the number four. So Marketing4ECPs.com. I’m joined today by Michelle Kelley, a licensed dispensing optician and director of ophthalmic materials and services at the Southern College of Optometry, one of the leading institutions of optometric education in the US. She enjoys spending time with her husband of four years, and she recently, very recently completed her MBA at.

Congratulations, Michelle, and thank you so much for joining me today.

Michelle Kelley: 01:38

Thank you Kim.

Kim Carson: 01:39

Yes, it’s very exciting that you have completed that. Like I mean, anything but an MBA is is a very huge accomplishment. I hope you feel proud.

Michelle Kelley: 01:49

I am very proud. It’s something I worked on for a long time through some illnesses and am able to say I finally accomplished it. So I’m I’m very excited and very happy.

Kim Carson: 02:00

Yay! Well, even a more bigger, a more big deal that you have said yes to being on the podcast today. So thank you for that. And I would like to get started by just asking you about kind of your journey in the world of optometry. How did you how did you get started and, and how did you end up as a LDO and, and working at the college?

Michelle Kelley: 02:24

Oftentimes opticians find the career finds opticians, not the other way around. I actually in banking for 15 years in the financial realm and started a job part time at LensCrafters to pay off my student loans and fell in love with with optometry, with helping patients select glasses. I don’t understand why they hired me because my glasses were horrible. They were not great at all. And just that process of helping someone pick out their glasses and seeing that excitement and that just how they feel.

You know, when you when you found the right pair of glasses, you know, you just feel good. And then the kids seeing the kids put on glasses for the first time and to see the world clearly, it’s just something that I fell in love with and started. Applied at a job at SEO as an optician. Got the job and progressed to the point where it was an optician to the director of the materials department. So contact lens lab and to the optical.

So again, finance fell right into it because I have to work with a with a big budget, make sure that I’m in budgets so that just that just was just a natural flow to the job that I have now. Yeah. I like to say that Opticianry found me, not the other way around.

Kim Carson: 03:49

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I wonder if they saw your glasses when you walked in and they were like, you know what, they’re not great. But she obviously can learn. She’s open, she’s ready.

She’s ready to be open and vulnerable.

Michelle Kelley: 04:04

Yes, yes.

Kim Carson: 04:06

Well that’s amazing. And you know, now you are Eldo. And you, you teach the next kind of wave of opticians. Is that correct?

Michelle Kelley: 04:18

Correct. Yes. So all of our students rotate through all of our OMS departments, so they rotate through the optical, they dispense, they work through our our finishing lab where we edge our lenses and then our contact lens department. We we attempt to show them the love of optometry through opticianry and helping the patients pick out the glasses, picking out the correct lenses, that type of thing. So we want them to see what the optical can do for their business when they get out and graduate it.

Your your optical should be about 70% of what your practice is as far as audience, and we want to make sure that they have the tools that they need to to to make sure that’s happening. They get that 70% of their, their optical or their revenue from their optical.

Kim Carson: 05:09

Is that like so the 70% from their optical? Is that kind of a an equation that you teach, or is that across the industry you like that is recommended.

Michelle Kelley: 05:18

That is what we teach now. Do all do all optometry practice get that. But that should be their goal is about 70% of what of their finances should be the revenue should be coming from the optical.

Kim Carson: 05:30

Okay. And do you find that you have quite a few people coming through the program that, you know, maybe we’re kind of like you and they they happened into Opticianry. And I’m also curious to know I feel like it is such a a client facing job, a person facing job. Do you touch on any of of like how to how to work with people in the program.

Michelle Kelley: 05:55

We so we we have a class that specifically where a teacher will act like she’s a patient. And, you know, it could be an angry patient, it could be a patient. And so they’re they’re doing kind of a reenactment of that patient and how to help the patient. But with customer service, they’re getting that every day in the clinic. They’re getting it in.

They’re getting in the exam room. And so that’s just a natural process I think of of the the program is that customer service. And you you learn as you go, especially with service. You have to experience it in order to learn. And so, you know, yes, we’re giving tools in classes and suggestions, but until you actually physically get into the customer service and in in what you’re doing, you really don’t learn it.

And so that’s where the clinic is so important. They’re physically in it every day. And so they’re learning how to do the eye exams, learning how to work in the optical. So all the stuff that goes into helping a patient, they’re learning that.

