The Healthy Enterprise

In this episode of The Healthy Enterprise, John D. Marvin reflects on his leadership journey in the optometry industry—from his marketing roots to becoming president of Texas State Optical. He discusses navigating major industry shifts, driving mindset change, and adapting to evolving consumer expectations. John explores the complexities of leading a member-owned cooperative, the growing influence of private equity, and the need for localized, community-focused eye-care services. He also offers insights on effective marketing, the challenges posed by e-commerce, and the importance of cultivating strong leadership within optometry.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to John D. Marvin and His Journey
10:47 Navigating Change in Leadership
20:02 Challenges of Mindset and Adaptation
30:05 The Evolution of Optometry and Business Models
31:16 Marketing Strategies for Community Engagement
32:08 Navigating E-commerce in Eye Care
36:34 Developing Leadership in Optometry Practices
40:53 The Importance of Personal Growth
44:43 Fusing Faith and Business Leadership


Guest Information:
  • Guest's Name: John D. Marvin 
  • Guest's Title/Position:  Former President & CEO
  • Guest's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdmarvin/
  • Company / Affiliation: Texas State Optical  https://tso.com/
  • Guest's Bio: John D. Marvin is a seasoned executive leader with more than three decades of experience developing people and organizations through intentional leadership, effective communication, and mindset-driven growth. As the former President and CEO of Texas State Optical, he guided one of the nation’s largest networks of independent optometric practices, steering the organization through industry change with strategic clarity, operational excellence, and a people-first approach. He believes the only limits we face are the ones we place on ourselves—and his mission is to help others rise above them, lead with purpose, and carry that belief forward. https://themarvingroup.net/

Takeaways:
  • John Marvin has over three decades of experience in leadership.
  • He emphasizes the importance of mindset in business adaptation.
  • Fear of change can paralyze organizations from making necessary decisions.
  • Consumer behavior is a critical factor in business strategy.
  • The optometry industry is facing significant shifts in ownership dynamics.
  • Younger optometrists are less interested in private practice ownership.
  • The pandemic accelerated changes in consumer preferences.
  • A hybrid business model may be necessary for future growth.
  • Marketing encompasses more than just advertising; product quality is key.
  • Leadership requires balancing individual and corporate interests.  
  • The delivery of eye care services is a local community service.
  • Marketing efforts should focus within a three-mile radius of each location.
  • E-commerce has changed consumer behavior in the eyewear market.
  • Third-party payers complicate the relationship between consumers and eye care providers.
  • Leadership is about influence and personal growth is essential for effective leadership.
  • Community involvement can enhance practice visibility and patient loyalty.
  • Personal growth should be a self-directed journey.
  • Integrating faith into business can enrich the workplace experience.
  • Effective marketing requires understanding local consumer behavior.
  • Leadership development is crucial for franchise owners in the optometry field.


Creators and Guests

Host
Heath Fletcher
With over 30 years in creative marketing and visual storytelling, I’ve built a career on turning ideas into impact. From brand transformation to media production, podcast development, and outreach strategies, I craft compelling narratives that don’t just capture attention—they accelerate growth and drive measurable results.
Guest
John D. Marvin
John D. Marvin is a seasoned executive leader with more than three decades of experience developing people and organizations through intentional leadership, effective communication, and mindset-driven growth. As the former President and CEO of Texas State Optical, he guided one of the nation’s largest networks of independent optometric practices, steering the organization through industry change with strategic clarity, operational excellence, and a people-first approach. He believes the only limits we face are the ones we place on ourselves—and his mission is to help others rise above them, lead with purpose, and carry that belief forward.
Producer
Meghna Deshraj
Meghna Deshraj is the CEO and Founder of Bullzeye Growth Partners, a strategic consultancy that helps businesses scale sustainably and profitably. With a background spanning corporate strategy, IT, finance, and process optimization, she combines analytical rigor with creative execution to drive measurable results. Under her leadership, Bullzeye has generated over $580M in annual growth and more than $1B in client revenue, guiding organizations through large-scale integrations, business transformations, and organizational change initiatives. A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Meghna’s superpower lies in strategic marketing and growth consulting, helping businesses grow through innovation, efficiency, and strong, trusted partnerships.

What is The Healthy Enterprise?

Join host Heath Fletcher on The Healthy Enterprise as he explores how healthcare leaders and innovators are transforming the industry from the inside out. Whether you’re a provider, tech entrepreneur, marketing strategist, or industry executive, these conversations deliver actionable strategies, innovative solutions, and human-centered insights to help you grow, lead, and make a lasting impact.

Created and Produced by Bullzeye Global Growth Partners — Let’s build it together!

