Opticians know nothing about sales???

[For-Life]

Hello Again For-Life,

Not to nit-pick (Lord knows I hate to be on the receiving end of nit-picking...) (as in 'Aberration instead of Distortion', Chip and Barry!)...

...

It is all about being engrossed in optical dispensing...yes, you can send a nice message through the future MBA/non-(or possibly future) opticals, citing the benefits of optical sales as a case study/example...

Is your intention to do a fabulous job of teaching sales, or is it your intention to recruit future optical people?


: )

Laurie

Most of the students taking my class will be marketing majors. I want to show them what future lies in front of them if they choose the path of sales. My goal is to teach them how to think and to communicate. I am not one of those teachers that tells them what a definition is and tells them to remember it. I am one of those who tells them WHY to remember it. To be honest, probably not one person from my class will ever become an optician. But I will be breeding some future business to business salespeople, small business retailers, real-estate agents, ect.

So basically, I want them to learn to understand the customer, who they are, and what they want, and then satisfy those wants. In addition to that, how can they make themselves better sales people. If they are opticians, it would be learning as much about optics as possible.

[chip anderson]

I'd much rather think of myself as an optician with slight sales ablilities than the other way around. I guess this is what separates the Opticians from the sales people.:p

Chip

[Bill West]

Anyways, just needed to vent. I really resent being told that I know nothing about working with customers.

you heed these words when it comes to you and optical.:cheers:

[For-Life]

Anyways, just needed to vent. I really resent being told that I know nothing about working with customers.

you heed these words when it comes to you and optical.:cheers:

that is how I felt. One thing that really bothers me is when anyone criticizes my optical past as "not real work." That is one thing that makes me see red.

[Barry Santini]

"optical" knowledge and training have, in a very large way, both been significant contributing factors to why the public *hates* eyeglasses today.

All gobblygook tech - no real feeling on the customer's part that "I want that!"

Teaching eyewear sales is really about demoting the way we've been (and still are) trained to do what we do.

Remember: Eyewear will never arrive as true fashion until the emmmetrope wants/wears it as well.

What are you gonna do tomorrow to make a *plano* eyewear (not sunwear) sale?

Thanks for listening. Mr. Provocative will step down from the soapbox now.

Barry

[Pogu]

Where I work (in the lab) there are idiots that don't know what the difference between a plus Rx and minus but can sell Airlock NVOs on a regular basis.

[HarryChiling]

I agree, but B2B sales are different than B2C ones. This is where I am getting B2B person to come in. FYI, the guy was talking about B2C.

Which is even more difficult, people have a tendency to act ignorant when they are only held accoutnable to themselves, but in a B2B situation even the most irrate person will keep their composure at work.

[Metronome]

Delete..

[Chris Ryser]

[/b]

We (opticians) are strange, but necessary animals...we must be able to translate high-tech optical knowledge into user-friendly benefits to combine funtion and fashion.

Not sure how you translate that into a sales course, w/o a heavy optical baseline prior to the sales course.
Laurie

I am actually no longer in the optical industry, but started young and was in it for 11 years. Family business. So I already have more experience than any Ph.D

For-Life you are talking a real mouthful in thisthread...........................so you have 11 years of optical on your back including 3 years of learning, so that would make about 8 years.

That gives you a fraction of experience that many others have on this board. On top of that you left the optical 2 years ago to work for the government................obviously the optical was not good enough to your taste for whatever reason. You have become one of the 30% of the Canadian population that chose to work as government employees.

Laurie's comments are totally correct it takes a hell of a lot of knowledge to become real good, and that can be acquired by learning and or experience of many years in the trade.

In a optical store one does not need any salesmanship that is unprofessional, what you can learn and use is sales psychology to guide the customers to the right product.

One needs salesmanship as a sales-rep for a frame or lens company selling to optical stores.........and there it is important to be well organized, but even there sales psychology still prevails.

Many of the other posters on this thread, have double, triple or quadruple times the experience of the 11 years and have survived in the trade, some of them well.

[For-Life]

For-Life you are talking a real mouthful in thisthread...........................so you have 11 years of optical on your back including 3 years of learning, so that would make about 8 years.

That gives you a fraction of experience that many others have on this board. On top of that you left the optical 2 years ago to work for the government................obviously the optical was not good enough to your taste for whatever reason. You have become one of the 30% of the Canadian population that chose to work as government employees.

Laurie's comments are totally correct it takes a hell of a lot of knowledge to become real good, and that can be acquired by learning and or experience of many years in the trade.

