You can have the best inventory, sleek branding, and top-tier location—but if your team isn’t engaged, motivated, and trusted, your optical retail business will struggle.
In this episode of Revenue RX: Optical Retail Wins, I uncover one of the most overlooked drivers of optical success: valued employees. If your only revenue source is the customer, then your biggest asset is the employee—the one who interacts with that customer.
This episode is a blueprint for how to hire, engage, and empower the right people—and why attitude, not just skills and knowledge, is the real currency of success in your store.
Attitude Trumps Everything: Hiring for Success
Most businesses hire based on skills and experience—but what really predicts success is attitude.
I reference the Carnegie Triangle Study, which revealed:
✔️ 15% of success comes from skills and knowledge
✔️ 85% of success comes from attitude
So why do we keep hiring based on résumés instead of mindset?
Skills can be taught. Knowledge can be gained. But attitude—drive, ambition, discipline, focus, and enthusiasm—is what fuels real performance.
Instead of rushing to fill a gap with whoever’s available, take the time to assess whether a candidate has the right outlook, energy, and values. One poor hire can derail morale, customer experience, and ultimately your bottom line.
Engagement = Performance
Let’s face it: happy, supported employees perform better.
If someone enjoys coming to work, understands their purpose, and feels aligned with the business’s goals, they’ll naturally contribute more, stay longer, and provide better customer service.
Here’s the secret to employee engagement:
✔️ Understand their personal goals—not just their work tasks.
✔️ Align those goals with the objectives of the business.
✔️ Give them autonomy and ownership in how they contribute.
If your team understands why their work matters—to both the business and their own lives—they’ll go the extra mile.
Culture Isn’t Just for Big Companies
Even if you have one store and a handful of employees, culture matters. Culture shapes how your team behaves, how they treat customers, and how your business is perceived in the community.
Culture is built by:
✔️ Attitude-led leadership
✔️ Clarity of purpose
✔️ Daily actions that reflect shared values
It doesn’t have to be fancy—but it has to be intentional. When everyone buys in, you create a space that attracts loyal customers and keeps great people.
Act Like an Owner—Even if You’re Not One
When I started in optical retail, I had no experience. But what I had was attitude—I acted like an owner. I learned the business from the inside out and discovered that the reverse was also true:
Employees need to act like owners.
When employees understand that everything matters—from the dust on the display shelf to the tone of voice at the front desk—they start to take ownership of their performance.
Here’s how to help your employees think like owners:
✔️ Involve them in decisions
✔️ Give them visibility into the business
✔️ Ask them to find solutions, not just execute tasks
✔️ Reinforce that their actions affect the future of the business
When people take pride in the business, they protect it, promote it, and improve it.
Marketing Is What Your Team Does Every Day
You can invest thousands in marketing, branding, and ad placement—but all of it can be undone by one bad customer interaction.
Customers don’t separate the person at the front desk from your Facebook campaign—they see one brand. That’s why every employee is an extension of your marketing strategy.
✔️ Treat your employees like your brand ambassadors
✔️ Make sure they understand how their actions affect perception
✔️ Recognize that the customer experience is the most powerful form of marketing you have
A great team member can generate more loyalty than any billboard ever could.
Final Thoughts: Employees Are Your Brand
If the customer is your only source of revenue, then the employee is the engine that drives it. Hiring right, engaging consistently, and empowering your people will make or break your success.
In this episode, I break down:
✔️ Why attitude is more valuable than experience
✔️ How to build engagement by aligning personal and business goals
✔️ The importance of culture—even in a small store
✔️ Why your employees must act like owners
✔️ How every touchpoint is marketing in disguise
If you want your business to grow, you need employees who are in it for more than just a paycheck. You need people who believe in the mission, own their role, and reflect the brand every single day.
Ready to build a team that drives real results? Tune in to this episode of Revenue RX: Optical Retail Wins and find out how to transform your staff into your greatest competitive advantage.
And in the next episode, we’ll dive into Profiling the Optical Customer—because knowing your team is only half the story. You’ve got to know who you’re selling to next.
Joseph Mireault
Joseph Mireault, Optical Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Published Author.
Joseph was the owner and president at Tru-Valu Optical and EyeWorx for 16 years. During his tenure, he consistently generated a sustainable $500K in annual gross revenue from the dispensary.
He now focuses on the Optical industry, and as a serial entrepreneur brings extensive experience from a variety of different ventures.
Joseph is also a Certified FocalPoint Business Coach and looks to work directly with ECPs in achieving their goals.
Through his current endeavour, the (Revenue RX, Optical Retail Wins podcast) he shares the challenges and solutions of running an Optical business.
His insights are shared with optical business owners aspiring for greater success in his new book, “An Entrepreneur’s Eye Care Odyssey: The Path to Optical Retail Success.”