Heath Fletcher (00:13)
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Enterprise podcast. If you're here for another listen, thank you for coming back. I appreciate it. And if you're here for the first time, well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I'm going to be speaking with John Marvin. He's a seasoned executive leader with over three decades of experience helping individuals and organizations unlock their full potential. As a former president and CEO of Texas State Optical, John led one of the largest networks of independent practices in the US, steering it through industry change with vision and a commitment to people first leadership. John's career centered intentional leadership on communications and mindset mastery through mentorships, partnerships, or simply meaningful conversations. He empowers others to see beyond self-imposed limits and to step into their bigger story. I'm looking forward to this conversation hope you are too. let's meet John.

John, thank you for joining me today on this episode. I really appreciate you taking the time to have a chat.

John D. Marvin (01:21)
Heath, I really appreciate the invitation. I've been looking forward to it.

Heath Fletcher (01:24)
Well,

why don't we start with, know, giving listeners a bit of an introduction to yourself and a little bit about your professional career.

John D. Marvin (01:36)
Well, I, was raised in Western Kansas and, ⁓ small town. My dad was the country doctor, so to speak of that small town and, family practitioner. And so I kind of grew up in a culture of private practice, ⁓ healthcare, private practice. And, but I knew I didn't want to be a doctor, but I kind of understood the whole dynamic in it. My mother was the.

office manager for him and it was a very busy practice. But when I went to school, I decided that I really wanted to go into business and in particularly marketing. There was just something that fascinated me about understanding consumers and how to move products from manufacturing into the homes of consumers. And so that became...

really my interest at first, but my passion later, and particularly understanding consumers and consumer behavior. And it was because of that, I ended up in a kind of starting a boutique business in the early...

I'd worked in eye care and ophthalmology up until that point, but I decided to go ahead and start this marketing management group that was the purpose of which was to do consumer research, understand consumers, and then develop marketing strategies for companies and clients. And while I had a pretty...

pretty good background in healthcare related, ophthalmology and family medicine, I ended up.

what I used to say is I specialize in a process, not an industry. So that led me into, I did some work for the Houston Astros, did some ⁓ consumer research for them, a couple of hospitals in Houston, I live in Houston, and hospitality, some restaurants. But I also did a big study for a company called Texas State Optical. It was a two year study. We did a couple of thousand interviews of people,

their current customers and prospective customers. And then did about 60 focus groups testing different messaging and things like that. And when you do a study like that, you become pretty intimately familiar with both their consumers and also the company itself and where they are in the marketplace and so forth. And it was that that introduced me to the franchisees of Texas State Optical.

who at the time was having a conflict with the franchisor, which is not uncommon in the franchise business, but this one had a little more intensity than normal. And ultimately they asked me if I would help them formulate a kind of a franchise association centered around how to best market and advertise the business as a whole. The impasse with franchisor was that the franchise

was not providing any of that. So I got invited to do that. And I helped them stand up the franchise association and then kind of served as a quasi executive director as a client. They were a client. It wasn't a full-time thing for me. Then in the late 90s, they decided that they wanted to purchase the Franchise Ore.

Heath Fletcher (05:02)
Yeah.

John D. Marvin (05:21)
and asked me to help me involved in that. I did help them negotiate that acquisition. And kind of two thirds of the way through, they asked me if I would be interested in coming on as the new president of the company. Wow. And, know,

On one hand, it was very intriguing because it was kind of the ultimate fixer upper. It had a lot of potential to it that wasn't being developed. But at the other hand, was, that decision made, I was gonna devote myself 100 % to this one industry. And so it took me about,

90 days and thinking it through and so forth and finally decided to go ahead and take them up. I guess I was lured to the appeal that this would be a fixer upper, that I could really make a difference maybe in helping to establish. At the time, there was about a hundred locations, but the average age was in the upper fifties. The average revenue per location was half of its potential.

I just thought, you know, if somebody doesn't do something, then this thing will just age out. These guys will die because they weren't growing. They hadn't brought anything new. And so I decided to do that. And we started off in the early 2000, we closed on it in 2001. I became president of the new company, the acquisition company in the fall of 2000.

And then we closed on the acquisition in the summer of 2001. And about 2003,

we had our first opportunity for a new location and we had structured it as a member-owned cooperative so that all the locations were owners. And there was a sense of equity in that. And there also was some elements to it. First of all, co-ops are designed to not be profit. They're not for profit enterprises. Co-ops are intended

collect money, reinvest. And so that took away some of the...

some of the intimidation from new doctors because it was like, well, we're not trying to make money on you. We're trying to help you. so that was an important element. It also had a negative to it that we found out a few years later in our inability to strategize and change the business model. I can get into that in a minute. so we started off and after 22, 23 years,

We had opened up like 87 brand new locations throughout Texas and changed the average age to low 40s. Really? Because we brought it down and by doing that kind of ensured its future as a company.

