The Achieve Podcast - Dr. Brianna Rhue (Dr. Contact Lens)

Welcome to the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight the leaders, entrepreneurs, and creators who are building meaningful businesses and shaping their industries. My name is Jesse Warner, and I'll be your host today. And we're excited to have Dr. Brianna Rue with us today. She is the CEO of Dr. Contact Lens. Uh, Dr. Rue, it's a pleasure to have you on our show today. So our audience can get to know you a little bit better, why don't you give us a quick backstory on your business and what you do and kind of how it all got started?

Yeah, so I'm excited, Jesse, to be here not only as a client of Achieve, right, where we met so many moons ago, that we'll get into the story here, but my background here is also my clinic. So I'm still an optometrist on the side seeing patients and then co-founded a tech company called Dr. Contact Lens through a need where patients would come in, have this brilliant eye exam, not purchase from us, and walk out the door to an online retailer because we created too much friction. So we said, Jesse, how hard could this be to build something? Well, the joke's on us. It's extremely difficult. And away we go.

And when did you start your business?

We started this, so there was a— I graduated in 2009, did a residency, joined this practice that you see behind me. It was actually red and green wallpaper, um, like Christmas had thrown up in Florida year-round, and bought in as an associate. Then I bought in as a partner. Then I graduated into full ownership and we retired him. We have two associates. And then in 2015, there was a regulation coming out with prescription where you as a patient, I had to give you a copy. And that was for you to be lulled away from our practices and the work that we did here to online retailers, which not only hurts you as a patient, but then hurts your community that we're trying to service as well. So that's where that was born, was out of that frustration.

So you started and you bought this practice.

Yeah.

How big is your team now?

So I have two teams which operate very differently. So I have my practice here. We have 11 of us to operate full-scale optometry. And then at Dr. Contact Lens, we're now a team of 16, you guys being on that roster as well. And I've just added as we've growing and built the team one person at a time.

Well, first of all, congratulations. You know, I think as entrepreneurs, sometimes we're so focused on the future, we forget sometimes to look behind and realize what a big gain that we've had from where you started and where you're at and the business you're building. So congratulations on that, first of all.

Yes, my chief soul officer, Shade, has a kudos file for me. So when I'm in that, like, muck of, like, future where we're going, she'll always feed me some good tidbits of where we've been. So it's always important and critical to do that.

Talk to me a little bit about how the business has changed since you started. I mean, obviously you got— you don't have red and green colors behind you anymore, but what are some of the other changes that have happened as you've gone through this journey?

Yes, some interesting changes have happened in our industry. So One of the marketing things that we did was our industry was a sea of blue, Jesse, when we started. So you would walk into an exhibit hall, all that you would see was colors of blue, right? So my practice naturally was the color blue. And Dr. Contact Lens being different, being female-founded, starting from the roots from a contact lens patient myself to then a technician and a scribe and front desk I mean, it was easier to just go be a doctor. And that's kind of the joke here. And our person at the time we were working with, he goes, why did you guys pick blue? Our original logo was blue. He goes, be different, pick purple. And we picked purple. And Jesse, now fast forward 10 years, the whole industry now has changed to purple. And we were one of the OGs of that color per se. And we've also created this category. So now we've had these fast followers because we've paved this path that wasn't paved for us, and it's making, you know, that data or that entry point a little easier. And that's really what's changed is now competition is good, but we were one of the OGs.

When you look at sales, marketing, outreach, where are you seeing the most traction? What's working for you?

