The Optical Vision Site

More Free Stuff And Deals Eye-Bound At Vision Expo East

Live Eyewear Eco Aluminum Bottle

I’m really into this now, having been an  optical exhibitor for 30+ years and never able to take advantage of all the FREE Stuff at Vision Expo, I cannot wait to become a FREEloader!

VisionEase Lens- Booth LP2118 -Play the Coppertone Polarized Lens “A Day at The Beach” Game.   Guaranteed to win one of three items:  Coppertone Backpack, Sunscreen or a beachball.

Live Eyewear: FREE eco friendly aluminum sport bottle. (Quantities are limited)

Rons Optical- FREE shipping on most show orders taken at the show! I also want to recommend that you check out the visually appealing way they display eyewear accessories.

Eyes of Faith Optical – Purpose driven eyewear. All new accounts will be eligible for the Eyes of Faith Foundation to sponsor a child on behalf of the optical store through World Vision. Also, 2 free frames with a 24 piece opening order.

Super Optical/Fast Grind International- Not free, but a great deal- Offering 20% off of small lab equipment. A link can be found at www.superoptical.com under other lab equipment. Also be demonstrating a new version of the Fast Grind system that is faster and easier to operate. Offer 5.99% financing with no money down and no payments for 3 months.

Have a cuppa on Jonathan Paul Eyewear

Jonathan Paul Eyewear- Have a Coffee on them and a free stand with purchase.

Tura Inc – Booth 3719 FREE $100 gift card when becoming a new Tura customer. A Ted Baker beach towel,  FREE with a qualifying sun purchase, just in time for summer. FREE $20 retail gift card with a qualifying purchase. FREE Tourneau WatchGear watch with a qualifying purchase. FREE Lulu Guinness limited edition Edith handbag with a qualifying purchase (30frames). Receive double Tura Advantage Rewards points for your show purchases.  Not a member of Tura Advantage Rewards, sign up today at Tura.com.

From BBH Eyewear – G5036 FREE Humphrey’s makeup kit with a qualifying purchase. FREE Titanflex messenger bag with a qualifying purchase. FREE $20 retail gift card with a qualifying purchase

SharpVA- has a virtual Show special- 1. $849 for the initial exam room ($736 instant rebate), and 50% off for each additional exam room (only $424.50). 2. Free S&H (international included!) 3. Free version 4 update ($250 value) 4. Free Ocuport Patient Education system ($1065+ value) Here is a link to our show special Order Form: http://sharpva.com/ve/

Free Stuff At Vision Expo East 2010

Jose Natori Fashion Show at Zyloware

Both Shirley and I are going to VEE in New York and like most people we love FREE Stuff! Here is a quick rundown about happening in some of our optical vendor sponsors!

Zyloware: First we get to see Jose Natori and Daisy Fuentes at the Zyloware Booth. Autograph hounds this is a great opportunity to spruce up your collections as well as see some famous designers in action and get your pics taken and find out more about the products you carry, plus add some personal zing to your office.

Hoya: I am hoping they will still be giving out their reusable bags. I love their bags, because they are perfect for larger bulker items, especially for shopping at places like Cost-Co. Plus, no show is complete until we pay a visit with Rich Montag!

Santinelli- Lots of FREE Stuff Here- First the Museum and then to get our FREE Magnetic Chemistrie Sunlenses from the joint marketing of Eyenovate and Santinelli. Both Shirley and I did this last year at VEE and love our lenses. They will make them for free at the show, using the exclusive lens edger ‘Click Mode’

Free Pupilmeter from Santinelli

And FREE  one hour workshops focusing on rimless assembly, Lindberg frames, Auto Lensometry. The concept behind this initiative is to further educate show attendees with hands-on training, facilitating bench work and dispensing process. The rimless workshops will feature Zeiss lenses, Hilco tools, Fred Paris and TAG Heuer screw-mount frames, as well as Seiko compression-style frames and lenses. The other two workshops will feature Lindberg frames and Marco lensmeters. It is recommended you sign up for the classes as seating is limited.

And FREE Pupilometer at the Santinelli booth. I can say this the Santinelli boys will be doing more rock and rolling at their booth than at EyeRock!

Fashion Optical Display and ClearVision Join Forces- FREE Stuff – The drawing winner WINS an entire Junction City collection along with the merchandising props and risers from Fashion Optical Display. No purchase is necessary. Go by either booth at Expo to find out how to enter for drawing. ClearVision always have great giveaways at shows as well.

ClearVision and Fashion Optical Collaborate For Give-Aways

We don’t want to sound like a bunch of free loaders, but the reality of life today, people like free stuff whether you take it or not. We don’t take a lot of free stuff because we don’t have room in our bags, but it’s nice to be offered and given the choice of whether you want to take it or not.

