Today we’d like to introduce you to Rasa Tamulavichus.
Rasa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I immigrated from Lithuania with my parents to finish high school. Upon completion enrolled in Loyola University and completed my professional optometry training at the Illinois College of Optometry.
Shortly after graduation, I started my private practice in Evergreen Park. That experience taught me all the ins and out of running a business essentially preparing me for my largest business venture, Big City Optical. I chose the Pilsen neighborhood as I felt it needed good quality eye care and there didn’t seem to be much available. Within the first couple of months following the opening, I started looking to expand and landed in the Andersonville area. Still a diverse neighborhood it allowed me to expand my product offering and overall brand awareness in Chicago.
My team and I are active in both communities and we leverage social media exhaustively to attract clients. For back to school, our Pilsen practice offered eye exams to kids at a reduced rate, free lens upgrade, and a clear Big City Optical backpack full of school supplies. There are now 150 students at local schools attending each day with their Big City Optical backpack. It’s impossible for a small business to support all the great organizations in a community, but given a little creativity, we were able to make a big impact to our client’s lives and also help our business be successful.
We are different than other optometry offices. We have a full line of Rx and Sunglasses and have built our offices to provide an experience where it’s enjoyable to simply try it on. If clients can’t figure out what looks best we take photos so they can post on social media and get opinions. Eventually, they always decide to buy as they aren’t pressured and only encouraged to but what they LOVE.
Has it been a smooth road?
Managing and building a full-service optical practice is unlike any challenge I have taken on. Learning while trusting the “experts” you have hired is tough and it doesn’t always work out. 2 months after opening Pilsen I went on a trip out of the country for a wedding. Thinking everything was covered had one of my senior employees do a no call no show. What?! I couldn’t believe it.
When I returned I needed to make some changes….things had already been bothering me, but even when something is new it’s easy to think things are good enough. After being left high and dry I needed to quickly learn how to sell the products. I am not a sales person, but rather a person that loves the science behind eye health. I rolled up my sleeves and 2 days later knew the job as well as the person that had to leave.
Once that happened I started to not trust anyone, but quickly learned that a good manager does trust. It took some work and now I have an amazing team at both locations. I feel so incredibly blessed to have found these people….they treat each other and our clients like gold. I couldn’t ask for more.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Big City Optical story. Tell us more about the business.
Big City Optical is a full-service optometric practice with an extensive line of frames, lenses, and contact lenses. My opticians and I have done extensive work at curating our product offering to our clients that makes the decision process easier. Each practice carries a selection representative of the community and current fashion trends.
I am proud of how hard we work to find the perfect option for the client. One great example, we had a client that was looking for something very specific to compliment his look. He tried everything on in the store and all didn’t quite meet what he was looking for. Rather than encourage him to purchase something he liked vs loved we told him we could do better. That’s when we all started searching….landed on a Gucci frame that was very limited in the market. We did a nationwide search and one existed on the west coast. This client showed us that we could add real value to our clients by working hard to find a look that makes them feel great.
From a medical standpoint, there was a client that had suffered for over a year from several scratches to the eye. Traditional methods didn’t address her concerns so I started researching other solutions. I landed on using an amniotic membrane to provide her permanent relief. This is a new technology that I could only rely on my knowledge of the eye. For this 10 minute procedure, I had a representative from the company providing the membrane come to the procedure to ensure a strong outcome. Great news was it worked! We go out of our way for clients from both fashion and a medical standpoint.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
There are many self-serve options coming up for clients in need of glasses. Regulations continue to ease up allowing clients to self-serve. I have already seen this happening with many of the low-cost options out there resulting in unhappy clients coming to my practices looking for help where the self-serve option didn’t meet their need.
An eye exam provides a window into the person’s overall health. I think optometrists will need to continue to educate people on eye health while at the same time embracing that competition is changing. We enlist the most advanced equipment for treating our clients. When that equipment is no longer the most advanced and we need something to take it to a person’s home or work you can bet that Big City Optical will be right in front of that trend. As a business owner, you can’t be afraid of competition.
Pricing:
- Frame and lens options starting at $99
Contact Info:
- Address: 5653 N Clark St Chicago, IL 60660
- 1350 W. 18th St Chicago, IL 60608
- Website: bigcityoptical.com
- Phone: 3122615503
- Email: vision@bigcityoptical.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigcityoptical/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigCityOptical/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/big-city-optical-chicago-4
- Other: https://www.yelp.com/biz/big-city-optical-chicago
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