I mean, this is— I think you actually told me this. They're like, Brianna, you're gonna waste 50% of your money in marketing. The unfortunate thing is you don't know what 50% you're wasting. So any entrepreneur that's out there, when it's sales, marketing, really running tight. And I didn't do that. That was one of my accountability things in the beginning, is really understanding your metrics, understanding the endpoint, and accountability as you're building this and putting out so many fires. So there's this saying, I wish I would have hired a coach earlier, which I did, uh, about 2 years ago. But he says you need to inspect what you expect. I wasn't inspecting what I was expecting because I was always on to this next thing. And sometimes you really have to slow down before you go faster. And that's both— can hinder your growth like it kind of did for us, but then it can also scale you in ways that are going to be less frustrating. So what you're hearing here is kind of going through that process right now. You're just going to keep reinventing over and over. Um, but you're the expert here, like marketing, sales. Like, what do you see entrepreneurs make mistakes early on?

Yeah, a lot of the— I mean, we obviously service and help a lot of organizations in the marketing side, uh, of the business, you know, and that, and that's my background. I've been doing this for about 20 years. Almost always I see a lack of foundation at the starting point.

Right?

We don't understand who our buyers are, the, you know, buyer personas. We don't understand what kind of journey we want to take them down. And so it just, we let, we're reactive, right? So we, whatever we get, we get. And, and instead of being intentional about it and, and targeting and say, here's my ideal client profile, here's my ICP, let's go focus on them. Let's go focus on the things they care about. And so a lot of times we miss that foundation, right? And so, uh, from a marketing side, I often will say, hey, we have to get the foundation right. First of all, we need to know who we're targeting. We need to know what journey you wanna create and we need the tools and the systems that allow us to do that, that allow us to track and know which 50% we're not getting a return on, right? Because if I all of a sudden just go turn on all of the channels and we don't have a way of capturing those and monitoring those and bringing them through a funnel and a flow, we're gonna waste a lot of money really quickly and we're not gonna know anything either, right? And so what we really wanna do is we wanna say, hey, let's, Let's take an experienced person, someone knows what they're doing. Let's get our hypothesis close, you know, the first time. We may not get it right, but let's get it closer than if we were to just throw spaghetti on the wall, right? Look, let's pull out a sniper rifle. Let's go and really figure out where that ideal client profile is and then go spend money, then go do outreach, then go do the things. Because our messaging, the experience the likelihood of success is gonna increase significantly from that, in my experience.

Yeah.

And really you wanna be wherever your audience is, right? So if they're hanging out at a trade show and they're going to those trade shows, you should be at the trade shows.

If they're not, and that's how we built this too, right? Yeah. Yeah. I love that because I think another thing to hit on, Jesse, and you see this with a lot of your customers and clients, where they'll get this success. And as entrepreneurs, we all have ADD, like, that's undiagnosed a lot of the time, and we get excited about this other new thing, and then we get more so reactive than having a message behind it. And then we forget that we've created this one flywheel, right, that's working. And so it's also leveraging— like, you're gonna again build that foundation, but don't forget that foundation and then you add on and then you add on. Because that's what I've also been guilty of, is forgetting what was working, getting that shiny new thing and going down a path when this other one was working and we should have doubled down on that one.

Yeah, a lot of times it's like, hey, I've got this thing that's working. Instead of just pouring more money or more time into the thing that's working, we're like, oh, that's working, let's go do the next thing, right? And that's good. But a lot of times we actually just need to give it a little bit more attention. You know, if Google Ads is working and there's still more leads to be had and more opportunity to grow, let's go spend more money in Google Ads. If it's not working, don't spend the money there, right? Let's go figure out the next thing that's working.

Yeah. Yeah. And what's worked in our industry too, and I think your founder story especially when you're early, like we were very early. We had to not only educate the doctors that this process was broken, but then also show them that there was a tool. So when you are early in something, that also is really difficult because you're not only educating the market, but you're also trying to sell to that market. Those are two very different messages. And we thought just going down these Facebook groups in our industry that they were wanting this and that they were educated enough to know they were going to pay for it. So it also is just meeting the market where it needs to be met and realizing also how big it is. Don't get hurt by those little swords where they're like, oh, I'm not ready, or I went with this one, or I went with that one. Realize like it is just has to be on to the next. So you have to have a really thick skin as you're building, um, especially when you're in the industry, because sometimes outsiders come in and they have this messaging and they don't have the baggage that comes with it. But you know you're better at solving that problem, but sometimes they can't see it.

