I look like crap. On my best days, my fashion choices resembled an old JCPenney’s catalog someone crumpled up, ran through the dishwasher, and was then attacked by rabid squirrels. At my worst, I get free soup.
I didn’t always dress so poorly. I once wore wool suits with Italian leather dress shoes and hand-made silk ties matching my socks. As suits became too stifling in the summer, I switched to just suit vests without any jacket but found even more colorful silk ties that matched my colorful eyeglasses, and this became my trademark. When switching careers to work in an Optical Lab, I was often covered in a mix of swarf, grease pens, dust, and polishing compound, so I wore more forgiving wash & wear chinos and polo shirts. When COVID hit I quickly fell further into resembling a lost dog with mange. Slowly over many years, I decayed into an abysmal pit of fashion shame worse than any 1970s polyester-filled sitcom with an obnoxious laugh track.
I really didn’t notice, because my style decay occurred slowly over many years. But this is not about how we dress (not yet), it’s about how our Optical Dispensary looks and feels…. and the impressions it gives your patients. This impression can greatly impact your professionalism, capture, and sales, and determine if your patients buy from you… or go online. Like my outfits, your once new and shiny dispensary may have slipped slowly and unnoticed from runway grandeur into a running joke in the next Zoolander.
I have visited over a thousand Optical practices (and gratefully, met many of you!), but I’ve seen some that you would not believe. One Optometry practice is still lined entirely in 70’s fake dark wood paneling and lit by industrial fluorescent tube lights with bugs caught helplessly in the yellowing and cracking plastic diffuser. The receptionist sits behind a tiny window on one wall, and two government surplus chairs perform sad sentry on the opposite side with torn upholstery, the only other guest is a dusty fake Ficus in the corner. Eyeglass frames line the narrow dimly lit hallway to the exam rooms disheveled on yellowing plastic frame boards. Another office is filled with two “desks” which are repurposed tables, the one against the back wall behind the other is covered in paper medical charts mixed with dispensing trays in various disheveled piles, all visible to anyone who walks in. A third was once tastefully decorated with optical posters framed in shiny brass and frame displays in golden oak, as tasteful as the 90s could offer. These once gorgeous models now are reaching Social Security, and some of these entire frame lines are long discontinued; Although dust-free, most of these posters have a decade of sun damage and are etched with faded lines. But most surprising… is all three of these real examples are in upper-class areas of major US cities… and each of these extreme examples is letting a truckload of revenue slip through their fingers.
Your dispensary undoubtedly looks better than these three. But when we walk into our own workplace year after year, we begin to tune things out and often miss details our patients don’t. Like the lobster who doesn’t notice the water getting slowly warmer, or my personal fashion decay, we complain about losing sales to online but don’t realize we have little nits hurting our business far more than even our best competition. We may be silently inspiring our patients to spend their money elsewhere.
I’ve vowed to make 2025 “The Year I Dress Better!” and I challenge you to do the same with your Optical Dispensary. Let’s address all the potential visible flaws that you may have grown used to, but don’t see out of familiarity, but one mosquito bite at a time these may be eating your customer experience and sales alive.
- 1. Clean, clean, and clean! Have someone you know from outside your practice who is a “detail-oriented clean freak” (ahem, anal) take a real white glove to everything, tap those ceiling vents with a broom handle, wipe the tops of display units or any horizontal surface, check under and behind the desks and display units for anything dirty or disheveled. Scrub the shoe or dark marks on the walls and baseboards with Formula 409. Get the ladder out check the tops of light fixtures or wall art, and vacuum that dust. Empty every trash can every day. Nothing kills sales faster than a customer noticing some dirt or spot you’ve walked past obliviously for months… or even years. Wipe down your bathroom twice a day; A quick 2-second wipe-a-thon makes you look vastly more professional. Make a list of daily “side-work” and put everyone (even yourself) on a rotating schedule so everyone is responsible for keeping it all clean. Clean your dispensary like your life depended on it because it does. Nothing says “I will just take my Rx, thanks” faster than a dirty or tired dispensary.