Kim Carson: 06:56

Amazing. And sorry, I did kind of ask a little twofer question there, but the original basis of that question kind of was, do you find that you have people come through the Opticianry program and they didn’t know that they were going to like that, like that wasn’t necessarily what they wanted to get into when they were exploring the eye care industry. And now they’ve happened into it.

Michelle Kelley: 07:21

Right. So Southern College of Optometry is an optometry school. And so it’s not an opticianry school. So I do find with our opticians a lot that a lot of them that I hire have accidentally fallen into the field with the students. We we have a lot of legacy students.

So their parents were optometrists or they were opticians. We we also have a lot of students that had, you know, issues with their eyes. They’ve had certain diseases, and so they’re fallen into it because of an optometrist that had helped them when they were children. So I do find that there’s a connection somewhere of the reason why they went into optometry. Also, I think that the work life balance, because, you know, they’re not in an ER or they’re not rounding at a hospital.

I think the work life balance is very attractive to our optometry students. They can still have, you know, they can still have that time with their family and have have that. I don’t know what words I’m looking for here, but yeah, there there is a good work life balance. They’re not working all the time. And so they’re attracted to that for sure.

Kim Carson: 08:28

Yeah. It’s something that they can be fulfilled on. It can kind of fill their cup. They can, you know, help people. That’s ultimately what anyone that works in a practice does.

They help people to live better. So they kind of check those boxes. And there’s a work life balance there. It is very attractive.

Michelle Kelley: 08:47

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Our and you know, it’s seeing those students that do have, you know, the eye diseases or, you know, those things that are have prescriptions that are high prescriptions that they had a doctor that helped them with a process, or they went through vision therapy as a child to see those individuals that come into optometry. Because of that, they have a fire and a passion that, you know, it’s just it’s very heartwarming to see.

Kim Carson: 09:15

Yeah. Oh that’s great. So I want to go into what what you teach and I mean even, dare I say, preach a little bit. But we talked a bit about board management when you and I first kind of sat down and had our initial chat. And I would like if you could please explain to anyone listening what board management is.

Michelle Kelley: 09:40

So I have a passion for board management because when I started in this role, you know, what you did was the reps came in, they brought you all these trays and you flipped the frames that you liked. And before you realize that you’re you, you, you flip 100 frames and your bill was, you know, huge. Think about a hundred frames. You average frames about 50 to $80. So then your bill was anywhere from, you know, 55,000 to $8000 and you had a huge bill.

Well, that, of course, is very attractive to a rep. It’s not so attractive to the person that’s paying that bill. And so board management is a way for you to get control of what you’re spending, but also put a realistic number of frames on your board. So how you can find out how many frames that you’re you should have a certain number of frames on your board should not have 1000 frames you should have. There is a there is a science and math behind how many frames you should have on your board.

And so that is what board management is. It’s it’s determining how many frames you have should have on your board. Also selecting the frames for your demographic, for your patient base, and also for, you know, what’s what’s aesthetically pleasing and what’s trendy for the time. And so there’s, there’s a, there is a, a science behind that, I guess, you know, figuring out what you should have on your board space. And we can talk more about that if you want to like how we select those frames and how many numbers should be on the board.

Kim Carson: 11:15

No, I think honestly, I would love to get into that. I think, you know, when we were having our initial chat about this, you said something to me that I was like, oh, that makes total sense. And it’s just to sum it up, it was basically just the variance that you need to have in all the frames. And you’ve you’ve kind of just hit it again where it’s, you know, you do have to have maybe some trendier stuff, some stuff that people are like, oh, I saw this on, you know, a model or a celebrity that I follow. You also do have to have like the classics and then bars.

Sorry.

Michelle Kelley: 11:53

Those old double bars.

Kim Carson: 11:54

Yeah, the double bars. Those have come back in such a big way.

Michelle Kelley: 11:57

Well, that’s, you know, a lot of your older men like the double bars. They fit well on their face. They’re very comfortable. And so you do have to keep a number of those on the board, and they have become trendy again. They are a little bit, but they are trendy again.

Kim Carson: 12:13

Yeah I did. I recently went and tried to to a clinic and got an eye exam, and then I was trying on new glasses. Basically every pair in the store I tried on. I don’t know if anyone else is like that, but I’m, I’m like, oh, maybe I could switch it up. Maybe I could not get a more square frame and I could be a different person.

