Fierce Independence, Southern Hospitality and Little Side of Unsolved Murder?

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NOW THAT THE 2022 America’s Finest Optical Retailers contest is open and accepting entries, it’s the perfect time to revisit our 2021 winner – A Proper View in Winston-Salem, NC. In this episode of In Vision with Dee Carroll, our guest is Dr. Andrew Bradbury, owner of A Proper View. Together the two discuss how his perfect blend of southern hospitality, individualized patient care and dedication to offering exclusively independent eyewear earned him last year’s top honors.

They talk about everything from making the decision to go the independent private practice route to designing a modern business that seamlessly blends with its historic environment to the value placed on the patient experience through spending generous time with them. They also discuss the importance of having a reliable team and rewarding them, their holistic marketing experience, and their decision not to take managed vision care plans.

In his own words, “I use the phrase fiercely independent a lot but that’s always what we come back to here. We live in a world that maybe doesn’t always put the focus on really trying to support independent small business and it’s easy to understand why that is from a convenience standpoint but we have passionately picked up the torch to try to continue to engage with independent businesses. We knew we wanted to be independent and we work really hard to continue to stay focused on that.”

Toward the end of the podcast, they do go on a fun tangent about the history of the property and the Reynolds family — so stick around for the tea — before they wrap up with Dr. Bradbury’s advice for other ECPs interested in going the “fiercely independent” route.

If you’d like to read more about A Proper View read their full 2021 America’s Finest Optical Retailers winner’s package on invisionmag.com. If you’re interested in learning more about the 2022 contest — brought to you this year by Cherry Optical Labs, Ennco Display Systems and Reichert Technologies — visit www.invisionmag.com/AFOR.

Deirdre Carroll

Having built a career in service journalism, Dee has been covering the eyecare industry for over a decade. As editor-in-chief of INVISION Magazine, she is passionate about telling independent ECPs stories and can be reached directly at dee@invisionmag.com.