CIBA specialist magic act

For the latest in CIBA's regular contact lens specialist CET days, held recently in Swindon, professional services manager Ron Loveridge assembled an eclectic mix of speakers.

The morning was taken up by Dr Gary Gerber, an optometrist from the US who has a growing reputation in consulting with professionals to help them promote better their skills and services. The fact that he has a second string to his bow as a skilled magician became immediately obvious as he, after briefly showing a pair of spectacles containing what he described as the 'latest in lightweight lenses', made the spectacles levitate.

This was the first of a hatful of tricks which must be the envy of many a presenter as they seek the best way to keep an audience attentive at those difficult pre-lunch moments of distraction. His first main point was to emphasise that the real value of the eye care practitioner was not in terms of the product they sell, but the less tangible aspects, such as, in the case of contact lenses, 'freedom from spectacles' 'positive body image', 'the latest technology' and so on.

Examples of bad marketing, he suggested, included Yellow Pages which offered little in the way of differentiating yourself from others. Far better were newer technologies, such as Outlook, that allow monthly calls to patients to remind them to dispose of their lenses. Texting the individual regarding a new product from which they might benefit was an example and, far from turning people away, had been found to be popular among his clients.