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Ensuring independent practices differentiate their offering to stand apart from their competitors was the principal message from Sight Care's 10th annual conference in Birmingham on Monday entitled 'Above the parapet'.

In a week when Tesco made its free eye examination offer permanent, Sight Care chairman Richard Petrie spoke about how increasing the cost of eye examinations had positively affected his practice's business. He advised practitioners to 'be brave', warning they would occasionally need to take risks and that 'sticking your head above the parapet clearly works'.

According to Sight Care chief executive Paul Surridge, virtually all the 676 pre-registered delegates attended the event at the Hilton Metropole hotel. Former British heptathlete Denise Lewis gave a motivational presentation, drawing similarities between the obstacles she overcame in her fight against injury before winning Olympic gold to those faced by practitioners in the recession.

In his 'Marketing freak' presentation, optometrist John Davidson from Newcastle gave advice on a range of marketing strategies such as the value of social networking sites and the type of customers Facebook might attract. Telling the audience that 62 per cent of the population were prepared to pay 20 per cent more for better service, he explained: 'That's the market we want to be in.'

In his presentation, optometrist Ian Thompson gave recommendations on how to engage with patients and how to 'set your practice as being a little bit different'. He also warned attendees over not fighting multiples such as Specsavers 'in their area, but in our area'.

Surridge used the event to announce the launch this month of a national PR campaign to support Sight Care members entitled 'Eye love my local independent optician'.

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