This month, Dee chats with a 30-year opticianry and management veteran, a retailer, business owner, educator and coach, Mark Hinton. In addition to managing the optical in a private practice he co-owns with his OD partner, Mark runs the training and coaching consultancy eYeFacilitate. 
To start, Mark goes deep into his own optical experience and history (2:00), as well as his philosophy on running an eyecare business. At 3:40, he shows the proof is in the pudding and confirms he practices what he preaches at his own business to highly successful ends. He talks about the #1 challenge independent practioners are facing in their dispensaries at 4:00 and the optician as salesperson challenge. Dee and Mark then riff on the customer perception of the high cost of glasses … when lenses tend to be the pricier item (6:00) and ways to communicate that to the patient, including high definition screen analogies. Which leads them to the importance of the doctor in the dialogue (7:30) and how to get them to prescribe better in the exam room. 
Mark is a huge proponent in how words matter and at 9:00 he explains how changes in wording can remove patient objections by changing the idea of selling to them to fulfilling a prescription. Around 11:00, they discuss the importance of the doctor elevating the expertise of the optician to complete the exam process. At 13:00, he goes into the words you should ban from your business, the ones NO team member should utter to a patient, and sadly they are used all too often and stop people from purchasing. Shortly after, he talks about the biggest marketing opportunity most eyecare businesses miss. It’s an idea listeners can immediately take and run with. At 17:00, Mark provide the exact script ECPs should be using to increase their retinal image capture rate to over 90%. 
At 21:00, Dee asks Mark what are the top three areas that business owners should focus on to immediately improve their performance. Mark hits on the importance of focus groups for your business, how to pull one off and who to include (23:30). To wrap up, Mark talks about what his columns for INVISION will cover throughout the year … and yes, he will go into more details on some of the ideas shared in the podcast. “These columns are gonna be really to make people think differently. To get people to think beyond the status quo,” he promises. “And getting people a little out of their comfort zone.”