A neat symmetry seemed to have occurred 11 or so years ago when Nick Atkins and David Goad came up with Independent’s Day which took place on July the 4th, Independence Day, the USA’s eponymous holiday.
Independent’s Day did not just turn out to be a serendipitous date in the diary but an event of its time. But nothing lasts forever. Audiences at the event began to shrink and, as the UK’s optical exhibition calendar began to mushroom, it decided to join forces with the National Eyecare Group and its autumn conference.
This allows the mini-exhibition, both had at their events, to be shared and the travel for delegates to be reduced. And it worked. More than 260 delegates signed up for iDay and its How to be a Retail Champion theme.
Controlling the controllable, choosing your direction and sticking to it and not stressing about things you have no control over were themes of iDay, so combining the events seemed an apt reaction to the changes in the market both events faced. That it should turn out to be more successful than its summer date was a bonus.
More than one of the speakers at iDay stressed that practices had to have the confidence to change and not take the view that change was for others. ‘It’s all right in your practices but it wouldn’t work where my practice is,’ Ian Cameron of Cameron Optometry puts it.
The framework for the day was built by Clare Bailey and her Ten Steps to Retails Success – taken from her book of the same name. A nice touch were instant polls throughout the day conducted on the smartphone app Slido.
Bailey said the niche for independent practices had to be predicated by an ethos of caring for everyone who came through the door.
In a rapid fire run through Bailey described the first seven steps which started by defining your goal and understanding the mission of the practice. This needed to be understood and lived by the whole team. Positioning then had to be set, who you are and what you do, Identifying customers came next, this also sense checked the first two steps. Next came more practical considerations. Step four took the topic of creating the range also driven by earlier steps. Next came implementing the pricing and policy to deliver and deciding on your location and channel to market. Step seven focused on customer engagement which covered everything from attracting customer to PR and store layout.
On the day 100 delegates got the chance to take Bailey’s book away. The detail of her course is available on dedicated training days.
For the remainder of iDay speakers took each of Bailey’s steps as a starting point and expanded in their own way.
Turning his eye to the future, Imran Hakim, founder of the Hakim Group, tried to counter some of the negativity around independent practice. His group has been grown by offering buyouts for retirees, phased growth or turnaround situations. The way Hakim worked was to take the back office tasks away so the practitioner could concentrate on the consulting room and dispensing area. Using the Slido app he asked delegates how optimistic they were about the next 10 years and found two thirds to be positive.
Looking to the future Hakim said companies like Uber, Air bnb and 1-800 contract lead the way but other disruptive technologies could come from the manufacturers looking at online options or ‘some kid with a clever idea’. Macro economic factors such as the weak pound or left field technologies like one-click shopping, contact lens booths in the high street or drone delivery were all in the mix.
Specsavers also presented an ever changing dynamic as it moved its focus from price point to professional services. ‘Here’s the scary thing,’ he said. Of the £72m spent on marketing in optics £52m is spent by Specsavers. ‘Perception is king when you have that kind of marketing budget,’ he added.
The dominance of digital devices and switched on millennials all point to the development of the omni-channel, combined internet and physical shopping, he said. That meant collecting customer data and feedback and using it intelligently.
From the future he looked to the past and Darwin’s thoughts. It is not the strongest or the most intelligent that succeed but the most adaptable.
Cameron of Cameron Optometry, Edinburgh, looked at the ideal patient for his talk about how to be repulsive. He said repulsing some people was good. ‘We, as a sector, are like chicken, bland, and that is a big problem for our industry,’ he said. Trying to be liked by everyone just does not work and will repel some people. Choosing who you want to repel and who you want to attract means taking control. Whether your thing is being kid-friendly or offering deconstructed flat white coffees to hipsters: ‘Do not be chicken, be repulsive.’
He suggested various routes. That may be creating an imaginary, ideal customer, someone who should fit in with your local clientele, and creating an experience they will love and want to pay for. Another approach may be the ‘field of dreams’, build it and they will come. Cameron Optometry has been transformed from a clinical contact lens practice into a clinical practice which exudes top end spectacle chic. Just 21 frames are on display, previously this was 450, others are in drawers. It creates an experience within which someone might spend £1,000, £2,000 or £5,000 on a pair of spectacles. ‘Being bland is unappealing, be deliberately repulsive, be positive.’
