Dr. Jennifer Tabiza, Business Coach/Optometrist/Co Founder

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Well, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Tabiza to the Built by People podcast. Jennifer, thank you so much for having us today. Thank you for having me.

Excited to be here. That's a starting question. And love to ask a little bit more about you and your career journey. What got you here?

Oh, boy. Well, it all started when I was a little child. And I had a fascination with eyeballs. So I used to cut out eyes from magazines and make collages of eyeballs, which naturally led to me becoming an optometrist.

And that was the first stepping stone of my career. I didn't think I'd have more than that, but I apparently did. I love optometry, but I also have a passion for fixing problems, creating solutions, bringing people together, networking. I had all these other desires.

So I started to build my entrepreneurial journey based off my passions, which is what I now coach people to do. So I have a practice. I'm an optometrist and a practice owner. Then I expanded into an adjacent industry, which is the med spa industry.

I have a medical spa. I did start a tech company. It's called Dr. Contact Lens.

We automate contact lens sales for optometrists. I also started an event company for tech companies so that when we go to trade shows, we can be really effective with our reach. So we would host events together that were really fun and engaging. And then the final chapter so far is my consulting coaching business.

So I help other people launch their brand, launch their business, convert to a med spa, whatever they want. I have a whole bunch of tools in my toolbox. So that's what I do. I know it's not short, but that's it.

But it's perfect. It's a good lead-in. And that this question might be a little bit difficult because now it's going to be in which category is this focused in, right? But what are some of the top priorities for you right now against maybe all of it or just a couple of them?

I've spent the last over 15 years building businesses and brands and have learned an exponential amount. So I'm in the chapter of my life where I'm really focused on helping bring those skills to others who are looking to do the same thing as a coach, as a consultant. I always say both because coaching is your mindset and consultant and strategy. And I believe you really need both to build a strong business.

So, you know, what's the mindset you need around it? One thing every entrepreneur has in common is we're not as risk adverse as others. And it's how you build that mindset of resilience, of believing in yourself and believing in whatever you're building. And, you know, of course, then you need the strategy.

You need the market research. You want to always follow your passion, but you also want to see what people want. There's kind of this middle ground that helps you become successful. Nothing I built was just to build it.

It was out of my own desire and they all branched from optometry. Everything I did branched from optometry. My primary zone of genius, you could call it. I think a lot of people have that.

So if you keep building off that, it's easy for you, which is great. The strategy part comes in is when you think of the product market fit, right? Where does it end up and how do people get it and see it? And will they engage with it and how will they engage with it?

So that's really the era I'm in is bringing assistance to others, bringing coaching to others, bringing skills to others, strategy as a coach. I wish there was a word that blended coach and consultant because I think that's more what I am. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, OK, so I'm thinking through initiatives that you've rolled out. right? And obviously you've got multiple, multiple different channels, right? From just an employee perspective, company perspective.

Has there been a certain initiative that maybe you've rolled out at, maybe you've actually done it at all of them, where you've been able to get the employees to kind of see that vision, see that strategy and get them to buy into what it is you guys are trying to achieve And is there is it one where it it worked at all of them or has it been kind of like oh I had to change and adapt to that employee base based upon the initiative or the goals of that company I run my businesses in a very specific way.

I spend a lot of time nourishing my employees and also making sure that their zone of genius matches the job that they are fulfilling and that it feels like a career to them, not just a job, right? That it feels like something you're working towards. And that does lead to a lot of turnover, a lot of looking for new people. I finesse teams for years, honestly, and get them to a really strong point.

And that's usually when I scale. And that isn't the mentality of every business. You know, everyone wants to scale from the get go. But I believe in building a strong foundation and having a good understanding of who are these people in your business.

And then you can grow actually a lot faster together. It's not so much that I didn't try to grow right away, but specifically in my practices, the med spa and my eye care business especially these are very personal businesses and so is my tech company it's full of customer support it's full of it it's full of one-on-one communication training on using the tech all that good stuff so we have spent a lot of time actually really figuring that out because at the end of the day when your competitors come to the market that's all you can stand on is the people it's you know anyone can do the tech eventually right We were out first with Dr.

Contact Lens and we had fast followers and some had better. Well, I wouldn't say anyone had a better tech, but some had decent tech. Some had pretty parallel tech, you know. And so where do you stand out in the end?

And so if you really took the time to build your people up and we invest in coaches, we invest in consultants, we invest in time and meetings and the simplest things like having a weekly meeting actually changes your business. so i would say that's generally my approach in keeping people motivated is make sure there's somewhere they're supposed to be because when you force people into position they're never going to be passionate about it well well and actually thinking through that right because again i keep bringing it up because you're so well versed in many different vertical areas right you're not just a doctor right you're also a tech leader you're also running these other components so And each one of those has different people that you hire.

