FOR INDEPENDENT OPTOMETRISTS
You've spent years building a practice. The question is whether you've been building an asset.
Most owner-doctors work in the business every day and on it almost never. I help independent optometrists grow revenue, build a practice that doesn't depend on them, and understand what it's actually worth.
A 30-minute Practice Value Conversation. No charge, no obligation. I'm not a broker and I don't sell practices.The number you know, and the number you don’t
You can almost certainly tell me what the practice collected last month.
Far fewer owners can tell me what the practice is worth — or which of this year's decisions will change that number. That's a reasonable way to run things, right up until it isn't: a partner buyout, a health event, an unsolicited offer, or the year you decide you're ready for something else. By then the number is already set, because value is built slowly and priced instantly.
Meanwhile the day-to-day never lets up. There's no natural moment to step back and work on the business, because the business needs you in the chair.
That gap is the work I do.
Where I work
GROW THE TOP LINE
Demand Generation
More new patients, a stronger revenue mix, and more of the revenue you've already earned the right to.
Patient acquisition and referral strategy
Positioning and messaging patients and caregivers actually understand
Vision therapy evaluation-to-enrollment conversion
Optical and specialty contact lens capture
MAKE IT RUN WITHOUT YOU
Operational Excellence
Systems, sequence, and accountability, so results stop depending on who's on shift.
Program completion and patient follow-through
Front-desk scripts and handoffs
Role clarity and delegation
AI-assisted workflow and admin reduction
KNOW THE NUMBER
Exit Readiness
What the practice is worth, what moves that number, and why the work starts long before the conversation does.
Valuation range and earnings normalization
Owner-dependence reduction plan
Concentration and revenue-mix risk
Buyer-readiness roadmap
Most owners come to me for one of these and find the other two attached to it. Growing revenue usually needs better systems, and both of them change what the practice is worth.
How engagements start
FIRST CONVERSATION
Practice Value Conversation
No charge
Thirty minutes, five questions. You leave with a clearer read on where the practice stands, whether or not we end up working together.
TWO WEEKS
Practice Value Diagnostic
$1,500
A review of your financials, operations, and demand engine. You get a valuation range and the three to five levers that move it most, delivered live with a written summary.
NINETY DAYS
Focused Sprint
From $6,000
One area, executed. Bi-weekly working sessions, defined deliverables, and a single measurable outcome we agree on before we start. Scoped after the diagnostic, because no two practices need the same work.
The diagnostic fee is credited in full against any sprint booked within thirty days. If we don't go forward, you still know what your practice is worth — which is more than most owners can say.
I know this field
I've served on the advisory board of 4D Vision Gym, a behavioral optometry and vision therapy practice in Cheshire, Connecticut, since 2024.
Since 2025 I've supported Vision to Venture, the program for optometrists building and scaling vision therapy programs — working alongside practice owners on the business side of what they're building.
This isn't a category I read about. It's one I've been working in for two years.
“Nicole brings a level of strategic thinking that’s hard to find in our field. She has a unique ability to see both the patient and the business at the same time, asking the questions that change the direction of the conversation and helping you build a practice that’s not only meaningful to your patients but also sustainable and valuable for the long term. I’d recommend her to any optometrist looking for strategic clarity and a stronger foundation for growth.”
Nicole Malcolm-Manyara, Principal & FounderWhy me, for this
I've spent most of my career on brands changing hands — acquired, integrated, and sold. You learn quickly what a buyer pays for and what they quietly discount.
I'm not a broker and I don't sell practices. My work is the years before that conversation: building earnings that hold up under scrutiny, and a business that doesn't evaporate when the owner steps back.
Some of that was global brands moving between owners. At Procter & Gamble I worked on Gillette and Oral-B immediately after they were acquired, through change of control and full integration, and on Duracell through its sale to Berkshire Hathaway.
Some of it was the opposite, and much closer to your world. In P&G's incubator I worked on the acquisition of local car washes and dry cleaners — small, owner-run service businesses — and helped rebuild them into the Mr. Clean Car Wash and Tide Dry Cleaners franchises. Taking a business that depends entirely on the person who owns it and making it work without them is the same problem you have.
Since then: Chief Marketing Officer at Newman's Own, brand leadership at organicgirl, and consulting work spanning Fortune 500 food and personal care businesses down to startups raising their first round. Wharton BS in Economics, Stanford MBA. Based in Stamford, Connecticut.
There’s a reason I chose this field
When my daughter was four, she was diagnosed with several vision problems. We went through a twelve-week at-home vision therapy program — Dr. Collier's program — and it resolved them. I watched something I'd never heard of change the way my child sees the world.
Then I watched how hard it is for the practices doing that work to be taken seriously, get paid properly, and build something that lasts. I can't do what you do. But I know what the business around it is worth, and I've spent twenty-five years learning how to build that.
Questions I get asked
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No. I'm not a broker, I don't represent buyers, and I don't take a cut of any transaction. If you ever do sell, that's a conversation with a broker or an attorney. My work is everything that happens in the years before — which is what actually determines the number you'd be offered.
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The first conversation is free. The diagnostic is $1,500 and is credited in full against any sprint booked within thirty days. Sprints start at $6,000 and are scoped after the diagnostic, once I know what the work actually is.
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I came to this field as a parent first. My daughter went through a twelve-week at-home vision therapy program at four years old and it resolved her vision problems entirely. I've served on the advisory board of a behavioral optometry practice since 2024 and supported the Vision to Venture program for optometrists since 2025. I understand vision therapy economics, the evaluation-to-enrollment problem, and why completion rates matter more than most owners think. I'm not a clinician and won't pretend to be.
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I ask five questions about revenue, constraints, what breaks when you're away, and where you want the practice to be in five years. I take notes. Near the end I tell you the one thing I'd focus on first. Thirty minutes, and you're not obligated to anything.
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Most of the owners I talk to aren't. The work that makes a practice sellable — predictable revenue, systems that run without you, less dependence on any single relationship — is the same work that makes it a better business to own. The valuation lens is just the clearest way to see which decisions actually matter.
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An agency executes tactics you've already decided on. I work on which decisions to make and in what order, and whether marketing is even your constraint. Often it isn't — sometimes the problem is that the patients you already have aren't finishing what they started.
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes, five questions, and a clearer picture of where your practice stands.
No charge, no obligation, and nothing to prepare.
A 30-minute Practice Value Conversation. I'm not a broker and I don't sell practices.