The Mom and Pop Business Meme Must Die
I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s spread across Facebook and the rest of the internet like a plague. Every time I see it angers me. And it astounds me to see the people that perpetuate it. When you buy from a small “mom and pop” business, you are not helping a CEO buy a third vacation home. You are helping a little girl get dance lessons, a little boy get his team jersey, a mom or dad put food on the table, a family pay a mortgage, or a student pay for college. Our customers are our shareholders, and THEY are the ones we strive to make happy. Thank you for supporting small...
Read MoreA Great Idea to Take Your Optical Viral
Chances are you are struggling to get much traction with your social media efforts. Many ECPs are getting involved in social media, but it seems the overwhelming majority are still having a hard time figuring out how to best utilize it. You do have social media efforts right? Anyway, about six weeks ago, I came up with a viral idea to not only drive social media engagement for ECPs, but increase in-store activity as well. I started to put together an article and then well, it got put on the back burner. Last Friday, I came across an ECP already implementing it! So, now I feel a little late...
Read MoreHigh Plus Aspheric Lenticulars Available Again
About three months ago, Essilor and Signet Armorlite (AKA Essilor), the only major manufacturers of high plus aspheric lenticulars discontinued production both single vision and bifocals. For those of you unfamiliar, high plus lenticulars have often been prescribed for patients with aphakia. Aphakia is a condition where a patient’s eye is missing the lens. Aphakia can occur as a from a congential defect, injury, or most often as a result of cataract surgery. Used to obtain a steeper curve than would normally be possible while still fitting into a frame, the lenticular is formed by placing...
Read MoreMay Is Healthy Vision Month
In addition to May Day, May the Fourth (Star Wars Day), Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, and my wife’s birthday, May is also Healthy Vision Month. Millions of people live with undetected vision problems, eye diseases, and chronic conditions. Healthy Vision Month was created to promote eye health, the importance of eye exams for the early detection and treatment of various diseases, and proper eye safety practices. Below is a list of conditions that can be uncovered during an eye exam. Common Eye Diseases: • Cataracts • Glaucoma • Macular Degeneration • Retinal...
Read MoreScrewing Up: Your Chance To Shine
I recently came across this post on Google+. Shocking service from an optician who has just sent me an email saying please don’t post negative things about us as it drives small businesses to the wall… then please get your act together and start delivering what you promise… This optician chose not to shine. He failed to listen to his customer’s complaint and shifted blame, caring only about how her comments affected his business. Really? A better move would have been to apologize (even of the customer is off base), then offer to take conversation offline to make things...
Read MoreComplaints Are a Gift
Not long ago, an optician customer began to notice a consistent problem with prism in our freeform product. The deviations were only around a two to three degrees and maybe .25 diopters. His patients hadn’t noticed, but the fact that he was seeing the problem only in freeform, and that it was occurring consistently made him uneasy. He brought the problem to our attention and we began to look into it. We had no other complaints nor were we seeing anything on our end. But this optician, like so many of our customers, is among the best at what he does and we respect his expertise. He...
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