You know, later when I get the new pair of glasses in and it never works out, I always pick something similar. But I tried the double bar and it almost, almost swayed me, but I was like, I think it’s too like it’s too, like masculine for my face.

Michelle Kelley: 12:47

I think I got my first pair. I finally found one That was good. So. Yeah.

Kim Carson: 12:51

Well, congratulations.

Michelle Kelley: 12:52

I got a green.

Kim Carson: 12:55

Oh my gosh. Amazing. I also want to say too, another thing that you had said to me was to consider your demographics. So where you are like, if you’re very rural and you are the only clinic for miles and miles and miles, what should you have on your board? Like if you’re dealing with farmers every single day who just need a sturdy pair of glasses, you likely don’t want the newest, flashiest pair or model that’s that’s available, right?

Michelle Kelley: 13:30

Yes. You want something that’s going to hold up and and stand the test of time. You want the that’s going to last you all year, that you’re not going to have to worry about coming in so often to get get adjusted because of how rural you are.

Kim Carson: 13:44

Yeah. Something that they can kind of manage on their own.

Michelle Kelley: 13:47

Absolutely.

Kim Carson: 13:49

So that’s I mean, perhaps that’s a good piece of advice for anyone thinking about flipping their board or looking and being like, you know, I have how many pairs of frames that haven’t sold in how long? Too long. So maybe that’s a good piece of advice just to look at what has sold and just know who your audience is. Have a have a look at the people that are buying your frames, and cater a bit more to the people that are actually coming into your clinic.

Michelle Kelley: 14:18

So I look at your frame is money on the board. So if you have $100 for that frame, that’s literally $100 bill. That’s on your board and it’s staying there. And so you want that to move. You don’t want it to sit stagnant, you know, and be there for two years.

You want something that’s going to move with your demographic. And so if you’re in a rural clinic, you know, you want to take into an account to first of all, you want to get the information from your rep. You want to ask them questions about what is selling in in the other rural areas and rely on them to help you select those frames. You really don’t want to select yourself. You want to get that feedback from them so that you know it’s going to be something that’s moving and they’re going to help you get something in that’s not going to sit there.

That $100 bill is not going to sit on that on your. So that’s how I look at it is with board management. It’s it’s money on the board. And so how I started with it was I took the number of, of frames that we sold the previous year. And when you look at small small boutiques are really big right now.

I live in a small town in Arkansas and we have several boutiques, and when you go in, there’s something different in that boutique every time, and they make more money every time it turns. And that’s what we want to do with board management. We want to have at least a four board turn so that you’re getting the you’re getting the bang for your buck, the money that you’re spending on your board. You want to make sure that that’s turning four times. Because if it doesn’t turn four times, then that’s money that’s sitting on your board.

You don’t want money sitting on your board. So how I get it, how I get the number of frames that should be on our board is I take the number of frames sold annually and I take divide it by four. And that’s the number of frames that I want to have on my board. So for example, if I sold 1000 frames last year, I want it to turn four times. I’m going to divide that thousand by four and I’m going to get 250.

And a lot of practices think, oh my gosh, that’s not enough frames that are on the board. It is enough frames that are on the board because you have a thousand patients that are coming in. You get 250 frames, 250 frames is a lot. I mean, if I go into that small boutique and I’ve got 250 shirts to pick from, I’m I’m like, what am I going to pick? Yeah.

So if it’s a smaller number, you know, and you’ve got 20 frames, 20 shirts to pick from, it’s going to make it much easier for you to pick. And so you want to have that 250 so that it’s manageable for your patient but also manageable for you financially. So that’s how I start with board management is picking or or or mathematically pulling the information from the prior year and figuring out what I’m going to have for that minimal four board terms. And so that’s how I come up with that number.

Kim Carson: 17:06

And then the goal is to have like basically every quarter you would like, you would do it when the when the pair sells you would order another pair. Right, perhaps. Or leave it for something that you would maybe if you wanted a new style or something, you could replace it out. But then you want basically those 250 pairs to be gone by the time the fourth month hits.

