Product: Safilo Group Virtual Education Series.
Top Line: Safilo Group is debuting a virtual education platform featuring a series of webinars for practices which are closed or on limited schedules due to COVID-19.
Close Up: Running from March 23 through April 3, Safilo’s key accounts manager and ABOC-certified optician Robin Brush will teach one new course topic each day, between two and four times a day. The courses will be taught live in English, and translated in the coming weeks. They will also be recorded to watch later. ABO credits will not be issued for any of the online lectures.
The courses are: Advanced Eyewear Technology, A Visual Guide to Merchandising, J.O.B.S. Program: Joint Opportunity to Believe in Staying, Multiple Mindset and Optical 411.
Safilo’s official course descriptions are as follows:
1. Advanced Eyewear Technology: Learn the anatomy and proper names for eyewear. Details and fitting examples of why different nose pads, bridges, temples and frame fronts are used to make eyewear. Learn about the different materials that eyewear is made from and why different materials are used and benefits to the patients.
2. A Visual Guide to Merchandising: Define visual merchandising as related to optical; learn how to apply visual merchandising to your optical for brand story telling; learn how the Pantone color of the year influences our world of retail and understanding merchandising secrets and customer behaviors.
3. J.O.B.S. Program: Joint Opportunity to Believe in Staying: In this course, you will learn how to involve the entire office staff in the process of making the sale. Each department will have defined responsibilities that educate and layer the selling process for the patient. You will also learn the art of seamless transition from patient to retail customer. Interpreting the prescription for lens and frame sales. Multiple pair sales will be your new normal and understanding and defusing sales objections will not be a problem.
4. Multiples Mindset: Selling multiple pairs is a MINDSET! How can you expect an optician to sell multiple pairs or sell luxury if they’ve never experienced that personally? In this course, we will dive into the mindset of the optician getting to the bottom of why they don’t sell multiples. Also, we’ll be learning techniques to use as their managers to promote a multiples environment and culture.
5. Optical 411: In this course, you will understand the importance of being a good steward of the numbers in your optical. Frame return rate and frame turn ratio, why are they critical to the profitability of your business? Inventory management and how to analyze the data. Discover the two best methods for ordering frames to achieve the profitable numbers. Six easy steps to efficient sales rep appointments and tracking your orders and returns.
Vital Stats: To sign up for courses, North American customers can contact their sales representative or sign up online through Safilo’s b2b websites: mysafilo.com in the U.S. and mysafilocanada.com  for Canada. International customers can contact their sales representatives to sign up as well.
safilogroup.com/en/

UPDATE, April 2, 2020: Safilo has extended this virtual education program to run through Thursday, April 9, 2020. Safilo customers can still contact their sales rep to sign up or go to mysafilo.com or to mysafilocanada.com to sign up directly.