And then it was in the late 2000 teens, 2018, 19, that optometry began going through what other areas of healthcare did. And that's the consolidation through private equity investment. by the end of last year, we were down to less than 70 locations. And because all of the strong...

flagship type of locations had been purchased by consolidators that, and along with the revenue and the number of locations went the leadership of the company. so I had beginning when this started in the night, 2019 is when it really hit Texas. We started putting together plans saying, here's how we deal with this. And there was just this refusal to do so.

because it meant changing our business model. And ⁓ my view at that point was if we don't, we're not gonna exist because the model we're on worked great in the early 2000s, but in the face of the changes in this industry and the market, it won't exist, it won't work. But there was a real refusal by these very same member owned.

know, member owned companies, the doctors that were part of it, there was a refusal to accept that. so we, the last five years we've saw either further decline and then like I said, we were down to less than 70 and then we've lost, looks like this year the organization's gonna lose another 30 locations and...

If you don't change, then it's just going to end up being ⁓ Montgomery wards. You people remember it from childhood and nostalgia. Yeah, so so in. Faced with the fact that. ⁓

Heath Fletcher (10:39)
It's nostalgic, but that's about it. Yeah.

John D. Marvin (10:47)
There wasn't a will to make that change. I felt like there's nothing I can do. Right. And so I decided after 25 years to submit my resignation and ⁓ they're entitled. It's their company. So they're entitled to do that. And I don't have any bad feelings. I had a great time and enjoyed it. And I think a lot of the industry, I love private practice.

But you know, just cause I love it doesn't mean, know, doesn't mean it's going to survive and be the model. It's time for change for me. that did that. And June 30th was my last day. Thank you very much. So that's kind of a long story, but that's it.

Heath Fletcher (11:20)
It was time for change for you.

Congratulations.

I'm just, yeah, so I mean that, that whole story was all about change. mean, that's really what you did for 25 years is help guide change for them, you know, right from, right from the get-go. So, you know, like what, you know, in, in, that experience for you, like what was some of the biggest challenges that you encountered? I mean, coming from where you had come from and now you're the president of this organization.

What did you, what was some of your biggest challenges that you faced?

John D. Marvin (12:10)
Well, think that, you know, there were several, but I think that you could kind of, I could start with a hierarchy and say the biggest challenge, and I don't think it was unique to TSO. think it's, it's a part of the challenge of any organization like ours and certainly an organization of small business. And that is dealing with mindset of the members that we work with because there, there was a mindset of scarcity.

and meaning that there's a real fear of loss. And so when your whole perspective is, don't want to make any big decisions because they might be wrong, it paralyzes you. in a, business, every industry goes through change.

And the reason they go through change is because the consumers change. The preference of consumers change. ⁓

Heath Fletcher (13:13)
Yeah, the attitudes change and values

change and everything. Yes.

John D. Marvin (13:17)
Society changes culture and and There are people today that

haven't been in a grocery store in five years because they learned they could order online or have DoorDash bring them food. And that didn't happen in 2019. No. And that's just a reality. I'm not judging whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just a reality. And when the consumer changes, the business model has to change. And if you are fearful of change, then it puts you in a very dangerous spot as a business.

operator. So the biggest challenge was constantly dealing with a mindset that was kind of risk averse. so it takes a lot of energy and a lot of time because you're dealing with an organization of more than 100 locations and trying to

manage that and through a board of directors that are elected by the members, then the hope is that the directors themselves take that responsibility on to understand that while it might be uncomfortable.

then there's a need for some recognition of reality here. ⁓ Otherwise, we're going to end up not being able to make decisions because they'll be made for us. That was probably the biggest challenge, but that filters down into little things as to whether or not we're going to offer products online, e-commerce. It's not going to be a big thing for us. It permeates a lot of the operational issues, but from

a strategic area, it really paralyzes your ability to adjust and take advantage of the changes as opposed to being hurt by them.

Heath Fletcher (15:19)
Right. And I mean, there's equal risk to not changing as opposed to changing. There's just as much risk. It's just as more comfortable not to change because, know, I'm not in, I'm not in my, I'm not in my, I'm staying in my comfort zone. I can stay here. It's less risky because it feels less risky because there's, doesn't put the individual into a state of, ⁓ shock, so to speak, because they actually have to make, move into their, out of discomfort, into discomfort, right?

John D. Marvin (15:46)
It is. It's like the guy after his third heart attack won't quit smoking and still eats bad and don't exercise. mean, it's not that they don't realize the reality of that. It's just, it's more comfortable just to keep doing what I've always done. ⁓ so it is, it's a human behavior issue. What I've tried to do to deal with that is to always put the voice of the consumer in the middle of the discussion through

ongoing research. That was my background.

Heath Fletcher (16:19)
Right, background. That's what marketing is. exactly.

John D. Marvin (16:22)
I

would always, every two to three years, we would do extensive study with consumers so that we could always bring that voice into the discussion. And if for no other reason, giving that board the full advantage of that reality and what they did with it ultimately is up to them.