Let's talk about AI and automation for a minute. Obviously there's—

yeah.

The world of AI is changing so fast, you know. Talk to me a little bit about how you found ways to use AI in your organization.

I mean, I was an early Chat person, and I remember doing a lecture November when it launched. That was what, 20— was it 2023? 2022? 2023. I was on stage and, you know, you look at this adoption curve on how fast it took Spotify 10 years to get to 100,000 users. It took ChatGPT 2 months to get to 100,000 users. So I like to look at AI as a tool because I'm seeing people repackage AI for— call it what it is, but you also need to understand what it is by asking better questions, being curious about it. So in our team, you can't have an excuse anymore that you don't know. You can go to one of these large language models, prompt it, and now you become the expert. So I do it both at my clinic, West Sparrow Eye Care. Give me a script for the phone where a patient, we don't take their vision plan and we want them to make an appointment with us. That's going to be a way better script than us kind of coaching back and forth what it could be. At Dr. Contact Lens, this is a large dataset that we have. It's massive. Let's leverage it for our own clinics, not to make big boys bigger, but really that David and Goliath story, because you have a huge foundation that everybody's willing to pay for. But when you give away your leverage and don't use it, that's what I'm seeing, Jesse, on the AI side is, yeah, you're busy with 25 patients. Let me go play with chat or let me build these things. It's just an amplifier. So those that are using it are going to amplify ourselves and those that are not, you're going to— you're already seeing this huge separation and it's still— you still have to be hands-on. Um, so don't get overwhelmed by it. We all get 24 hours.

As you tried to scale, what are some of the constraints that you keep bumping into? What are the challenges you have as you try to scale?

People have been a really big one for me. I've been good at like putting it out there that I was looking for this person. That's actually how you came into our, our field as well. Um, leveraging that— not leveraging that more, but I think that's the wrong word. It's, it's you really have to get A-players around you, and you have to continually upgrade not only yourself with your leadership style in going from entrepreneur founder energy to CEO energy that's very different. And if you don't level yourself up, which I've done over the last year and a half or 2 years— like right now, like, I have a whole set behind me that's recording this, right? Would I have done that a year ago? No way. Would I have made that investment? No way. But now, going through this coaching and leveling myself up, I'm now bringing more people into my sphere that want to be a part of that as well. So it is A-players and I hold on to people way too long because I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. So I should have cut sooner or been more accountable sooner. That's me as a founder.

Let's talk about the next stage of growth. What are you most excited about?

I mean, what I'm most excited about is that you don't necessarily now, especially with the rise of AI, you don't really have to add headcount anymore. You can give people on your team better structure, better opportunities, and then now you can uplift all of them. And I think people are making a mistake in a lot of these big companies of Okay, we're going to just let go of this sales team or let go of this marketing team or let go of this portion. No, I think you got the people. Now how do you— I hate the word upskill, it's just another word for train. Train your people. Shut down the office for a day, go to a different type of conference, um, inspire others because you're in the that's so close to it all the time, you have to get out. And optometry, I'm going to use a pun there, you got to get out of your dark room. You have to stop counting to the number 2. You have to go to different types of conferences. So I go to audiology conferences, I go to dental conferences, I look for inspiration everywhere. And that's, I think, has been my magic bullet is not staying confined to those rooms because they get really small and really exhausting really fast, as you've probably seen yourself.

Let's talk about your journey a little bit, some of the wins and the mistakes. What lessons stand out to you as you built this business?

