Organization Background
Provides optometric services and eye care products including eyeglasses, specialty eyewear, frames, and contact lenses.
Challenge
Dr. Tania Sobchuk was looking for a way to implement a new employee bonus system while also finding a way to open up the back end of the business to her employees so they could understand they impact the success of the practice.
Solution
After getting introduced to The Great Game of Business® (GGOB) by fellow optometrist and coach Dr. Danny Clark, Dr. Sobchuk decided to pull the trigger on playing The Game inside her own practice beginning in October 2016. “His practice was very similar to mine at the time and I could see how well his team and practice benefitted from using this form of management,” says Sobchuk.
Results
“Our Great Game™ journey has completely changed my practice,” says Dr. Sobchuk. “We are now working as a team-smarter and not harder. One impact has been on the practice’s financials, especially over the past year when the team really “got it.” “Our PBT has consistently increased and our cash flow has improved tremendously,” she says, noting that the team also hit its full bonus for the year, which earned them a three-day trip to Sedona. At the same time, she admits that while she expected to see improvement in areas like cash flow, the fact that GGOB totally changed the culture within the practice was an unexpected bonus. Playing The Game has created much more of a team environment where everyone works together to achieve a single goal. “Our entire team is happy and every day we have patients comment on how amazing we are as a team and how everyone always has a smile on their face,” says Dr. Sobchuk.
“GGOB is game changer! My first meeting was interesting, and I thought why would anyone expose their business like this? My second meeting I was starting to catch on and see that everyone was engaged and plays an important role in their position. We just went over second quarter, not quite finalized yet, yet very good! It was awesome seeing everyone get excited and knowing they played a strong role in that success!” ~ Debra Ashe, Optician
MiniGame™ Spotlight:
The practice is made up of four departments—Clinic, Optical, Business Office, and Front Office—and each of them have run MiniGames of their own. In the Clinic department, for example, they played a game focused on OPTOS %—an optional retinal photo that costs patients extra money. That rate stood at 65% in 2016, but thanks to the MiniGame, they’ve boosted it to 95% in 2019. The optical department has been particularly successful running MiniGames—and winning them—as their success rate has been more than 90% in the MiniGames they’ve played even when they’ve had big stretch goals.
“GGOB has impacted me by making me realize how we allocate our professional and product fees monthly and throughout the year. It has also allowed me to learn how to spend appropriately. In addition, it has made me much more aware of how to budget my personal finances at home.” ~ Ursula Gresham, Certified Optician
What’s Next?
In the next year, Dr. Sobchuk would like to see the team get better at forecasting further out into the future—going beyond monthly and even quarterly projections and thinking in terms of the total impact for the year and beyond. She’s also excited to begin involving more of the team in their strategic goal setting through the High-Involvement Planning™ planning process. “I want to see what thoughts and insights they have on where they see us going into the future and how our profits are going to help fuel us to get there,” says Dr. Sobchuk.
“GGOB has helped me understand financial terms better. It has also encouraged me to organize my personal finances so that I am on track to reach my current financial goals.” ~ Melissa Shelton, Certified Paraoptometric
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