Heath Fletcher (16:43)
I'm sorry, you said they all became all the franchise ⁓ operators became owners at some point. So they all own their locations, which is why they're allowed they were able to actually

John D. Marvin (16:56)
Well,

we turned the business from a franchise operation into a brand license company. And then made every licensee a shareholder in the corporation.

Heath Fletcher (17:02)
Okay, right.

John D. Marvin (17:10)
So as a shareholder, each doctor had two relationships. One is an owner of the company and the other was a customer of the company. And so they elected their own board members to serve at the board level as a shareholder. And yeah, it was an interesting dynamic. It had a lot of real positives to it, a lot of positives, but it also has an ultimate accountability to it.

Heath Fletcher (17:27)
interesting.

John D. Marvin (17:38)
And that, and an accountability at a corporate level that transcends the accountability of their individual business, which they were, you know, primary in, of course, and was their primary focus. And, but eventually you've got dilemmas of saying,

I need to make a decision at the corporation level, the corporate level, and it may or may not be in line with the interest of the individual office member. So there's a conflict in that that ⁓ becomes more challenging when the marketplace itself is in disruption.

Heath Fletcher (18:20)
Right. And then on top of that, smack dab in the middle of it is a pandemic. And then on top of that, you have all these other major changes in, the digital space and online marketing, online selling, buying, you know, like it was, it was an incredible amount of change globally, you know, for on top of all, on top of just changing on an internal way, uh, it was tremendous amount of change over that last five, six years.

John D. Marvin (18:50)
and the profession itself has gone through some radical change in that today more than eight out of 10 young optometrists coming out of optometry school are females. Really? Have a totally different... ⁓

kind of motivation and objective or being an optometrist versus the eighties and seventies where it was 99 out of 10 women that embraced it as an entrepreneurial opportunity today. It's not viewed as that. There's very little interest in private practice ownership. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher (19:31)
Really?

John D. Marvin (19:34)
It's viewed as an employment opportunity and even, not even a full-time employment opportunity. It's viewed as a great flexible part-time opportunity. so when you've got those kinds of, when your primary provider in the delivery of eye care no longer has an interest in the ownership of the practice itself, but...

but is more interested in it being flexible and I don't have to work six days a week and I can work three days a week and still make a really good income. Yeah, it begins to look a lot like pharmacy.

Heath Fletcher (20:12)
Income, yeah.

Right. Interesting. Well, yeah. And I mean, I guess that's probably conducive to the two younger generations who are, you know, deciding that they want their work lives to look different than than previous generations. Right.

John D. Marvin (20:31)
Absolutely. One of the biggest, I did a lot of work with universities, the schools of optometry. And one of the biggest questions in the last five to eight years was not about the opportunities and how do you manage HR and all of the admin or the non-clinical aspects. The biggest opportunity was about work-life balance. Yeah. ⁓

Heath Fletcher (20:55)
Really? ⁓ That's pretty

cool actually.

John D. Marvin (20:59)
Well, the most recent experience like that was we had just had a big presentation on all the real opportunity that private practice ownership gives. And we were speaking to a group at a optometry school of students who were in a private practice club. Okay. So seemingly qualified target for us, trying to appeal to people, you know, why would you be there if you weren't interested in owning a practice, private practice management?

And after this one hour presentation with multiple successful optometrists from our group, we opened it up for questions. And the very first question was, how many vacation days do you get if you own your own practice? I did or not? That was the question.

Heath Fletcher (21:48)
I love it. That's amazing.

John D. Marvin (21:50)
They

were disappointed to hear, the first three to five years you don't get any.

Heath Fletcher (21:55)
Or you can take as many as you want I guess it depends on how much you want to get paid

John D. Marvin (22:06)
It matters.

Depends on what matters to you.

Heath Fletcher (22:09)
Isn't

that something? Wow. What a transition.

John D. Marvin (22:15)
So

in addition to all those other changes going on, we have this change. so our business model was predicated on young optometrists who want to own their own business and they get out, we could help them get it started from scratch and they would license our brand because it gave them instant credibility. Cause the brand was started in 1936 and had all this longevity to it, know, ton of top of mind awareness in the consumers and

It just really gave a lot of young O.D.s a real leg up.

We developed an entire, you know, what we called our practice management system for success. And it was at a start of practice and I had it down so that we could predict here's what income you'll have your first year, your third year and your fifth year. And every year we calculated those numbers and was real predictable because we had a system in place and which works great as long as you've got young ODs wanting to own their own practice.

But when those dry up, it becomes difficult to grow. And on the other hand, we had the private equity funded groups buying up our largest practices. So it's like we're losing, but we're not able to rebuild and gain. something's got to change.

Heath Fletcher (23:39)
Yeah. So what do think that has to be like what, know, if, if you were, if this was 25 years ago and you were starting today, how do you think you would tackle this?

John D. Marvin (23:52)
Well, 25 years ago it didn't exist. but in 2018, what we said was,

Heath Fletcher (24:00)
I guess I was saying if you had 25 years had you now to do it again, how would you talk? How would you tackle this problem? Well, you were if you were coming on board today and it was your okay, I got to fix this.