In a optical store one does not need any salesmanship that is unprofessional, what you can learn and use is sales psychology to guide the customers to the right product.

One needs salesmanship as a sales-rep for a frame or lens company selling to optical stores.........and there it is important to be well organized, but even there sales psychology still prevails.

Many of the other posters on this thread, have double, triple or quadruple times the experience of the 11 years and have survived in the trade, some of them well.

Chris, you really know how to highlight the evil things and tried to make me look like an egotistic jerk.

1. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER said that I have more experience than the posters on here and NEVER EVER EVER EVER would say that. Ok?

2. The part that was with the Ph.D had a smiley face. PUT IT BACK. It was a signal that I was joking

:finger::finger::finger::finger::finger::finger::finger:

No beer for you today


and I think you better read what I said about Chipping. And please explain to me how not making sales in a dispensary brings in revenue.

[Judy Canty]

Looks like this thread hit a nerve! :shiner:

In my opinion, you never really have to SELL anything. You need to LISTEN to your patient/client/customer and go from there.

[rep]

Just two comments, not to add fuel to the fire but:

1. Selling a product is far different than selling a service.
2. In bazzarro world patients/customers would walk thru a door and have 6 or 7 dispensers setting at tables. Each would have one opportunity to convince the patients that the products and or services they offer are the right one's for the client. Now that my friends would be true optical sales.
3. That's the world of today's optical rep.

[Uilleann]

I educate, and I guide, and to the best of my abilities, I fill Dr's Rx's. I would never call a surgeon, pharmacist, mental health counselor, nurse or prosthetician a "salesman". Ever.

There certainly are plenty in the industry who are nothing but sales help. Usually they are termed something like a "frame stylist" or some other such classification. But there are many of us who are not. To paint the industry as a whole with the same broad brush of "salepeople" is rife with error at best IMHO.

[For-Life]

Looks like this thread hit a nerve! :shiner:

In my opinion, you never really have to SELL anything. You need to LISTEN to your patient/client/customer and go from there.

Which is a part of Chipping

If you are a good Chip, you will do well

[Johns]

I know of few people successful in their vocation that don't sell something.

Opticians sell lenses, frames, and services.
The preacher sells Jesus.
The surgeon DOES sell his experience and operating skills.
The prostitute sells herself/himself.
The car dealer sells cars.
and so on...

What seems to be at issue is how the sales occur, and in what manner.

[For-Life]

I just think we are looking at the term "sales" and "selling" too closely. We are only looking at the negative side. I am talking about the broader idea, which Johns pointed to.

[chip anderson]

Kind of looks like Johns is putting us in the same box with *****s. Which if we are salesmen may not be too far off.

Chip

[Johns]

Kind of looks like Johns is putting us in the same box with *****s. Which if we are salesmen may not be too far off.

Chip

Hey, in then end, we all leave this world the way we came into it...in diapers.:o (or something like that!:D)

[For-Life]

Hey, in then end, we all leave this world the way we came into it...in diapers.:o (or something like that!:D)

but some leave with certain sores

[FullCircle]

We're in sales. Whether we are selling based on sales knowledge and with little optical knowledge, convincing a patient based on what we know through learning optics, or falling at their feet and crying until they agree to buy something, its all sales.

Yes, we may "fill Rxs" but so does my pharmacist. And never once has he tried to convince me to buy my pills in a different color bottle because it brings out the color of my eyes or compliments the colors of my bathroom. So we must be in a separate category than that.

Call it what you want, disguise it how you'd like, play it down, play it up. If I know it, and you know it and the patient knows it, then guess what it's still sales. Even if it's called Chip.

The knack of being a good sales person is not making it seem like a "sale." As demonstrated here, people view sales as a big negative.

My father in law is a career salesman. Furniture, menswear, rubber dog poop to a dog breeder. He's probably sold it. He's so good at not letting a sale seem like a sale. Don't get me wrong, he's not using trickery or being dishonest, usually it's simply that he knows his stuff. His act of taking his knowledge and translating that into money in his pocket and product into the customer's hands is the sale.

[Barry Santini]

Yes, we may "fill Rxs" but so does my pharmacist. And never once has he tried to convince me to buy my pills in a different color bottle because it brings out the color of my eyes or compliments the colors of my bathroom. So we must be in a separate category than that.

Yeah, we are. Eyewear is far less *medical* than we're taught to believe.

