In most eye care practices, the type of frames that you display in your optical is “the face” of your practice. It is a reflection of the type of care you deliver and what your community feels about you. Typically, the optical is situated in the Front of the House a.k.a. the “public area of your business.”
There are a wide variety of strategies that can be employed in defining the products that you carry in your optical. Unfortunately, many practices are overwhelmed at this variety, can’t make decisions and ultimately neglect this critical area of their business. We either don’t manage it or outsource management to the frame reps or a management firm.
Do the math.
This should be an easy math problem to answer? How much more money would you make if your optical sales increased 20%? ___________ (Your answer)
If you have a practice that generates $1,000,000 per year and half of that comes from optical sales then your answer should be $100,000 more per year.
Not Easy - But Guaranteed
By paying attention to the mix of frames on your board to better reflect your practice’s personality, you will appreciate a significant increase in optical sales with the same number of patients….guaranteed.
Three (Not So) Easy Steps
Analyze Where You Are Now
Define Where You Want Your Optical to Go
Implement
One - Analyze Existing Optical Sales
Use whatever information that you have to get an overall view of how your optical is currently performing. Since there is such a wide range of tools available to give us this information, it is impossible to be specific about how to gather the data. At minimum, you need to know how much of your income comes from the sale of glasses, how much money you spent on those materials (Cost of Goods) and what percentage of your frame sales were from each of the following categories; Premium, Popular, and Junk.
A word about categories: At Leadership OD, we put all types of frames into 1 of 3 categories that allows us to simplify the rankings enough to effectively manage them. Use any ranking system you like, but be consistent. We recommend 3 - 5 categories.
Premium = Our highest quality frames, higher cost, kind of “funky”, extravagant
Popular = The brand names that everyone knows, easy to sell, moderate price point
Junk = Lower price points, great deals, lower quality
FACT: Profitability is worst in the “Popular” Frame category.
Two - Define Where You Want Your Optical to Go
Think about the personality of your practice. Decide if your culture is based on relationships, performance or cost. Think about the things you want your patients to say when describing the selection in your optical. Do you want them to talk about how the wide selection, the high quality or the affordability.
Define (by wholesale cost amount) the various categories.
Define the Mix: This simply means to decide what percentage of your frame inventory will fall into each category. Total will equal 100%. Resist the urge to complicate it.
Your highest percentage should be the category that you what to be known for. If affordability is the the brand you want to project then most of your frames should be in the “Junk” category. (Also, you will need to rename that category.)
If you want to be known for your high quality, fun eyewear, let the “Premium” dominate your inventory. If you want high volume, easy to sell, name recognition, then define “Popular” as the highest percentage (note the Profitability FACT related to categories).
Your dominant category should be 50% or more of your frame inventory.
Most practices want to be known for high quality products but are intimidated by filling 50% (or more) of their frame board with expensive frames. It’s an understandable concern but can be overcome with a few safety nets. Frame companies tend to have very liberal return policies for frames that don’t sell so you are unlikely to get stuck with frames. Besides that, you always sell more $500 frames if they are surrounded by $800 frames.
Trust the process and dive in.
THREE - Implement
Begin by educating the team, getting everyone on the same page. Undoubtedly, you will need to rearrange some stuff and make some purchases. You will also probably need to discontinue some relationship with some vendors. Just get going.
Getting started is easy, make sure you are being consistent by revisiting this process at least twice per year.