Michelle Kelley: 17:29

Right. So you you can do it several different ways to order those frames in so you can order, you know, some people leave those frames stagnant on the board and they leave it on the board. And then they just have the company send the frame to the lab. And you know that works for some practices. If you purchase enough with a vendor in a in a day or a week, they’ll give you free shipping.

But then other vendors that won’t give you free shipping, but you also have companies like your higher end stuff like we carry Blake Kuwahara. We love Blake Kurihara. It will take longer for that to come in to the lab. And so we don’t want that to stay on the board. We don’t want that to be a stagnant board piece.

We want to actually send that into the lab for those lenses to be edged. So some practices do really good with that. If they’re doing like consignment, where they have companies that are putting those frames on consignment, they leave it stagnant on the board and they order it in as they’re sold some some practices they order weekly. So if it’s sold, then they take everything that’s sold in that week and they order weekly us what we do because we have so many, we sell 20,000 frames. Yes, 20,000 frames annually.

So that’s you know, that’s a lot of frames to to be replacing. So I don’t want to see a rep every two weeks or I want to see a rep every 12 weeks. And so that rep comes in. So I’m ordering multiple different ways. I’m ordering when the rep comes in.

But I’m also replacing and replenishing in that time frame of the gaps of when the when the rep is here. So I’ll order every month is what I do. But we also keep a little bit of under stock so that we’re not ordering all the time. You know we we don’t want to be ordering. We I don’t want that to be all that I’m doing is ordering glasses.

I want to have a way to manage that. And that’s where management comes in. So I’m assigning space to each vendor. And so when that vendor comes in they don’t necessarily have to see me. They know where my returns are.

They come in, they get my returns. And then they go check the I print them a report of what’s sold and what is still in stock. And they compare that with what they have. They do the board management. Make sure and see what’s still on the board.

They compare that with my reports and then they automatically reorder. So part of board management. Say that 250. You’re assigning space on the board for every rep. And so every rep that you have coming in or every vendor that you have coming in, you’re assigning that space based on who you want to have in your practice, who who you want to partner with as far as vendors with frames.

And then you’re also assigning space based on what, what brand it is. So like a vendor is going to have, you know, ten brands. So for instance, if you have a clear vision, if you sell clear vision frames, clear vision is going to have BCBG, they’re going to have the kids frames, which I don’t include kids frames in our 250 that we we have in that for for terms that’s something different. That’s kind of a specialized option. I don’t necessarily include that.

That’s another story. But in that 250, I want to take all those brands from that rep that I want to include, and then I pick it by brand. So I usually say to have a good representation of that brand, you want to have a minimum of 24 pieces, and you want to have a 24 pieces to represent that brand. So for instance, if you have a Gucci, have Gucci, I want to have 24 pieces in that brand that include, you know, our male and female brains. And it’s truly representing what that brand looks like.

And then some practices they go deeper in a brand. They may include, you know, 50 pieces of that brand so that it’s deeper because what happens is you’re buying more of a product, you’re getting a deeper discount. And that’s what ultimately you want to do. We want to pay less for a product. And to do that, if you buy deeper, they’re going to they’re going to partner more with you to give you those deeper discounts.

Okay. Second step in board management. First step is the war turns figuring out what your number on the board should be and you want. Again, a minimum of four board turns to make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth. And then the second step is assigning those spots on.

It’s kind of like assigned parking, you know, have a sign I don’t know. We don’t have assigned parking, but I have worked at a place before where we had assigned parking. And so it’s kind of like assigned parking. You’re assigning spots on that board for those springs. And then that way it makes it easier for that rep comes in.

I mean, if the rep does want to come in more than every 12 weeks, they really can because they don’t need to see me. They just need to see the board and see what’s sold. And then they they can set. So if they’ve got 24 pieces, they’re returning three and then four sold. They know that they can replace seven of those.

They can. That also helps me to kind of if you don’t have a budget, it helps you create a budget or your frames and what you’re purchasing, but it also keeps me in control because I want to flip and buy all the frames. You know, I want to buy 100 pieces because they all look great, but that is forcing me to stay within a certain amount. And also, if you’re setting that guideline for your optician so that say the doctor’s not the one purchasing and it’s the optician purchasing, it automatically sets a guideline for that optician to say, you can’t purchase any more than this. And it’s it’s very realistic and it makes it so much easier to do and to tell the rep no, because that’s hard to do.