John D. Marvin (24:12)
It's the same thing I put on the table to the board for the last five years that kept getting rejected. And that is the only option left was to set up a hybrid opportunity for hybrid business model that said, if you're a young OD and you want to own your own practice, then we've got this option for you. But if you're an OD that wants to just get a job,

then we've got a corporate location where we could hire you. And so much like a lot of franchise type of companies, you have corporate owned locations and then you have franchise locations. And if we would have introduced a corporate platform where

we could go buy practices and convert them to TSOs or when some of our largest independents were approached by an outside consolidator saying, we'd like to buy your practice. We could have stepped in and said, well, give us a chance to buy it first. We'll match whatever offer because the outside people were not interested in maintaining the brand license because private equity. Yeah. Well,

Heath Fletcher (25:28)
know.

John D. Marvin (25:32)
private equity wasn't interested in operating them. They were interested in leveraging the arbitrage to sell them later. And so that means you got to grow EBITDA. You're not going to pay some brand license fee that you don't have to if you're trying to grow out your EBITDA. so it's a matter of stripping out just, it's the private equity model. Strip out expenses, grow that margin.

and then find somebody that'll pay you three times what you paid for it.

Heath Fletcher (26:04)
Interesting. Wow.

Yeah. And, and, ⁓ did you get to, well, and during, during that course of your time there, you also got to sort of, ⁓ you know, ⁓ flex your marketing muscles too. Right. So you got to, ⁓ so you, you, you introduced a new, ⁓ how to, how to help individual doctors market and promote and sell their business, right. Under the brand license. Did you, what?

John D. Marvin (26:35)
Mm-hmm.

Heath Fletcher (26:37)
What kind ⁓ of opportunities did you offer? What kind of ⁓ strategies did you kind of delivered in order to help them grow individually? Because I mean, first of all, you have the individual doctor, then they're in a geographic location. And so they're all very unique to themselves. Did you leverage that? Or do you kind of stick very, very sort of corporate brand?

John D. Marvin (27:02)
Well, you've got to have value in the corporate brand for consumers to recognize it and for the young OD who's paying for it to take advantage of that credibility that comes with it. But that only goes so far. I mean, it doesn't matter what the brand name is, how big it is or how well known it is, if the sandwiches don't taste good. know, I mean, it just, it's so there's, it's really the thing I loved about

it was that it really encompasses all aspects of marketing. Most people, certainly most optometrists think when they hear the word marketing, they think advertising. Yeah. And that's not it. mean, probably one of the most important parts of marketing is the product itself. You know, if every, it's true, every 100th iPhone didn't work.

they wouldn't sell iPhones, you know what mean? Regardless of the other 99 that worked great, over time there would not be confidence in the consistency and the quality of the product. So the operational elements of the practice and that patient experience had to be something that would be appealing to consumers.

Heath Fletcher (28:04)
Yeah.

of course.

John D. Marvin (28:21)
So that's one thing. The other thing that was really, we learned, believed, but we really became to understand more fully is the fact that the delivery of eye care services like Optometry is very much a local community service. It's not a big box. Put it.

in a shopping center next to Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond and Home Depot, where people go, you drive by those centers and they're packed with cars and you think, what a great place to put a eye doctor's place. Well, those cars are only there about once every three months. You go to the local Kroger,

Heath Fletcher (29:04)
Yeah.

John D. Marvin (29:07)
Those cars are there twice a week, you know, and so you begin to understand how locally that the services are.

Yeah. And so we've focused all of our promotional or communication efforts within three miles of each location and did not go with some mass market in Houston. We've got, you 600 square miles. And if we took a mass market approach, there would be areas that we might be persuasive. And John might say, I'd love to go see that. Where's the one that's close to me? ⁓ it's 20 miles away. Well, I'm not going to that.

Heath Fletcher (29:45)
No, no.

John D. Marvin (29:46)
So

we focus on it and I used what I called the Starbucks approach. And that is, if you remember when Starbucks became a thing, you never saw advertising for Starbucks. No, but you knew that there, no matter where you were at, you knew there's gotta be a Starbucks around here somewhere. ⁓

Heath Fletcher (30:05)
Starbucks

near me Starbucks near me. I think was the mo number one search query on Google Quite a few years. Yeah

John D. Marvin (30:15)
I mean, it's like, and you, you can't do that by saying, well, people used to ask me, are you going to grow outside of Texas? I said, there, you know, there's 30 million people in Texas. Why would we think about that until we get a thousand locations in Texas? Yeah. ⁓ because you can't support, an organization that's spread in eight states, nearly as well as you can the density.

and have that marketing impact of knowing TSOs are everywhere. If we were spread out over eight states, you could have a thousand locations that people wouldn't know you exist.

Heath Fletcher (30:57)
Exactly.

