I’m sitting in another airport, this time in Brussels after a flash visit to the Netherlands and Belgium. I have a fantastic new sales rep who needed my help to restart our business in Benelux.
Back in January 2020, we were wishing the husband-and-wife team that had looked after the Netherlands for me since we launched, a happy retirement. The new team was in place to take over and, while it was sad, we celebrated their accomplishments in helping us grow the territory into a fantastic business. A few months later, Covid hits. The Brexit honeymoon period was over and the replacements for my team decided now was not the time to start something new, and they quit.
I lost the Benelux market almost overnight and despite my best efforts, we were unable to restart it. Optics really is a people-led business and as I think Feargal Sharkey once sang, ‘a good rep these days is hard to find.’ Something like that anyway.
So, I found myself, at 4am, heading to the airport last Wednesday for three days of intensive touring. Unlike my trip to the US last month, where I was visiting my best and greatest accounts, meeting customers of 16 years and generally feeling like an optical rock star, this trip could probably be billed as the ‘apologise and grovel’ tour.
It has been said that ‘you don’t get a second chance with an optician’, but generally I find this not to be true because I’m on third, fourth and fifth chances in some cases. As I visited my old accounts, including some who had been at my bespoke launch event in 2007, I found myself among friends. It was heart-warming. During the afternoon, I had seen nine opticians and we had restarted with all of them. One more to go.
As I knew I had a deadline today for this column, I had planned to write about the beautiful stores in the Netherlands. The design philosophy of optical practices here is, in my opinion, the best in the world. I had been in one store where the owner had a hotel designer work on their fit out, and another practice was designed by a boat builder. None of the stores were designed with traditional optical retail fitting companies and, as a result, have a unique and friendly feel about them. Like I said, I was going to write all about this but right now I’m in the airport nursing my ego.
My last appointment was with the owner of three stores. I was already counting the value of the order before I went through the door, but after one hour chatting, the owner said: ‘Well, Mr Davies, we like you, we like the bespoke concept, but we don’t like your frames anymore.’ ‘Well, that was a bit brutal,’ I thought. The owner then proceeded to show me another brand and asked me to design ‘frames like this’.
I believed I was in my rights to flounce out the door in a huff and at first, I wanted to tell him that his store needed a refit and frankly wasn’t nearly as nice as some of the others I had seen during the past three days. But I didn’t because it wasn’t true. It was another beautiful store that made me want to get my camera out for inspiration.
My main consideration was my new sales rep. He visited 90 opticians in the first month of service and is already my third best rep from a standing start. I was there to support him and educate him on bespoke. Unlike me, he was totally unfazed by the optician’s comments. He told me that they will order in January, no problem. That’s a great attitude for a sales rep.
Us Brits are great at apologising, and I can say I’ve dished out some historic platonics this week that were good enough to get me on Boris Johnson’s honours list. Also, I knew what the optician meant about my collection. Their frame stock was definitely on the quirky side but that doesn’t mean I don’t like a challenge. Obviously, I should not change direction because of one comment but there is no point going out to listen to the market and then not listening.
I’ll be back in January to get that order and while I’m there, I’ll snap some photos of these beautiful stores and share them with Optician when I finally write about beautiful and inspirational retail design.