A few months back my friend Julie Ferranto at Amcon was telling me about their new screw sizing gauge. My first thought was exactly what some of you are thinking right now, what kind of nonsense is this! A sizing gauge for screws? Just out of curiosity, I had her send me one. I have now used that thing more than any other new tool I have bought in the last ten years. Julie put me in contact with Dr. Lisa Keller, and she in turn sent me a nice email of explanation. Here is an excerpt of that email:

To us old timers it may sound kind of hokey but I’m here to tell you it will save you time. 

The next thing I would like to talk about is my love of Younger Optics’ Drivewear lens. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Mr. Robert Lee during my time at the OLA convention this past November. He and I had a short conversation about the Lens and how it has helped to grow the optical sales end of the practice that I work for. Almost every month, 8% to 10% of our sales are Drivewear and our patients just love the Lens. I told him that the only thing missing was Drivewear in a FT-28. He said that they would have one shortly after the first of the year, and low and behold in January they came out with the Lens in a Flat Top 28 with hard resin.

If you have never seen or used a pair, contact your local Younger rep. I am confident that once you do, you will be happy to offer it to your patients. Just as a side note, I bring my glasses with Drivewear lens into the office every day. I just leave them on my dispensing table. Over half of our patients will ask about them just by seeing the lens sitting there. You might even want to have a plano pair made up for the patients to try on. Now that it is available in FT-28, you should be able to hit most of your patient base with this unique lens choice.

Last but not least on my spring hit parade is a new offering from the fine folks at AMO. You have known AMO for “Complete” contact lens solution and “Blink” rewetting drops. As of the first of March they have “Blink Tears” lubricating eye drops. These are not your run of the mill drops. Blink Tears are great for that pre or post-op laser patient as well as your patients that are suffering from dry eyes due to allergies, contact wear or various environmental conditions. After contacting Melissa Fugate, my AMO rep, she was kind enough to send me this information about the advantages Blink Tears offers:

Now I don’t know about your AMO rep, but mine was more than happy to let our Doctor have some samples of the Blink Tears for his patients to try. Test Blink Tears for your patients and I think you will be as happy as I am with the product.

I know this may be out of the norm for me, but I just wanted to share these fine products with you folks. I have and will continue to use them and I hope they can help you as much as they have helped me and my patients. If you have or know of a great product that you use and recommend, please let me know.

On another note, I would like to share with you an email I received concerning last month’s 
column:

Hi Paul,

I just finished reading your article on the Leadership meeting. Thanks for putting OAA in such a good light! 

I wanted to let you know that I have several boxes of the booklet for the DOL new apprenticeship standards that I would LOVE to send out. If you have anyone that is interested in receiving a hard copy – please let me know.

Thanks,
Catherine E. Langley
Executive Director
Opticians Association of America

So anyone out there who is interested in a booklet of the new Department of Labor apprenticeship standards, please contact the OAA at oaa@oaa.org

Don’t forget, take care of your patients, and send the customers to the other guys!

Paul R. King, ABOC/NCLEC LDO is an independent consultant specializing retail optical laboratory
and sales training and also works as an opti­cian for Tri-State Vision in Cincinnati, Ohio  asktheking@ECPmag.com