John D. Marvin (30:59)
So those are

some marketing approaches that we would take and then help them through a delivery of a consistent patient experience through SOPs, standard operating procedures. And then focusing promotion.

locally in three mile area. And then the last thing was the importance of being involved in the community. And I believe that if you'll get involved in the community, the community will get involved in your practice and you and that means showing up for everything. And if any kid comes in wanting you to sponsor their baseball team, you say yes. Everywhere. Yeah. So

Heath Fletcher (31:38)
Put your logo on it. Yeah, absolutely.

Did you, I mean, there's one side of the business. So on the medical side, it's optometry, right? But on the other side, it's also product sales because you frames, right? And that's a big aspect of the business as well. A revenue stream. And so then of course we have also during all, or the last few years, five, six years, we've seen a

huge growth in online eyeglasses. You still need your prescription, but now people are getting their prescription and buying online and they're paying a fraction of the cost. So that must have had an impact as well.

John D. Marvin (32:22)
Well, it does. There are really, for purposes of this topic, there are two types of consumers. There are those that use some form of third-party payment.

most commonly referred to as a vision benefit plan offered by companies like VSP, IMED, and these are typically offered through employers. And then you have people that are weak in the biz, you call them private pay. So they don't use the third party. online e-commerce typically,

does not accept third party benefits. So that's why you see places that are a complete pair of glasses for $69. And ⁓ because it's all private pay. ⁓ In private practice offices, typically it's about two thirds of all the revenue coming through that practice is a third party payment, which has a number of different

Heath Fletcher (33:10)
All

John D. Marvin (33:29)
consequences to it, but one of them has to deal with the product that's sold, the pricing that it's placed at, and how it's delivered. And so when we were looking at e-commerce as a strategy ⁓ to add to as an offering for the membership, we had to reconcile the fact that you can't compete online with a price point

that would be the same as what you would use in the office. And if your office price points were different, your consumers in the office would be one, confused, and two, why would they pay me $600 if they can go to my website and buy something for $100? And so it became difficult to reconcile that. And so...

Heath Fletcher (34:01)
Right.

Exactly. Right.

John D. Marvin (34:27)
The core problem wasn't what I just described. The core problem was third party payers. And their intrusion into the relationship between a consumer and their eyewear or the consumer and their eye doctor.

Heath Fletcher (34:44)
They're pros

at that.

John D. Marvin (34:46)
You you hear a lot about pharmacy benefit managers are the culprits in driving up the price of prescription medication. Same thing goes with eye care. The vision benefit managers are driving up the cost of eye care and eyewear. And taking it, it's not that the doctor makes the money. It's the vision benefit manager that makes the money.

Heath Fletcher (35:13)
Yeah.

John D. Marvin (35:14)
at the expense of the consumer. that's just a dynamic that's in the industry. And there is not the collective will among the providers in the profession to change it.

Heath Fletcher (35:31)
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's, ⁓ it's rampant. It's crossed. It's across all areas of healthcare conversations that I've had with people. It's, it's a, it's a really difficult situation, but, ⁓ it's time for change for that. Right. I don't think, I think it's,

John D. Marvin (35:39)
Yeah.

Well,

I'm hopeful because I maybe I'm conservative, but 60%, 70 % of the problems in the health care delivery system could be eliminated if you just got rid of third party payment.

Heath Fletcher (36:04)
Yep. That's what I've been hearing too. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now. Okay. Another side of the story is that you're, you're, you're building, ⁓ franchise owners, builders, ⁓ business owners. ⁓ so a big part of that is actually, you're actually helping create leaders, Lil, you know, independent leaders who are running their own companies participating in the, in the bigger picture of the organization.

And so what did you do to help with that? Because that's a big part of this process is that you were actually trying to help them be better leaders themselves, right?

John D. Marvin (36:45)
Well, I am a student of John Maxwell and John Maxwell's leadership philosophy centers on the fact that leadership is influence.

And so helping them become influential, both internally in their offices, in their businesses, but also in their communities. And then of course, in their company that they own, the one that I worked for. so that leadership through influence is developed through personal growth.

And so then it brings the focus, if you're gonna get to point C, which is an influential leader in your practice, your community and company, then we've got to start at the beginning. And that's talking about a devotion to personal growth itself. my role was preaching that, focusing on the ways to be done.

and then filling in content in the organizational communication that's centered around becoming better. If you want your practice to be better, you have to be better. So it's, you know, it's a, it's a more difficult than just, you know, kicking butt and taking names, but it also is more effective.

Yeah. Because it's lasting that way. And the other thing that motivated me was I realized I wasn't just putting a business strategy in place. I was working towards helping people become better people. Yeah. Better community members, better people in their practice, better relationships with their patients. And so that was that was the motivation in it. But the ultimate outcome was that they became more influential.

better leaders.

