The Eternal Question

“Why do people own 12 pair of shoes but only one pair of glasses?”

Phrased as many ways as there are opticians—at Spexcentric, the answer to this question has become quite clear. It has everything to do with positioning; in other words, how eyewear has been presented and perceived for decades both inside and outside the industry. Unfortunately, in the age of the internet, the traditional model has led to patient push-back, and consumers increasingly deciding to purchase their eyewear online.

The question I have always asked is,

“Most eye care practices consist of two distinct businesses: eye care and retail eyewear (vision correction, if you want to throw in a third), yet why do business owners insist on trying to shove the entire thing into a single box?”

Imagine the difference it could make if practices defined their ideal eyewear customer and their ideal eye care patient separately and catered their marketing, environments, and messaging accordingly. It would almost instantly double the attractiveness of the business and provide new cross-business selling opportunities that didn’t previously exist.

Through this lens, we see tremendous opportunity to help eye care practices and optical shops grow revenue and bring more people to the amazing world of independent eyewear.

Spexcentric Founding Team

A former U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion operator, Keith Benjamin spent nearly a decade in the tech startup world before finding a passion for marketing. In 2006, he decided to return to his family’s roots and bring his skills and interests to Laramy-K Optical lab as Director of Marketing. Seeing a vacuum for optician training, he drove the creation of the first open-source, freely available ABO study guide. It was quickly downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Upon realizing much more was needed, he brought John Seegers and the OpticianWorks program into the Laramy-K fold, where he led the rebirth of the program while shifting the focus to video. Today, the Laramy-K OpticianWorks YouTube channel has over 6 million views and 59,000 subscribers, while tens of thousands of Opticians have used the full OpticianWorks training program to become better opticians. 

Continuing the family tradition, Keith’s son, Will Benjamin, has taken his love for photography and video editing and applied it to digital marketing. Entrepreneurial at a young age, Will cut his teeth on email marketing and SEO by starting and running an events website and newsletter. He has also created content and social media campaigns for remodeling, design, and real estate clients.

Spexcentric is building for the future, helping independent eyewear retailers and eyecare practices grow revenue through positioning and digital marketing and ultimately creating a movement around the culture of independent eyewear.

“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”

– R. Buckminster Fuller.