Whether you like Free Stuff, Vision Expo is becoming more fun, free stuff just adds a little more zing to the show!

Free Vision Expo Registration

We love free! We like free so much that we ask our sponsors to provide freebies to our Optical Vision Site readers and subscribers. International Vision Expo East 2010, one of our sponsors is providing free Vision Expo East 2010 registration  to Optical Vision Site readers, all you have to do is click the link to register free and expand your field of vision!

There are more freebies to enjoy once you are at the show including:

Shamrock Fest -Saturday, March 20th, 5:00 – 6:00pm

Optometrists will receive a special invitation to this new event. Enjoy free beer and wine, live Irish music and a photo memento. Presented in the Medical & Scientific Theater, booth MS 1274 inside the Exhibit Hall.

Free Keynotes:

Visionomics -Friday, March 19th at 5:00 – 6:00pm

Become the CEO of Your Practice: Manage The People, Process and Expenses – Neil Gailmard, OD

* Understand how to analyze the eye care practice as a business.

* Design a plan for improved staff management including increased delegation.

* Be able to compare practice expense categories with national norms.

Obama Health Care Reform -Satuday, March 20th, 1:00 – 2:00pm

Obama’s Health Care Plan: Making Sense of New Reforms

Learn the latest on health care reform when it’s dissected by Bill Applegate, Senior Policy Advisor at Bryan Cave, LLP. Eyecare professionals who attend will learn:

* Current status

* Major points of interest to the Optical Community

* Impact the reform can have

* Preparations you can make

Free Airport Shuttles and Vision Expo will also continue to run complimentary shuttles to and from Vision Expo East and official host hotels

Younger Optics To Sponsor OptiBoard

OptiBoard For The Professional Optician

OptiBoard, the first optician forum launched by Steve Machol was seeking a new corporate sponsor for this very important  optical forum. Thankfully Younger Optics stepped in to help sponsor this informative, educational and fun site primarily for opticians although all are welcome.

If any of you have never visited OptiBoard, we encourage you to do so. It’s free and anonymous. The forums are fantastic, you want to know about a product, find a product, need help in dispensing, post job openings, need equipment, want opinions or even to state opinions this is the place to go. Consumers have even gone on this sight to find out information.

Younger Optics

Thank You Younger Optics for stepping in and helping the optical community. Other sponsors are Carl Zeiss Vision, Vision Web and our own special sponsor  Vision Systems Inc.

Goggling Yourself and Your Eyecare Office

Cathy Ives holds a dog that is available for adoption at the Cache Human Society. (Eli Lucero/Herald Journal)

Have you ever googled yourself? It is kinda scary if you do, way too much information is on the internet. I have googled myself and there are several Cathy Ives in the USA- but this one came over on our google alerts. This Cathy Ives actually comes up alot, as she is a speaker and is involved in numerous activities. If you can believe this when I put in Cathy Ives there are 2,630,000 hits. There are 7 professionals in Linked in, OptiGirls (cathy ives) on Twitter comes up on page 1 on google, also on Facebook also on OptiBoard and on The Optical Vision Site. Shirley comes up on page 1 and has only 902 hits on Google.

Here is Cathy Ives story- just in case you want to know:

‘If you want to get to know Cathy Ives, first you’ll have to keep up with her. The general manager of Utah Public Radio is a vivacious fireball who is fun, warm and personable — if you can pin her down to talk. Ives keeps a packed schedule organizing UPR, sitting on two nonprofit boards and pursing hobbies like motorcycling and playing with her two dogs. “I like to be involved with the community,” said Ives before a meeting for the Cache Humane Society board of directors. Read the full story at JH News

The point of the matter, if you want to find out about what others are saying about you and your eyecare office, try googling yourself and you might be surprised and scared at the results. Better yet google your competition, find out what others are saying and try to be better!

Free Stuff From Google- Mapping Eyecare Offices

Both Shirley and I try to take advantage of everything we can Free from Google. We use email, Docs, Calendar, Analytics, Feedburner (subscription) and more. One of the most useful tools an eyecare professional can use is Google Maps, especially since so many mobile and desktop users are turning to Google Maps to find local and other business.

Duct Tape Marketing has simplified the process of optimizing your web pages for local search which has become an extremely important part of the local marketing mix. From Duct Tape Marketing:

‘The above video explains a bit of tweak that  suggest can make your Google Maps profile even more local search term friendly.
As shown in the video above, once you claim your Google Maps Profile (Go to the Google Local Business Center) you have the freedom to do lots of customization, including customizing the very important “category” listings, which Google relies very heavily upon to determine when to show your profile. You must choose one category suggested by Google, but are free to add up to four more that can contain city names as part of the category. In my opinion, Las Vegas plumber is a much stronger local category than just plumber.’