Heath Fletcher (38:44)
love that. I'm a big John Maxwell fan myself. Seen him speak, him, got a book signed book. But I think one of my favorite quotes of his is like, leadership is a journey, not a position. And I just it's, yeah, it's he's a he's a really great influence for me. I've used to work, not worked with him, but worked with his stuff a lot myself. So I mean, that's really incredible that you know,

the president of the company is infusing that type of influence, that type of leadership teaching, you know, throughout the company. don't hear of that a lot, but it's really great to know that that's something that when they got, when they became part of the organization that you were actually going to deliver that kind of leadership.

John D. Marvin (39:36)
Well, thank you. went through in 2015, I went through the John Maxwell certification. And so that gave me not just the knowledge, but the tools to help do that. And, you know, the difference is, that personal growth is a self-selected endeavor.

Heath Fletcher (39:45)
That's

Yeah.

John D. Marvin (39:59)
So I can't sit somebody down and say grow. I can't set them down and force them to personally grow. it would be disingenuous to suggest that everyone responded equally to.

But I was not looking for everyone. I was looking for a handful of people that could become models for the others. through that, knowing that they were having a positive impact in their own circle of influence, but also showing to the others what this could actually accomplish.

Heath Fletcher (40:37)
What at that point in your career, that was what 2015 you said you did that?

John D. Marvin (40:42)
2015 I went through the certification.

Heath Fletcher (40:44)
Yeah.

What was the, what inspired you to do that? What was, what brought you to that point? That the motivation for wanting to take that course and develop that.

John D. Marvin (40:53)
because about five years earlier I was introduced to Maxwell in a meaningful way. I mean, I'd heard about him over the course of time, but...

wasn't that familiar with his work, but I was really introduced in a meaningful way about five years earlier and started reading books. You know, there's 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and a number of other today matters, a number of others that really resonated with me. And I thought, you know, this is something I need personally. And so when I saw an opportunity to become certified, I jumped on it.

for my own personal growth because from other experiences I realized if you want to learn something there's nothing like being put in the position of having to teach it. If you learn something well enough to teach it then you're probably going to get far more out of it than any student that you're teaching. And so I did it for that purpose not

Heath Fletcher (41:57)
.

John D. Marvin (42:01)
A lot of people do it to make a living out of it, to take the materials and use it, kind of like a coaching speaker franchise program. But I just did it for the personal growth out of it and then felt like it was meaningful enough to me that I wanted to share it. I saw the importance of how it could.

positively influence the organization I was with. And so I felt like might as well plant this where I'm in my own garden, right?

Heath Fletcher (42:32)
That's right. Yeah, I mean people must have responded well to that. mean, ⁓ yeah

John D. Marvin (42:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

And a lot of my corporate team who had never heard of John Maxwell, we started book club. Right. We started reading and they own, they're on their own personal growth. Most people, you walk up to people at the grocery store and tell them, me about your personal growth plan. You know, they'll look at you like you're crazy. And you probably would be for asking them in the grocery store.

Heath Fletcher (42:52)
Everybody is yeah Yeah

The room dude.

John D. Marvin (43:11)
The is that most people don't sit down and think about a personal plan. until someone sits down and says, let's do this together, because there's real value in it, and shows you the importance of it, then you probably aren't going to.

Heath Fletcher (43:26)
Well, often

personal growth isn't necessary. It's not planned because it comes from life experiences, right? Where you are confronted with difficult situations and that's where growth happens because it's super uncomfortable and it puts it in a place of like, where you, you either grow or crumble to the ground. And I, and I think a lot of that has to do with it. When people make conscious decisions to personally grow, means that they're willing to look at themselves and

examine themselves and look for where they could use some growth because that's really a big part of that isn't it.

John D. Marvin (44:03)
The intentionality is what separates growth through circumstance and growth by model. you know, it'd be like us deciding we are taking a one week vacation, but just get in the car and start driving.

Heath Fletcher (44:21)
Right.

John D. Marvin (44:22)
and versus no we're going to stay here the first night there the second night yeah we'll get a lot more out of this one week vacation than if we just start driving.

Heath Fletcher (44:32)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So is there what what are the plans ahead? Is there you have something in you have a vision in mind for yourself now?

John D. Marvin (44:43)
I do, first of all, think that there is a...

real opportunity to share a lot of what we've been talking about on a broader level of ⁓ small business. know, John Maxwell has a real reach into kind of corporate America because of his position and his success in writing. But the guy who just bought the ACE hardware store probably hasn't been exposed to a lot of that. And so I think that there's an opportunity for a small business folk

is on these types of topics. In addition, imbueding those with faith and a message of the importance of faith in our lives. And so as we develop as spiritual people, then that also makes for a richer experience in business with customers and employees and emboldening people not...