Tell the rep, know that, you know, I don’t want to purchase 100 frames. Well, you don’t have to tell them no. You can say I have we’re doing board management. And with board management you get 24 pieces and you have to have that conversation again until you decide whether you want to either get rid of that rep, or you want to increase the amount of brains that you’re doing for that line. So if that line is doing great and you’re seeing it turn like, you know, seven times in the year, then you you would want to go deeper in that line because you know it’s doing well.

You want to you want to you want to be that, to be one of your deeper lines. And you want to have that line have more of your board space.

Kim Carson: 23:52

Right? There’s the opportunity for them to get more than 24 assigned parking spots, so to speak.

Michelle Kelley: 23:57

Yes, yes.

Kim Carson: 23:58

But then you wouldn’t ever recommend going below 24 just because then people can’t really get a good gauge of that line.

Michelle Kelley: 24:05

No, you want to have a good representation of that line. Just like a clothing store, you know, you have you don’t see like 1 or 2 pieces of a brand. You see a collection of a brand. You want a collection of those frames in order for that to do really well in your practice, you want to show a good collection of them.

Kim Carson: 24:27

Yeah, board management sounds very much like a team effort.

Michelle Kelley: 24:31

It is. And it it really is. It’s it’s about knowing what’s best for the practice, keeping a control of it, because I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve gone into a practice, and they’ve got all this understock and stuff that’s been there for 2 or 3 years, and you should never have something that’s going to be there for 2 or 3 years. Your rep, if you’re working with a good rep, they’re going to return those things that have not sold and you’re not paying for it. Now, a little bit more complicated when you’re doing higher end stuff because with your higher end stuff, usually it’s a 2 to 3.

So for two frames or either three frames they’ll replace one. Well we don’t want to do that. We paid full price for that. I want to put that on sale. I’m going to put that sale where my other items where, you know, like your Luxottica frames, your Marshon frames, your safilo frames, they’re replacing one for one.

You want that frame replaced one for one. You don’t want to lose any money on that. And so you’ve got a good relationship and a good ward management system. They’re replacing that one for one and you’ve not lost any money on it. That should be coming out.

I usually have my I’ll leave it on the board for a year. I mean, I don’t have any issue leaving it with on on the board for a year, but for the most part, I want to get it out of there within the six months. So if it has not sold in six months, I want the rep taking it back so that we can put something on the board that sells.

Kim Carson: 26:02

And I mean, ultimately that’s better for the rep as well, right? If they’re if they’re selling, yes. And you’re selling it’s it’s better for everybody.

Michelle Kelley: 26:10

Yes. And what’s most important about board management is about not overbuying it’s not overbuying for the practice. And so, you know, if you’re doing the four board turns and you’re getting that information based on what you sold last year, then you know, you’ve got room for growth there. You know, you want to have what that four board turns is that is saving your practice so much money because, you know, if you’re putting, for instance, if you put 500 frames on there instead of 250 frames, and you multiply that times $50. You know, that’s about $12,000 that the practice is saving, not having on the board at that one time.

So you can take that $12,000 and use it on a piece of equipment that’s going to have some, you know, return on investment that you’re you’re increasing your cash flow based on a piece of equipment that you’re you’re getting money in. Where a frame, you know, that cash flow, that’s what we want to do is increase cash flow by the by the turns. You know, that turning that that frame is increasing your cash flow. If it’s sitting on your board, it’s not helping your cash flow. It’s just sitting there.

Yes. You don’t want that to happen. We want to assign those spaces, those parking spots to to reps in order to so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You know, you’ve got your space on the board. We don’t have to have this conversation every time you come in about how many frames we’re going to buy.

and we’re saving ourselves. We’re saving ourselves from overspending. We don’t want to overspend.

Kim Carson: 27:45

I want to ask a question that I feel like the answer might be. It depends. But if if you’re using last year’s numbers and dividing it by four to get the amount of frames that you know you would probably recommend to have on a board, if if I was if I owned a practice and I wanted to grow the amount of frames and I, I saw in my first kind of quarter that I did turn my board and I was ordering a few extra frames or calling up my rep to be like, hey, I need some more of this. And like a lot more of it. Is there like a number that I, you would recommend I go up to or that I should try to expand to in order to, to, you know, get things in a little bit faster and just like have a bit more variance, like if I have the clientele coming in for these things.