See the Benefits of Social Networking through Eyes of Faith

Here is a post from Jim Schneider from Eyes Of Faith about Seeing the Long-Term Benefits of Social Networking through Eyes of Faith. It is a very interesting and informative perspective.

Read the story and make a post about the article or your experience with social marketing to receive a free frame of your choice from Eyes of Faith (Go to the end of this post and see “Leave a Reply”) But be quick as we only have a limited number of frames to give away and you must have an optical retail shipping address to qualify! It is a very informative article about social marketing and how Eyes Of Faith, a brand new optical company, is using sites like Facebook and Twitter for building the business.

Seeing the Long-Term Benefits of Social Networking through Eyes of Faith by Jim Schneider

You don’t form long-lasting relationships during a brief introduction at a party. To know someone, really know them, you have to be willing to invest in them, learn about them, spend time with them. Real intimacy and friendship are built over time. Eventually, you learn what motivates that person, you learn about their values, their hopes, their goals.

The phenomenon we now call “social networking” is no different. When Amy and I started a new eyewear company called Eyes of Faith, we wanted to share the growing process—from conception to completion—with both those who understood and were on board with our mission and those who might want to learn more. Facebook and Twitter provided the perfect vehicle to do just that.

We post messages routinely on social networking sites and these posts focus on the three pillars of our branding strategy: purpose, passion, and style. At Eyes of Faith, we talk a lot about purpose and passion. Our purpose is rather unique. We have pledged to donate ten percent of all gross sales to charity. Our passion is to be a brand of hope. However, if not for our style, purpose and passion would be left to fend for themselves. Thus, we use Facebook and Twitter to regularly inform our followers about new developments with our fashion-forward eyewear collection.

Amy and Jim Schneider with Mandisa who has many Facebook Fans

Marketing guru Seth Godin called social networking “a process, not an event.” He’s right. While social networking has brought attention to Eyes of Faith, it has only been part of our overall strategy. We’ve used events like Disney’s Night of Joy and Vision Expo West to officially launch our brand.

Our social networking effort has two goals: to build brand awareness and to gain acceptance. Acceptance is particularly important for a niche brand like Eyes of Faith. As is the case with any brand of eyewear or clothing, not everyone is going to like it or want to wear it. However, if we can show our retail optical partners that our brand will be embraced by their customers, they will accept and feel comfortable carrying it. For this reason, we posted our video from the Night of Joy launch on Facebook simply because the video features hundreds of people screaming, “I want Eyes of Faith!” When you are battling for legitimacy in the marketplace, there’s no better endorsement than potential customers demanding your brand.

Building brand awareness takes more than social media but networking sites have helped us spark conversations among our fans and retailers. For example, we have made numerous calls to eye care professionals to tell them simply, “Your patient is a fan of Eyes of Faith and wanted us to contact you.” We were even contacted by a new retail partner who is prepared to carry our brand because he’s already had several requests from visitors of our Facebook page. And we have yet to ship a single frame.

For those of us who weren’t raised on the Internet, social networking sites might seem like dark, scary corners of an unexplored universe. They need not be. There are entire civilizations thriving in places like Facebook and Twitter and for those of us in business, we can either declare our citizenship or limit our potential by refusing to join in.

Social networking will not make you an overnight success. You won’t see double-digit increases in sales simply because you’ve decided to enter a world with which your kids are already very familiar. Recognition will be gained and respect will be earned over the long haul. It takes time and effort to really get to know someone. Of course, any meaningful relationship is worth the effort.

Jim Schneider – Eyes of Faith Optical

Thousands of eyecare professionals follow Vision Expo…you should too. Become a fan (or follower) of Vision Expo on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. Fans get special offers, enter contests, post questions and share information. Vision Expo shares information about the ophthalmic community at large, not just about the show.

Free Facebook For Business Webinair By Duct Tape Marketing

I was asked 2x today about how to 1.) get into blogging and 2) how does Facebook work. I can definitely answer how to get into blogging and how to get into Facebook, but I need as much help as I can get when we get into how to effectively manage and make it work for business.

On Thursday January 21st @ 12:00 pm CST Duct Tape Marketing is offering a free webinair on Facebook for business. I highly recommend you sign up and attend this webinair.

Here is the quick rundown on what the webinair is about:

‘Everyone knows Facebook has become a powerful business tool, right? Well, maybe, but what I find now is that most small businesses want to know how to tap the power of this new platform with practical methods that get results. I’ve rounded up three Facebook and social media experts and put together a free live Facebook training session just to help small businesses that are new to Facebook or those that want to find ways to make Facebook pay for business and take it to the next level‘