That's true. Is there a certain mindset or behavior that you've seen consistently and maybe the high performers that you've probably intentionally surrounded yourself with? Yes, absolutely. The number one thing you want to look for in an employee or a business partner is somebody who responds quickly to texts, to emails, to messages.

Busy people respond the fastest. and by busy, I mean people busy making their lives better, right? So if you're unemployed, you're still working, looking for jobs. You are working out.

You are working on your mindset. You're working on who you are as a person. If you are looking for a business partner, somebody who is constantly responding to you, one of the worst things that breaks down a company is communication. So if you have poor communicators, you're going to have a business that's very hard to manage.

And I notice it right away, even in just from the very get-go, confirming the interview and responding to an email. How long did it take for you to respond to the email? You're not even employed, right? So let's see what you got.

That shows people's desire, but it's also sort of one of those things. Some people have it and some people find it really challenging and they want to be maybe more behind the scenes person. I'm not sure, but I do think that in general, people are looking for a position with a good company. That's one of the top ways you can stand out is be a strong communicator.

Totally. No, I think that's a huge piece because, yeah, that's one of the biggest things we found is communication is that ultimate key that either unlocks or locks doors for companies. And that's both internally and externally. And again, you've talked a lot about just a customer service aspect.

If you have sole customer service, ooh, that hurts a brand real fast. Oh, yeah. So thinking through some of that, right, and thinking through, obviously, those employees, how do you build, like, a strong personal and organizational brand, really, in today's landscape, right, in that leadership space? And I think personal brands right now are the new age of like the tech boom, right?

Now we have personal brand boom. And it's been going on for a minute. It's nothing very new, especially if you're looking for an autonomous career. Building who you are as an individual has actually become such a way to monetize yourself over time.

First, people have to get to know you and then they'll start to trust everything you recommend, right? You know, this is not probably brand new information, but you gotta be visible. You gotta be out there. You have to be making content constantly every day You have to be dedicated You have to really voice yourself consistently there are marketing coaches that i worked with that suggested being online every single day if not more and some of these things sound arduous to people but listen we're all working right it's just what do you do when you're working and it's just a form of work and try to shift people's mindset about thinking of it that way because the new age of work is that everybody gets to market themselves.

We're in that era. You know, think of like 20 years ago. It wasn't that easy to just market yourself, get yourself visible, get yourself online, get yourself a following. So we're in that time.

The only way people can see you is if you're out there. And if you're out there, somebody will see you and somebody will resonate with you. It's not about necessarily having millions of people following your brand. Sometimes you can have a very successful business with a small niche community supporting your brand.

So yeah, I think visibility is tough for people. They don't always understand the efforts of it because it's not monetizable directly. You know what I mean? When you go online, it's not like you're making money from that video clip.

So people don't understand how the trickle effect happens. But when I started my coaching business, I basically started it overnight, right? I built my website. I built my socials.

I started posting every single day consistently. within a couple of weeks, there it goes, there goes my strategy call started. And so it's because people saw me and they were like, oh, I keep seeing you. And you hear that very often.

I keep seeing you. Like, I know that's the purpose. Yeah. You've got to be in front of them, right?

I mean, it's so easy to, unfortunately, I'm going to say it this way, be forgotten, right? Because they're being bombarded every day by multiple different channels. And it's whoever's in front you most seems to win. Absolutely.

Yeah. You have to sort of let go of your content being not seen. I think that's another thing is like people make content. They're like, no one saw it.

I'm like, that's just part of the game. It just got to keep going. Some are going to land, some won't, right? Exactly.

Well, okay. So I'm excited to kind of hear your opinion here. So when you think about building something lasting, how have you approached scaling and building those organizations that are standing the test of time, that are going beyond the two, three, five-year mark? Well, it's going to be sort of a spiritual answer.

The answer is resilience because I don't know of any company that doesn't ebb and flow. I don't know of any company that doesn't hit disaster points and super successful points. It is the goal to get a really steady business that doesn't have as much fluctuation. I think everyone wants that.

But is it reality? Not exactly. I think that the tolerance you build as a leader to understand that those slower moments actually do give you a time to look at your systems, meet with your employees, figure out all those little things you don't have time for when you're running a million miles a minute. And if you can keep that cadence as a leader of your company, you will keep it going.

