 Alright, now that we got all the introductions out of the way last month, let's get into the real stuff. This month's sales column is about properly managing your inventory. In its most simple form, it's basically having more of what sells and get rid of what doesn't. So how do you figure that out? By utilizing your data. Not what other opticals are doing, not what you've learned that supposedly other opticals are doing. No, no, no. With your unique data. So many in our industry shout that calculating free intern doesn't do you any good. Okay, that's ridiculous, mainly because it doesn't look at the whole picture. It's like saying that two different stores have the same item. Let's say that one store is promoting that it's 50% off and you're like, we're gonna go to that store because they have the exact same thing at 50% off. Not realizing that this store over here has it for full price at $3.50 and yeah, these guys have it for 50% off, but if you're not looking at the full story, you don't realize that they're selling it for 50% off on an $800 product. So you're actually paying more. That's the same thing as looking at an optical and saying, oh yeah, frame turn doesn't help because you're not looking at the whole picture. When analyzing frame turn, one must look at the whole picture. The turn is a ratio based upon the sales numbers and the board space allotment that you have. Not to mention the pricing and overall profitability in order to get an actual good picture of what is going on and the overall ROI of your inventory. Only with the whole picture can you actually develop a plan to change. I've sat through three CES this past year that gave the most amount of what I will call misinformation when it comes to frame turn. The idea that they can give one number or maybe two numbers on a variable of what all opticals should be turning their inventory at is total bullsh**t. I said bullsh**t. Well it is. It's total crap. Okay, here's a simple fact. Larger opticals have a dramatically different turn rate than smaller opticals. The opticals that don't have a doctor are only making their cash flow on retail sales where the opticals that do have a doctor are making it on retail sales and on services. All of their ideal turn rate numbers are different. And anyone who had put all of these different types of opticals into one box and say that all of them should have a 2.5 or a three turn rate is ridiculous and completely off base. And not only is it completely incorrect because I've got data from 200 opticals that say something completely different. The sad part is that this misinformation is devastating to an optical's confidence in data. For example, if an optical is taking the time to sit through one of these CES and learn about how they're supposedly supposed to be running their inventory and they sit down and they learn all about it, they take the time to run their numbers, they plug in the data and they think, wow, we are so not even close to that number. Well, you know what? We're not that bad off. I mean, we're not obviously at our peak performance, but I mean, we're not also in the gutter. Like, if we're that far off, gosh, you know what, this data thing must be complete rubbish. No, not at all. This misinformation completely causes opticals to lose faith in making business decision based on analytical data. Now, it is 2022 people and that is no secret that analytics overall in any business are important and they can help you. And unfortunately, an eye care making decisions based upon data is something that's been completely lost in our periphery of running an eye care business. And I will tell you right now, making decisions based upon your unique frame turn data is absolutely something that will transform the success of your optical. And I know because my team is working with opticals every single day that are building their confidence in managing their frame boards and properly calculating their frame turn.