Well, I also had two kids during this, so any moms out there realize, um, gotta give yourself a little bit more credit. So I'm just cheerleading myself there for a second. I was 4 weeks postpartum and I was trying to find a COO. I was talking to this gentleman who had scaled a business in our industry and he said, Brianna, you're going to be out of money in like 4 weeks. You need to let go of this person and this person and this person and all these other things. And I just had a baby. Like, he wasn't even supposed to be here yet, Jesse. And I go— and he said, Brianna, do you ever walk in the door that day and write down 3 things you need to do that day? And I was like, I'm sorry, what? 3 things? Like, what I don't need is a list of 3 freaking things. And there was a lot of cuss words here, but we'll keep it PG so we don't get flagged here. I said, "Three freaking things? You think my list of three things? Like, what I don't need is a list of three things. What I need is a wife that's going to take care of all of this stuff and this kid that I just had and my 5-year-old and my husband and my two businesses that are growing." And it just planted something in my head where you need to meet people where they also can hear you. I couldn't hear him in that moment. I needed help. I was on fire. And a list of three things has now morphed into what we call the 3 Frog Way. So I have 3 little figurine frogs. They're actually like on my desk and most of them here have them. So one frog is one thing of joy that will bring— one frog is joy. So one thing that you can do to bring someone else, yourself joy, one easy task you need to do that day and one hard task you need to do that day that'll move your business forward. Not just this ever-ending to-do list and checkoff lists and all this other crap, because we know 95% of the stuff we're going to do that day isn't going to matter. So it's a focus technique, it's an accountability technique that came from that really big moment of pain to now really grow again, personally, professionally. Um, in all parts of my life.

Last question for you: what advice would you give to other leaders or entrepreneurs who are on a similar journey to you?

Freaking read. I mean, read as much as you can. Get a coach that you like, that you can be a part of, that can hold you accountable, because you, at the end of the day, if you can't hold yourself accountable and you're not uplifting yourself and you're not pouring into yourself, you can't pour into anybody else here. So you have to work daily on that why, because if you lose your spark as a founder and you get taken out, all of this goes down too. So it's finding your tribe, finding people that you can not only celebrate with that you can lean on, you can cry with. That's what it's all about.

What, what a great story. Again, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. Really enjoyed the conversation. For those listening, if you want to learn more about what Dr. Ruh is building, I invite you to go to drcontactlens.com. And learn more about the journey, the story, the platform, the company, the people, the lives she's changing, all the stuff that she's doing. Go learn more about it. DrContactLense.com.

Before we wrap up.

Oh yeah, go ahead. Keep sharing.

What's one of your takeaways? Because you've done 200 of these interviews. What's something that you're leaving with? With the last 20 minutes that we've been together with?

Uh, first of all, one of the things I love about interviewing entrepreneurs is the energy and the emotion and the excitement that they feel about their business. So, so one, I feel that from you. I feel this, you know, I love what I'm doing. It's hard, so hard, but I just love what I'm doing, right? And so I think not forgetting the why behind what you're doing, I think really important. Uh, you know, one of the other takeaways is just the, the real life, right? I mean, you talked about being a mother, uh, and you talked about the challenges that come with that, right? Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, right? And so, you know, I, I, I can relate to you in that story of like a coach coming in and just being like, why don't you just do this? And you're like, dude, I am drowning. I have so many other things. I don't need you to tell me what to do, right? I just need some help, right? Give me some help. Hey, you want to come get your hands dirty for a minute? Go, go look at my finances, you know, and help my bookkeeper that, you know, I got to file taxes tomorrow. Go do that for me, right? And so I think I just appreciated the rawness and the reality of like, hey, you know what, this is, this is hard, right? And but we're just doing our best to, to move forward. We surround ourselves with good people, and, and you just got to keep going. So, you know, there's a couple takeaways on my end.

I love that. Yeah, and if they do want more, also find me on LinkedIn. I post every single day, haven't missed a day in over a year and a half as part of my coaching. Um, so yeah, that's where you can also find me.

So follow, uh, Dr. Brianna Rue. Uh, so good to, to see you and meet with you. I want to give a big thank you to our sponsor Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executives for growing businesses. And for those listening, if you enjoyed today's conversation, follow the show, share with other entrepreneurs that also find value in it. And again, thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.