Dame Mary Perkins: SpecSavers

“I have a wardrobe of specs! I love the new bright colours of plastic and metal frames around now,” says Dame Mary Perkins. The 63-year-old mother of three and grandmother of seven set up her visionary company in Guernsey with husband Doug in February 1984.

They met on the first day of their optics degree. Admitting that optometry runs in her blood (her father was also an optician), Perkins had long harboured a desire to support independent young optometrists, especially women, own their own practices and receive help in running their businesses.

On leaving university in 1966, she had a choice: either work for an optical company or start on her own. With Doug by her side, she chose the latter. They ran their chain (which grew to 23 stores) until 1980, then sold up, spending the following four years on a break, researching the market and waiting for deregulation from Margaret Thatcher’s government to enable them to run with their new ideas.

Perkins estimates that they invested around £500,000 into the fledgling SpecSavers through the sale of those 23 stores, but admits she never kept tabs on the exact figure.

“It wasn’t some lump sum we put in the beginning. But initially, what with spending on advertising and being away from home (paying for hotels and the like), it all simply added up,” she recalls.

Sharing the workload

This travel involved visiting the US to research the franchising of opticians. “What I didn’t want was a whole chain with a head office employing different opticians all over the country,” explains Perkins. “I wanted opticians to own their own stores, which is what they do, but on a 50/50 basis. They take care of the day-to-day running, while all the other stuff is done for them from my office here in Guernsey.

“So you see, they don’t have to worry about their VAT returns, their advertisements, their marketing and their buying.

“Their payroll is taken care of, while all of their accounts are also done for them,” she continues. “All they have to do is go to work, look at people’s eyes, make sure they’ve got the right glasses and contact lenses, and there we are! It takes all the strain of running a small company off that person.”

SpecSavers made a profit within 12 months, which is a reflection of how well their unique vision and determination to remove the barriers to visits to opticians were being received by the public.

Perkins explains how they encouraged optometrists to join the group. “At the time, opticians were seeing just a few people a week and charging high prices – they were making a good living,” she says. “What we were trying to say is lower the prices, see a lot more people and this will work much better.

“It will expand the market and people will come more often because the glasses aren’t so expensive. It was a slow process, but we’ve had steady growth from year one.

“We’ve always been opening stores – even after the first year we were opening 20 or 30 a year. We have more than 1,000 minds focused on moving the business forward all the time.”

Going global

SpecSavers’ expansion into the international market began with the Netherlands, around 10 years ago. “It was quite a big leap, because, when you go to another country, even if you’ve got a winning formula and a winning business in the UK, it doesn’t mean it’s going to translate well anywhere else, even if you think it’s going to,” Perkins explains. “You have to adapt to the local culture and the local people really.”

SpecSavers now has 838 optical stores across Europe (including 604 in the UK and Ireland), 111 hearing centres (11 of which are overseas) and a supply chain to more than 150 stores in Australia.

As a privately owned company, SpecSavers does not divulge its profits. However, turnover in 2006/7 was £879m and the company had a staff of 15,000. “Profits are ploughed back into the business to ensure that we continue to offer the best possible service, with up-to-date equipment and fresh looking stores,” says Perkins. “We never rest on our laurels!”

  DAME MARY PERKINS ON WOMEN IN BUSINESS:

“I didn’t take any time off work to have children – apart from two weeks – and if it was necessary to travel or stay away from home for business, then that’s what I did!”

About the book

Michelle Rosenberg is a B2B PR specialist and an entrepreneur. While working at Aurora, founded by Glenda Stone in 2000, Rosenberg realised that women were succeeding in business in enormous numbers.

The success stories included in this book cover a wide variety of business interests, from Fairtrade coffee to baby clothes, from children’s toiletries to trendy spectacles. And a variety of business types, from high-street chains to online selling. Whatever your line, these stories will inspire you to go for it – to rise above the average and reach for the top.

So get up there with these high-f ying women, and find out what makes them tick, and how they achieved their outstanding success. Inspiring women you will meet in the book include: Chrissie Rucker, of the White Company;

Debbie Moore, of Pineapple; Romy Fraser, of Neal’s Yard Remedies; Tamara Hill-Norton, of sweatyBetty, and Sahar Hashemi, of Coffee Republic. Inspiring Women: how real women succeed in business is out now (£12.99, ISBN 978-1-85458-410-6) www.crimsonpublishing.co.uk