'Surgeon sell thyself' could be the motto of this award-winning laser eye-surgery business.
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Entrepreneur: Dean Powrie, Managing Director
Company: Laser Sight Centres Pty Ltd
Business type: Vision correction using laser surgery
Founded: 1995
Turnover: $10M - $50M
Head office: Queensland: Maroochydore, Brisbane, Gold Coast; NSW: Bondi Junction, Gordon, Orange, Parramatta, Newcastle; Victoria: Melbourne
Contact details: 1800 003 937
The Laser Sight Centres Story
Dean Powrie, managing director of Laser Sight Centres (LSC), can precisely name the month and year that he became an instant true believer in Lasik vision correction treatment. It was March 1996. His conversion came after he watched his boss, ophthalmic surgeon Dr Peter Stewart, successfully undergo his own cool-beam excimer laser surgery. Stewart’s vision was corrected, enabling him to dispense with his glasses forever.
Powrie says: “That was a tremendous credibility factor because it was just like saying you use the service yourself.” Three of LSC’s surgeons and seventeen staff members have subsequently had the procedure.
Powrie and his team have since marketed Lasik surgery throughout Asia-Pacific, making LSC the largest laser surgery group in this region. The company gained significant recognition when it won the AMP 2000 ‘Excellence in Business Awards’ in both the ‘overall’ and ‘customer service’ categories.
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Key learning points:
- Product belief - Show customers that you and your staff really believe in your product - use it yourselves.
- Product faith - To truly succeed, you must really believe that what you are offering your customers is in their best interests.
- Customer support - It begins before the sale. Help customers achieve their goals - and buy your product - by providing them with complete information, making access to your product easy and comfortable, and by doing a great job.
- Customer finance - Make your product or service as affordable as possible by providing a range of payment options so that everyone can find a way to pay for it.
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Marketing Lasik treatment was not an easy process at first. The problem was how to convince wearers of glasses and contact lenses to undertake a procedure that was not covered by Medicare, cost more than many could afford, and was not medically necessary. There was also a need to deal with the significant - if irrational - fears many people have about any surgical procedure.
The fact that numerous United States celebrities had had the operation - including Brad Pitt, Courteney Cox and golfing phenomenon Tiger Woods (who was paid to endorse the largest laser surgery group in North America) - did not assist Australian marketing initiatives. Australia’s medical advertising guidelines prohibited the use of public testimonials.
Powrie realised that only word-of-mouth would sell the service. It had to come from people who understood the very positive results of Lasik surgery and who had experienced the exceptional service and care provided by LSC.
Powrie says: “You must have as much good quality information as people want, freely available, and you have got to provide different types of information, even a list of names and phone numbers whereby they can ring people who have had it done. That’s very credible and says we are transparent. We go as far as inviting people to visit our clinic, meet the person before surgery, actually watch the surgery on CCTV [closed-circuit television], and speak to the person afterwards, which breaks down a lot of the fear.”
With a minimum investment of $1 million needed to buy Lasik operating equipment, Powrie knew that treatment clinics would be viable only if they were located close to major metropolitan areas. But what about people in rural and remote areas who might want the service? Powrie says: “We knew that travel and accommodation would be the barrier - so we set up travel and treatment packages, negotiated with airlines and travel agents. We negotiated with hotels around our different clinics and said ‘we need our patients to be able to call you during the night. If they need medication, we want to be contacted. We need you to bring them to and from the clinic if they are by themselves and to take meals to their rooms if they don’t want to go out, and we want you to bill us so they pay just one bill that includes everything.”
Powrie also addressed the financial barriers to Lasik surgery. He says: “Most people today can afford a payment of something, but ask them to pull a few thousand dollars together and they just don’t have it. We introduced a payment program and access to finance so that people could find a way to pay for it.”