People, purpose and passion were the themes of this week’s Sight Care Conference in Birmingham which heard some useful tips on changing patients behaviour and tapped into an air of confidence about business prospects.
Despite a packed programme of optical events Sight Care secured good turnout for its annual business conference. Chairman Gavin Rebello reported the rising pressure in his is own Essex-based business barometer –White Van Man. He said the surfeit of white vans was a sure sign that people were busy. He warned practices to be on their guard and not to allow boom times to put planning on the back burner. ‘It’s busy out there right now and there are a lot of people wanting to buy, it’s easy to get sucked into that.’
Paul Surridge, Sight Care chief executive, marked SC’s silver jubilee by thanking the organisation’s founding fathers. He also took the temperature of the audience through an instantaneous voting mechanism. In the room 65 per cent agreed that they felt this year would be positive for their business. Sight Care’s I Love my Local Optician also scored well with 77 per cent believing it was a positive factor for their practice.
Surridge said the last few years have been tough on independents but things are definitely getting better. ’There’s a growing trend of optimism for Independents and for retail generally.’ He said the UK economy would grow faster this year than any other western economy outside of the US. ‘We have to focus on our customers,’ he added.
Read the full report from the conference here.