- 2A. Lighten Up! Dark and moody is great for comedy clubs, dive bars, open mic nights, and first dates, but nowhere else. Please visit a Warby Parker near you, especially in the evening, but notice the one thing you will never find, want to guess? …. It is a single shadow. Their stores are bright and well-lit because bright lights sell products. Dark areas in dispensaries make things look dirty, and they make you look dirty.
Today’s LED offers wonderful freedom to really better control and improve your lighting, but requires a little knowledge about the Kelvin scale. Kelvin (= k) looks yellow or warm at 3000k, cool white at 4000k, and then bluish-white at 5000k.
First, replace all Compact Fluorescent bulbs (aka, CFL) you have left with LEDs because they can both flicker invisibly and change color as they age, and that unseen flickering can irritate people. But even with LEDs replace any odd-ball bulbs that have different voltages or even slightly different tones or Kelvin frequency Different brands of the same voltage & Kelvin may put out slightly different colors, as will older LEDs, so keep track of the exact lights you buy so your replacements match.
While you’re at it, you can probably amp your light wattage a lot. Please check each fixture for its voltage limits, but with today’s cool low-powered LEDs you can most often upgrade existing fixtures with much higher wattage LED bulbs (and still use less electricity). Track lights are wonderful because you can fix dark zones by just clicking in new fixtures to existing tracks, and voila, brighten up those dim zones. Add up your amperage on each run to ensure your limit is not exceeded. A 110 line can usually be 12 amps total. Because LEDs draw so little power it would take a few dozen to reach that limit. Many offices need almost double the light they have now. It’s far better to overdo the light, and come back and add then add dimmer switch if needed.
Let’s get into the Kelvin (k) for retail spaces. After much testing, I prefer lights in “people” spaces like hallways or pre-testing and exam rooms, over mirrors and dispensing desks and such, at exactly 3500k. 3000k makes colors drab and moody. 5000k is too harsh and feels thin. 4000k makes frame colors wonderfully alive and colors pop, but it can make people look pasty as they look at themselves in the mirrors. For the best effect mix 4000k and 3500k but only if you can do it carefully and consistently. My suggestion is to use 3500k in all downlights & ceiling cans, over desks, hallways, entry, mirrors (especially), and in exam rooms. For all lights pointing at frames, like track lights, niches, shelves, or spotlights I recommend 4000k. Colored walls, windows, and diffusers all impact how the light looks, so you may need to experiment a little in your space. But test the lights at different hours and seasons, like cloudy days. But go bright my friends, because you will sell a lot more eyewear with a bright and clean dispensary.
- 2B. Are you really open for business? It astonishes me when I pull into a parking lot and I can’t even tell the optical is open. As I strain to look into the darkness for some sign of movement or life my wallet sinks deeper into my pocket. Some of this is due to not enough lighting inside (see 2A above), and some is from darkly tinted windows. The sun here in Seattle goes down this time of year at 4 pm, but a dark office on a dark evening is neither safe nor inviting. A successful business is lit so well patients are sure it’s actually open from 400 feet away. If your window is tinted, consider other solutions like blinds you can roll down and back up selectively or transparencies that double as advertising. If you need to keep the tint, have either a corner or have multiple entrances, make sure you have multiple bright visible LED “Open” signs on each side or door (they must all match exactly!). Patients need to know with certainty you are open almost the first moment they can see your shop. That one-second flash of doubt can be a sales killer because people quickly feel unwelcome and even unsafe.
- 2C. Bonus Round: If you really want to do lighting right, leave 4000k spot or shelf lights on at night pointed at only your frames on displays, in the front windows, niches, or visible back walls. This may require the help of an electrician to do well, but leave your store dark enough so people know it’s closed, but the frames lit well enough for people to window shop after hours… and ooh and ahh your beautiful eyewear collection. A shop fairly lit at night is also far less likely to be the target of theft.
To be Continued, stay tuned for “Dress Where You Want to Be” Part 2
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Thanks to these great people for additional ideas for this article:: London Campbell DeMare, Lacee Whitaker Cripe, Andi Watson, Dave Greening, Jackie Menger, May Ann, Bill E. Gerber & Gerry Taylor.