Michelle Kelley: 28:35

So you’re going to look at what’s sold on that particular line.

Kim Carson: 28:38

Yeah.

Michelle Kelley: 28:38

See what it sold. And I recommend just if it over the excess amount. So you had 24 pieces on on the board and you had 26 pieces that sold then. I would recommend doubling that. So you would double that.

You would have four more on that. On that order that you had, you would add four more spaces to the board that would allow that that line to have, you know, the cash flow. Again, we’re talking about cash flow and allows for that frame to be on the board. So it’s there to be purchased. And we have brains that do we have brands that do well and do much better than other brands, Gucci being one of them.

We’re in Memphis, you know, we everyone likes to have a frame that has a purse associated with it. You know, those brands tend to do a little bit better in Memphis. And so we’re going to have more Gucci on the board than we will even Ray-Ban, because those Gucci do better than Ray-Ban even though Is a you know, it’s iconic and it’s the most recognized brand in the optometry world. The Gucci do better here than the Ray-Ban do. So we’re going to have more of the Gucci so that we have those in stock for the patient to purchase when they’re here.

You don’t want someone walking away.

Kim Carson: 29:52

Yeah, yeah. You don’t want to have them leave without a frame at all. Okay. So great. So you would.

Yeah. If you sold two over the amount that was on the board, you would then double that for the next quarter would be your recommendation.

Michelle Kelley: 30:05

Yes. Okay. So that is on. So it’s on the board for that patient to get when they when they come in.

Kim Carson: 30:11

Yeah. And and that rep will I mean maybe have earned the extra couple parking spaces.

Michelle Kelley: 30:17

One thing I learned in my MBA it’s called stock out. So. Oh we had.

Kim Carson: 30:22

A little MBA knowledge here.

Michelle Kelley: 30:24

It’s called stock out. And it caused causes ill will. You don’t want it to cause ill will. So you do want to have more of those brands that do really well on the board. And again, buy in is another thing too.

So the more you buy of a certain brand, the more discounts you’re going to have. That also brings up another concept with board management too. There are so many brain vendors that are in the world, and so you want to find the ones that do really well in your demographic. And how you do that is by experience. You know, you you develop a relationship, negotiate great prices with that rep, and then you try and see if it works.

I mean, if it works, you also can get information from the rep, you know, how is it doing in this area? Rural areas are a little bit more complex because, you know, they’re so rural. You you’re still going to rely on the reps for that information about how it’s doing in, you know, a certain area, but you’re going to have more of that kind of experimenting to see how it does than you are in a bigger city. Yeah, typically in a bigger city, if it does well in one practice, It’s going to do well in the neighbor’s practice that information and it’s free information. You don’t have to pay for it.

You just get it from your rep. And so you ask them those questions about what’s doing well. And you you experiment with your practice to see how it’s doing. And then you add and increase it. But you also want to make it where it’s not.

You don’t have so many different vendors. You want to have a smaller amount of vendors. If you’re looking at, say, Clear Vision, for instance, they have one rep where some of your other brands, your bigger brands and vendors, they have six reps. And so you have six reps that are coming in. That’s six reps that are taking up your time.

You don’t want that to happen. You want to see as the least amount of reps as you can. Because time time is money. I mean, it’s taking away from you spending time with your patient. It’s taking time away from you spending time with your staff.

So you want to get as least reps as you can see for to be most effective with your practice. And so I recommend not seeing any more than six vendors. You should be able to get a great collection of frames on your board and see six vendors, but that also helps you to buy deep in with those particular vendors so that you can get the best discounts. Because it is a partnership there. They’re making money off of you.

The reps are, you know, they’re getting commission. They’re making. The more they sell the the the bigger their paychecks going to be. And so it’s about a partnership of finding what works best in your practice and without seeing, you know, 20 reps. And you don’t want to do that because that’s just too complex and cumbersome.

You want to keep it at about six, six vendors. You could get great collection with six vendors.

Kim Carson: 33:20

Yeah. And kind of have that board variance that we spoke about.