That's empowering is better word with the confidence.

of expressing that faith. know, there's for too long, it's felt like, I can't talk about my faith at work because that's not appropriate. And I'm saying that not only is it appropriate, but it'll open up an entirely new experience that is richer in that experience for both your employees, yourself and your customers. And I'm not talking about a particular denomination or even a particular,

just talking about living your life through faith versus living your life in fear, because those are the two opposites of each other. And by living with a commitment of faith and belief, that is a mindset. And that will open you up to examining yourself and personal growth. So I've got a number of different modalities I wanna deliver that message through.

including ⁓ weekend seminar and workshop structures that I really feel called to explore whether or not this is something that could be available through churches. there's a lot of, know, most churches don't offer a leadership program. No.

But I think that there's a real opportunity that that church and the community it's in would benefit from such a program.

Heath Fletcher (47:24)
Well, how many people who maybe show up every week, ⁓ own a business and run a business or operate a business, whatever they have some sort of connection to business and to kind of fuse that, ⁓ through other directions would be certainly beneficial. Yeah. No, I think it's a good point. You bring up about faith and how we have, it's not about selling your faith. It's about sharing it and, and, and, and, and allowing others to share theirs as well.

right, you're right. don't have to be, they're not, it's not that they have to be the same. It's just that there is a, there's a, there's a, there's a, is one of the highest vibrations we have as an energy, as as a, as a, know, along with love and gratitude and all those things. Like you talked about being positive, um, creative, and as opposed to destructive, um, aspects of emotions and feelings. So.

Yeah, it ties in and personal growth is all about finding that part of ourselves because we tend to be so stuck in survival, which doesn't allow for us to be free and allow us to be creative and be expressive and all that. yeah.

John D. Marvin (48:39)
So many, so much of our lives tend to be limited, self-limited through fear. Fear is something that's born in the imagination of something that doesn't exist yet.

but we don't make decisions for our own best interest out of imagining how it could be bad. And we control that imagination. So if we can help people understand how you can imagine that it's good and the good that it can create in you, then jump, make that decision, pursue it.

because of what it can do. And we both know just from being around and having experiences that there's no such thing as a bad decision. There are decisions that you can make them good just by continuing to make decisions. And you just pursue that. the challenge is making the first decision. Getting started.

Heath Fletcher (49:35)
Right.

Right.

There's

another there's another Maxwell quality it's like 10 10 % what was it? think oh 10 % of what happens Is not as important as the 90 % at the time of how I react Yeah, something similar to that and I think what you're just saying is living in faith or living in fear You know, where would you rather where would you rather be? Being in a position to take a leap of faith, you know as a really popular

John D. Marvin (50:08)
Yeah.

Heath Fletcher (50:15)
out phrase is really that's where you're in that position to be able to do that. yeah.

John D. Marvin (50:22)
Another example, think of how many, and I'll bet you you've had these experiences too. Think of how many times in your life something happened that you couldn't control, you weren't in control of. And it was not a good thing. It was a bad thing. I lost a job. My wife left me. My husband cheated on me. Things that weren't in your control. And at the time that you experienced them, all your mind is consumed with is fear as to what this is going to do.

years later you look back and go that was turns out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me and that not happened I wouldn't have done this and that yeah that that's a real life experience and unfortunately though the next time something bad happens we start all over again ⁓

Heath Fletcher (51:13)
Well, that's exciting. think there's a lot of, there's a lot of room for improvement out there. And I think that you got some great skills to share with people. So I'm glad you're pursuing that. And ⁓ I'm excited to, ⁓ for you and your future and ⁓ how do people want to, how can people reach you if they want to catch up with you and find out more or connect with you.

John D. Marvin (51:34)
Well, the best way right now is through my LinkedIn profile. And you just search my name, John D. Marvin, and ⁓ you'll find me there. And if you'll write me, I'll get on a phone call with you or, you know, we'll start a pen pal relationship, however you wanna continue. But I'm more than happy to talk to anyone that has an interest in learning more or talking more. I certainly will learn more. And so I would welcome

Welcome that opportunity.

Heath Fletcher (52:06)
Excellent. Well, John, thank you so much for your time with me today. I've really enjoyed ⁓ meeting you, getting to know you and learning about your career. It's been fascinating and I'm sure listeners will have a lot to take away from this. So thank you for joining me today.

John D. Marvin (52:23)
Thank you, Heath. It was a real privilege to be with you.

Heath Fletcher (52:29)
Okay, that closes this episode with John Marvin. What an awesome conversation. Hey, I really enjoyed that. John shared some powerful lessons on leadership, personal growth, of course, and navigating change in this shifting healthcare environment that a lot of you are in. We got into everything from how consumer behavior is evolving to the impact of e-commerce and the importance of local marketing, which never seems to change. And of course, some great quotes from John Maxwell, leadership is influence.

And leadership is a journey, not a position. So ⁓ if you're building a business, leading a team, or just working on yourself, there is a lot to take away here. So if you liked this episode, go ahead, please subscribe, give us a review if you want, and share it with someone who you think might enjoy it too. So thank you for listening, stay healthy, and we'll see you next time.