Barry

[sharpstick777]

I would disagree 100%. In two decades, I've never "sold". If I've been asked to, I have left that practice - rapidly. There is certainly truth in that many (indeed likely most) practices and particularly chains do try to "sell" their patients. To each their own, and success to all. Best of luck with your presentation! :cheers:

If your not selling... your not eating... frankly. Every person who has ever been handed a credit card is in sales whether they can stomache the truth about it or not.

There is ethical low pressure selling and un-ethical high pressure selling. We use ethical low pressure sales tools that we teach our staff, but its very different than than "selling" I learned in "sales" classes. We have developed a customer service centered low key sales approach that is very successful and encourages patients want to come back. The patient encounter is low stress and low pressure and results in many referals, and our staff has fun, while the money rolls in.

So if you use ethical low pressure selling like we do, why not master it? If your not a master at low pressure sales you're leaving money on the table for someone else to get (like me!).

Sharpstick

[EyeDea2020]

This one guy, who we always knew to be kind of an idiot, sent me this message that the guy who taught the class before spent years (he worked at a bank for four years selling investments) in selling, and that compared to him, I bring no value to the table. I told him that I spent over 10 years in sales. He tried to tell me that opticals are low involvement (meaning that people will not think through their purchase and just buy it based on repetition) and easy to do, and that it is no where close to car or tv sales.

Honestly, I think we know far more than tv salespeople, as we are professionals. Also, please do not get upset by the word "sales" because we are in a medical profession. The fact is, we do have to be good sales people. We just do not have to be greasy or cheesy. Instead, we need to be knowledgable, courteous, and insightful.

Well I think the mis communication is that people who are not in the eye business do not know much about the technical side of the business.

With that being said I would say you can't overlook TV sales people either. They have to stay quite informed on the industry as well. Every 18 months in the electronic business the technology doubles and the price halves. So quite a bit to stay on top of.

However, people overlook the eye care business with sales because they aren't in the business and they don't understand what is involved with the products.

[HarryChiling]

If your not selling... your not eating... frankly. Every person who has ever been handed a credit card is in sales whether they can stomache the truth about it or not.

Then the girl at the gas station that takes my CC is a sales person? What about the pump outside?

Call it what you want, disguise it how you'd like, play it down, play it up. If I know it, and you know it and the patient knows it, then guess what it's still sales. Even if it's called Chip.

The knack of being a good sales person is not making it seem like a "sale." As demonstrated here, people view sales as a big negative.

It's not a neagative thing and I hope noen of my threads gave that impression.

Just two comments, not to add fuel to the fire but:

1. Selling a product is far different than selling a service.
2. In bazzarro world patients/customers would walk thru a door and have 6 or 7 dispensers setting at tables. Each would have one opportunity to convince the patients that the products and or services they offer are the right one's for the client. Now that my friends would be true optical sales.
3. That's the world of today's optical rep.

Ding ding ding. A prescription in hand and often the patient walks right up to the opticians and tells them I need glasses, that to me does not meet any measure of salesmanship. I think of a salesman a true salesman as someone that like meniotned previously on the thread sells him/her self and that means more than just taking an order of convincing the person to upgrade to a better lens. We use many of the same skills as a salesman, but we also use many of the same skills as a receptionist, or a clerk, or an order taker in a deli, etc. That doesn't make us any of these other professions at least I don't think it does. People here are getting offended like calling an optician a sales person is offensive, I think of it the other way around calling an optician a salesperons probably offends the sales people and coming from that field into this one that's what I felt, apparently the seasoned salesperons that made that comment ot For-life also may have felt that.

[For-Life]

Ding ding ding. A prescription in hand and often the patient walks right up to the opticians and tells them I need glasses, that to me does not meet any measure of salesmanship. I think of a salesman a true salesman as someone that like meniotned previously on the thread sells him/her self and that means more than just taking an order of convincing the person to upgrade to a better lens. We use many of the same skills as a salesman, but we also use many of the same skills as a receptionist, or a clerk, or an order taker in a deli, etc. That doesn't make us any of these other professions at least I don't think it does. People here are getting offended like calling an optician a sales person is offensive, I think of it the other way around calling an optician a salesperons probably offends the sales people and coming from that field into this one that's what I felt, apparently the seasoned salesperons that made that comment ot For-life also may have felt that.

Most patients, unless they are dedicated customers, first come in to look at frames or ask questions about lenses. I rarely had someone hand me a script (unless they were a dedicated customer) who told me that they needed glasses.

With that said, I wonder if that happens more on the chain side. If someone goes to Wal-Mart, they are probably shopping there for price sensitively reasons. So they pretty much already made the decision to shop there. If they shop at a high/middle end place, there is probably more selling/assistance/Chipping involved.