Michelle Kelley: 33:24

Yes, yes. And the variance is going to be again different demographic. You want to figure out how many men and women you have or you’re serving in your practice, I usually do about 60% women and about 40% men. Men are they typically will come in and they say, you know, I want something like I had last year. It’s pretty straightforward, you know, to the point where women, you know, they’re typically the ones that purchase multiple pairs.

They are the ones that are wanting to do something different than what they did last year. And so you want to have the bigger variety of glasses or frame options with, with the women. So I usually say 60% women, 40% men.

Kim Carson: 34:03

Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. And I want to ask too, about, you know, if you do have a rep coming in and their product is not moving. In in your classes, do you talk about how to deal with that?

Like, you know, if you’re if you’re needing to end a relationship and a partnership with a rep, like how many how many chances do you give them? How many times do you let them do Buybacks and then get newer payers in. Like, how does that kind of work?

Michelle Kelley: 34:37

So you I usually give it a year, a year to see how it turns within that year. A good thing about that is if you have a vendor that is deep into the different styles and brands, then you usually can switch it out with another brand. And so that makes it much easier to do that. If you have a vendor that has multiple lines, you can push that out one for one with another brand. If that is not the case, then you know you have a conversation with them about, you know, putting in something different than what we have selected before, doing something totally, radically different.

We try that for about six months to see if that works, because you’ve invested in that product. You have to return it for something that they have. You’re not going to get your money back. And so you want something that’s going to work for both you and that rep. And so you just try something totally different, see if you didn’t select correctly.

But then after that you do have the conversation about them. You know, just it’s just not working for our practice. It’s not turning. You know, you don’t want to keep servicing a practice that’s not selling anything. It’s just wasting time for you.

And so you basically are making it’s a mutual decision at that point that you’re not going to carry that brand. In our case you can. So if you don’t sell it, you have options with with vendors that will do a one for one swap out, like they call it a buyback. And it’s not even that vendor. I know Europa is one of them that will do a buyback, so they’ll take whatever you didn’t sell on your board, they’ll replace it for one of their pieces.

And so you could, you know, you could do that. You could also mark it down and put it on a sale board type thing. We try not to do many sells. We just we don’t want to do that. But what we do is we have a week of sales that we have around tax time.

And so, you know, kind of January to February, somewhere in there, we’ll have a long sale that will will mark our high end stuff down. So those are those items that they want to do a two for one swap or a three for one swap. We’ll mark those down and have it like a tax time sale where, you know, we know that people have excess money that they can spend. And then we’ll mark it down. And just it’s just an event that we have annually.

Kim Carson: 37:02

Oh well maybe I need to come visit you in February, January, February?

Michelle Kelley: 37:07

Yes.

Kim Carson: 37:08

I could get a pair of Gucci frames.

Michelle Kelley: 37:10

Maybe we can do a virtual shopping.

Kim Carson: 37:13

Yeah, I do a little fitting. Like virtual fitting.

Michelle Kelley: 37:19

Okay, online. Now you can. You can try it on.

Kim Carson: 37:22

Yeah.

Kim Carson: 37:23

Yeah, exactly. Just upload a picture of myself. That’s right. And then you. You fit me and you, you pick the one that you think is going to look best.

And maybe I will be a whole new person one day.

Michelle Kelley: 37:33

Yes. Or you just come to Memphis for some barbecue?

Kim Carson: 37:36

Yes, I think I would love that. I would like to talk about doctor-driven dispensing. This was something that you and I initially talked about as well. So before I move on to that, I just want to make sure. Do you feel that anyone listening to this episode may have learned everything that they could learn about board management?

Is there any loose ends that we need to wrap up there?

Michelle Kelley: 38:02

So there’s so much with board management.

Kim Carson: 38:05

Yeah, I’m honestly sure that there’s like a million more things we could say.

Michelle Kelley: 38:08

You know, we have resources that, you know, through Kleiman that can help you with board management. Reach out to someone. Amanda. Nancy. They’ll be glad to help you with that.

Kim Carson: 38:20

Thank you for listening to part one of the interview with Michelle Kelley. As we discussed everything to do with board management. And next week we will have a part two where you can hear about doctor-driven dispensing. This is the podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

If you would like to hear more episodes, you certainly can at Cleinman.com and wherever you like to listen. Thank you for joining us today. And we’ll have part two with Michelle Kelley for you next week.

Outro: 38:51

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