Introducing the next speaker Goad said it was possible for everyone to analyse their business. ‘It’s important to understand who you are attracting.’
Conor Heaney, of Jones and Co Styling Opticians, Manchester, took range plan and stock delivery as his topic. He used the Slido quiz app to ask delegates their approach to buying stock: 65% admitted to no clear process and 20% having no strategy at all. ‘This is so because we have no training in stock control,’ he said. When eye care professionals make the decision to go into business the onus is on them to learn. When Heaney revealed his average dispense at £800 the audience seemed keen to know more.
He said practices had to accept reality. ‘If someone buys glasses from you, you earn money. Work from there rather than worry about things you can’t change.’ He suggested thing about what the customer wants and providing it. ‘Apple takes a boring product and changes how the world feels about it.’ It gives them a good feeling, he concluded. Excuses also need to be avoided he said pointing out how luxury car dealers manage to make a living in Oldham, the most deprived area of the country. ‘Take your existing clients and multiply the value of them,’ he added before suggesting places to find differentiated products (overseas trade shows) and setting price points (using contrasts to raise prices up). Other techniques include keeping cheaper products off display, not providing too many options but going deep into the lines you do carry.
Echoing the day’s theme of control the controllables he concluded: ‘I can control stock, the environment and the price.’ Then it is all about the process.
One of the features of iDay is its parallel tracks. While the main room heard more about pricing and promotional policy and customer engagement three workshops were on offer. A Hoya sponsored session on visual merchandising with Sarah Manning proved particularly popular. Manning, who has worked for clients such as Harvey Nichols and Selfridges. Delegates heard how chains consistently followed the independents but independents’ personality was one area they could not follow. The embodiment of that personality is the practice window. Manning described how the window should be changed every four weeks and ideally link through to a hotspot area within the practice. She ran through various shapes: a symmetrical pyramid which leads the eye to the top and the asymmetrical pyramid which leads the eye to the bottom end of its long side. The highest price point product should live in these spots.
She showed how themes are great but props should not overshadow the product, repetition in groups also works, but only in odd numbers and how alternating groups, patterns and colours can also be employed. Messages should always be lifted up to eye level. Planning is important. Have a calendar based around seasonal events also look to company reps to source props or help out with funding.
The variety of windows is huge so its shape and use also has to be thought through. Often shop fitters design customer seating in the window area which is a poor use of space, if your window is narrow and tall suspend banners and posters from the ceiling. Make sure lighting is appropriate and highlights the key products and mirrors the shape of the display. For ideas use the whole team and websites such as Pinterest.
Back in the main room David Samuel was addressing the topic of customer engagement. This concluded that emotional fulfilment and having a great experience were the drivers behind customer satisfaction. His firm, Eyesite, wanted to go one step further and delight customers. To this end it has a discretionary spend staff can make to achieve this based on a scheme run by the hotel chain Ritz Carlton. He described moments of truth where individual staff have to decide if they are going to help the customer and how. He suggested the use of net promoter score monitoring to see how well the practice is performing. The key elements were to define your proposition, wow your customers, engage the whole team then measure and modify to maximise performance.
Bailey brought the day to a conclusion by concluding her 10 steps: explaining the importance of suppliers, accessing and using information and managing the back office systems such as HR, legal, finance and IT. She said one of the biggest threats to business was people having ideas but not seeing them through.
This was not before a panel of the day’s speakers took a range of questions from the Slido survey tool.
Two questions seemed to sum up the day and they both touched on the NHS. One asked how Cameron’s top end model fitted in with clinical excellence, but he was clear. ‘My clinical offering will always be great but the retail has been improved to match it. I used to say all those things about why I couldn’t do better retail, but I was wrong, all practices can. The two fit together so neatly. What could be better than having a great retail experience alongside an excellent clinical practice?’
Taking on the question ‘Is the NHS eye exam in danger of being discontinued?’ Hakim pointed out that the cost of eye care to the NHS for those over the age 70 triples. ‘It’s almost impossible for the NHS to fund eye care in the way it does now,’ he said.
‘The independent sector has a bright future,’ said Goad, it’s not failing but practitioners need to learn more about running an effective business and they need to seek help. The day had shown how that could be achieved and that was by taking control over the things within your power and not stressing over those things outside it.