You'll keep it growing. And it's when you sort of shrink in disaster that I think that companies fail or trip or don't make it. So that's really where mindset comes in. And that's, I think, anybody running a business has to work on their mindset, continuously read books, continuously read books by other smarter people, leaders, business owners.

And I fill my brain with that as much as I can. And I do couple it with spiritual purpose. Because if you don't love it, or you don't find a reason for bringing your voice to the world, then you also kind of tap out energetically. So I don't tend to get burned out very much because I like what I do.

I like it. I like that. That's, yeah, I actually think that advice is perfect because I think so many people can, they get so caught up on the growth rates, right? Which again, you have to, everyone has to, I'm not discouraging that or saying that's not the right way, but that time to slow when it, when it is slow, let's do a quick reevaluation.

Are we, do we have the right tools? Is, is this something we need to maybe adapt or change? Or is it just, Hey, is it a cyclical cycle of this buyer? Right.

And every vertical and every product has that in some capacity. So yeah, I think that's really big for leaders to be able to understand that. This one, I'm excited to hear this from a leadership perspective. What is one leadership, thinking for advice for all the listeners and everyone out there, right?

What is one leadership behavior that you should start or stop this week? So one of the most avoidant behaviors people have that run businesses is inspecting the work of some of your key people in your business sales specifically So inspect the work, inspect the results. If you don't inspect it, you cannot understand your business. And most of us don't have time to necessarily do this on the regular.

but you do have to find time to check in and actually understand how things are working, actually watch sales calls, actually give feedback. And it kind of goes ties into everything else I've really been saying in this, which is your people, your communication, all of that. However, I guess I'm just really ironing in that, you know, idea more. There is a concept that I use with especially people that are in higher positions in my companies.

I do what's called a self-graded report card. So I will make the report card. I have all the little areas of, you know, things they're responsible for. And I ask them to grade themselves and I tell them, I'll grade you after.

And what's very interesting about that is that people suddenly want to impress you, right? They want to show you they're doing well and it puts it in there. it puts the ball in their court in terms of their own success and driving their own success. A lot of people, when they work for other companies, sometimes they can lose sight of what they're building because it's not theirs.

So you have to make it theirs by showing them that, you know, my paper, my name might be on the business of who owns this company. However, the way that this company is even offering you a piece of it is that you're in it and you're an important part of it and you have to help it grow. Otherwise it won't exist, right? So you have to sort of really be in tune.

And the less you're in tune, genuinely, I think it's a little bit harder to be successful. Maybe you're lucky and you can ignore all those things and still have, you know, forward momentum. But, you know, I think this is the dull and boring parts of running a business that no one really wants to do, but it changes your business if you actually do it. Yeah.

You know, I've had somebody in our office sit this lot, shavings make a pile, right? And it's all those little shavings that do create that success, right? And yes, it's not fun. It's not the thing you're hoping.

You're not closing the million dollar deal. It's the getting in front of this customer over here and figuring out what did they need that we can pull into 1,500 other clients that we have that would make sense. So now I like that. It's being in the weeds, unfortunately.

Yeah, it is. That's kind of what you have to be. Yeah. Well, I have one final question for you, right?

Okay. If you could leave one piece of advice for the community, everybody listening, that maybe you wish you knew earlier in your career, what would that be? What would you care? well this isn't something i wish i knew earlier this is something i i actually just know naturally that always works for me so i'll kind of share that which is act on it now whatever it is you know there's something called divine inspiration and i believe in it there is something that happens to our bodies when we feel inspired to start a project to launch something to put it out in the world.

I have a particular client I'm thinking of who's absolutely brilliant. She has an unbelievable service that she offers that's extremely unique, but she has analysis paralysis. She won't get her stuff online because it's not perfect enough, right? And so she passed the phase of divine inspiration where she got the jolt and she made all the content.

She's not putting it on because she didn't continue going. So you have to keep this momentum of spark. If you're building something, you cannot drop the momentum at all. And you can't be afraid of it being wrong because you actually cannot evolve unless you put it out there.

So whether it's your website, whether it's your social media content, YouTube content, you know, people again with personal brands are especially making this kind of stuff. They tend to get stuck there the most. It's like a fear of putting your art out into the world and having it seen. But, you know, you have to desensitize yourself to it and realize you're in a sea of billions.

It's just a moment that people will see it and they'll receive it and that's it. They're going to move on with their life. So you could shift that moment or not. And most people overthink it too much.

So yeah, that would be it. Get it out. Act on it. Act on it now.

Yeah. I like that. Well, this has been awesome. And Dr.

Jennifer, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on the Built by People podcast today. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

Absolutely. Bye. Bye.