And on to The Netherlands! This was a part of the world tour I’ve been really looking forward to. Because A) JonTy (our sales rep here) is such good company and B) this is our best territory in the world for Bespoke sales per Optician’s store.

I had a regrettable 6:55am flight but at just 40 minutes flying time, I was in Amsterdam and on the road with Jon before you could say Gouda.

So the first two shops I visited were both fantastic accounts, but neither my best selling. I had told Jon not to take me to only the best, I also wanted to see ones not working, so I could learn something.

Again, the same story, training training training. I can now sadly see that if you don’t come to design school, you will not do Tom Davies Bespoke successfully. OK, two hours later in Boddeus, two more staff booked to Design School and a decision that they will also start designing their own collections from my range and we moved on to the next shop (complete with complimentary umbrellas)!

The next shop, a half hour away was quite simply, the best Opticians I’ve ever been in on this world tour and one of the nicest I’ve been in, in my career. This was for two reasons: 1.The architecture. The 500 year old building mixed with modern steal and sheet glass. Amazing. 2. The passion and excitement which the Optician, Annette, showed as she took me round the store and showed off her pride and joy. The best practices in the world have a heart and soul, which the customers pick up on, and this is what I loved. I just needed to work out why they were not our best account, when I’d really like them to be.

One guess. Training.

At design school we tell customers the technical side of Bespoke, but we are now also talking about the way to sell it, how to handle a customer and how to manage their expectations. Another two booked in for October!

A few whirlwind meet and greets with some of our better opticians, show off some prototypes, ask their advice on some of my new ideas and a “service station cheese sandwich” we arrived at one of my favourite opticians. Deventer Brillen Centrale is one of our best accounts in the world and also one of our first. I’ve really enjoyed watching them progress with the brand and have been impressed with the innovation they have shown with their design work. So much so that some of Pim’s creations have found their way in to my collection.

I think they were pretty pleased with me as well, since they took me out to dinner and presented me with this gift.  This is what makes it worth coming to work for!

On to the next day. Lots more meet and greets, again a few new lessons learnt. I asked a thousand questions during the day and also passed on my learnings from my World Tour. What I have learnt about Tom Davies will take up an entire week’s blog entry (and I will write a summary next week) but I passed on what I could, whilst soaking up more feedback.

There will be some interesting changes in September!!!!!!

The good host that JonTy TonnTy is, he took me sightseeing (in the few seconds between the mega account tour). This is the Town Hall he married in and this is his local cheese shop (he lives in Gouda). One feels one needs to pass on a little of the local culture in one’s blog.

Finally, I’m at the airport back to London. I had an interview for a magazine over dinner and as usual, I got rather too carried away jibberjabbering about Bespoke spectacles. I missed my flight. Only I didn’t really. Have you EVER been happy for a two hour flight delay???????????????????

Home for my boy’s third birthday in the morning... then off to Switzerland for the last leg of the tour on Monday.

I had a great time in South Germany with Michi. I arrived at the airport, Michi had driven 400 miles to pick me up and arrived at exactly the same time as me, it was a good start!

We had three events planned (one for each day) and I also asked that I visit a few accounts which were not doing a great business for us, so I could find out why. It was very interesting to hear the same argument I have heard in other non-performing opticians. 

Unnamed Optician - "It’s not that I need to come to Design School, it is just that customers here don’t want a Bespoke frame”.

To which I answered - “Are you telling me that you have customers, who come into this shop, and do not want you to design them a frame which fits perfectly, is a perfect colour for them, is designed for their face shape, by YOU, just for them personally? They don’t want that? At design school, we also teach you how to sell a Bespoke frame”.

Unnamed Optician - “I need to come to design school!”.

Then on to opticians who are doing a fantastic Bespoke service. Christian from Bartels Optik. He really put on a great event and had a fantastic turn out. I was asked to give a speech which scared the life out of me, however, it seemed to go ok and, following this, we went to work. 

I can’t remember how many bespoke frames we did (it was a lot) but I do know that I didn’t get to bed till around 2am.

We did another event the next day at Hunke. The “inventor” of our forthcoming “collaboration” service we are launching at Silmo. Hunke was the first optician to create a complete collection with his own take on the TD range. Here you can see me with a couple of happy customers. I’m afraid I didn’t take any other photos during the event, I was too busy enjoying myself.

On to Stuttgart and our German second home. This optician got behind us in a big way from day one and I have a soft spot for the owner, Joachim Weisser, who not only knows how to sell Tom Davies Bespoke better than anyone I’ve met, but is also one of the best opticians I’ve met at presenting his business.

Of course I love the current TD Window he has in place (the banner has been there for a year!). I can tell you that the combination of the screen and the two banners was the most effective “stop and stare” I’ve seen ever. All day during our event, there were people literally standing there for what seemed like an age.

This is Joachim himself, with one of his happy customers. Magic!

 

 All in all a great trip to Germany.  Three more stops to go...

Here I am in Hamburg, the last stop on the first leg of my German tour. I thought you would be fed up by now with happy shots of me with customers and Opticians, so these photos are just from my mobile phone as I either walked to the appointment or drove away.

Hamburg is a fantastic city and will probably be one of our best areas in Germany, if not Europe for Bespoke sales. In fact Optik Renken has only had the Bespoke system eight weeks and has already submitted 16 jobs. We had a quick look through his work and there were some really great examples of Bespoke either already delivered or about to arrive. 

I think he must have been happy since he was talking about spending Euro 5000 on a film to promote Bespoke in Hamburg. I told him I'd rather he spent 1% of that sending his staff to design school and that I'd make him a short film from our forthcoming NEW bespoke film for his website.

Which reminds me, I finished filming the film on Friday night in Bremen. I have done a quick review of the rushes (looked at the screen on the camera on the flight home) and I have to say, it is liquid gold...in fact, I am so pleased with it, I think I'm going to rent the local cinema for the premier...(or at least see if the manager needs a new set of glasses!).

Last but not least, I landed back in London today. I put my family to bed for a lunch time snooze and sneakily started working on the August production schedule.  My wife "caught" me working and took this photo. On the table you can see over 50 prototypes technical drawings which will make up the collection releases for the next few months. I have been VERY busy during the world tour emailing sketches to my design team. The trip is having the most remarkable influence on the design direction and you can expect to see the best frames in the world EVER coming to an Optician near you! 

I arrived back in London on Saturday morning. The best description I can come up with is “dazed”.

I have a faint memory of going to the shop to buy milk for a nice cup of tea, the next thing I can remember is being at the airport at Stansted arguing with the customs over my bags and the fact that I would miss my flight. An emotional plea to see my boy got my bags released and I JUST made the flight.

I am about half way through the world tour and, three weeks in, I have to say my family have been a great support. 

This was one of the happiest moments in recent memory.

Here you can see my Golden Girls. They had a Bespoke pair each and seemed to love every moment. I personally enjoyed the consultation more than any on my route so far. We had fun laughing at my poor quality German and going through the design options. Unlike many of my customers, they certainly knew what they wanted and wouldn’t hear of my ideas. It was great fun.