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Inspiration hit Paul Lantinga right in the face. It was 1996, and he was on vacation, swimming in the Arabian Sea, when his prescription glasses were knocked off by a wave. Try as he might, he couldn't find them. Until he could get a local optometrist to create a new pair of specs, the near-sighted IT worker had to live with fuzzy vision.
Shortly after that experience, Lantinga saw a pair of prescription goggles that swimmers could wear instead of glasses. "It struck me as brilliant," he says. "There are all these recreational and competitive swimmers who want to see when they're in the water, but they don't want to wear their glasses."
At the time, Lantinga, 39, was working in India as a liaison for
a U.S.-based IT company. When he finished his stint overseas and came home to Toronto, he landed a job in the IT department of a major bank. Lantinga says he was surprised he couldn't find the goggles anywhere in Canada or the United States and started to look into how he could import them to North America. In 2005, Lantinga felt he was ready to launch an import and distribution business, and See Worthy Inc. was born. Shortly after, he left his day job and started to work on the business full-time. "It wasn't easy to make the leap," he says. "I had a great job that I enjoyed. However, working nights on the business and contracting out some
work slowed growth. I needed to develop relationships during business hours and to pitch my product at tradeshows."
Although it took a leap of faith to leave behind his steady paycheque, Lantinga didn't make the move without key pieces in place. He had financing, inventory, warehousing in Canada and the U.S., marketing material, sales representatives and a handful of retailers lined up. He also had an endorsement from Gary Hall Sr., a former U.S. Olympic swimmer who now practices as an ophthalmologist in Phoenix, Arizona.
Lantinga also had in place an arsenal of technology tools that helped him communicate effectively, monitor sales and inventory, and keep the company's website and books up to date—all while letting him travel to meet prospects and attend trade shows. "Technology should supplement the human touch, not replace it," he says. That's not to say tech isn't important. "The challenge of introducing any new product to the North American market is huge, and we would not be where we are—selling thousands of prescription goggles per month—without technology."
The goggles are manufactured in pre-made strengths measured in half steps and can even be set up with different strengths for each eye. See Worthy carries 15 strengths, plus non-prescription goggles, all available in four colours. That's a lot of stock keeping units for one product line, and Lantinga knew he needed to keep inventory under control. His first priority was an inventory-control system that could be integrated with sales data. An associate modified an existing inventory management application to cover See Worthy's particular needs and added a Web-based interface to give Lantinga access to data from anywhere he had an Internet connection. "At any moment, we know what's in stock and what's being shipped, so we can avoid carrying excess stock
and still fill orders almost immediately," he says.
As important as monitoring inventory is, monitoring relationships with customers is just as crucial. See Worthy uses SalesForce.com, an online customer relationship management (CRM) application that lets Lantinga track what his eight direct sales representatives and 50 sub-distributors in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean are doing. He can see who has talked to which potential clients, when calls or visits were made, what information See Worthy has mailed to prospects, when sales have closed, and which products have been shipped. "It's a lifesaver," says Lantinga, who can access and update customer data on the SalesForce website from any location.
Lantinga was initially hesitant to spend money on the inventory system because he wasn't sure his sales reps would use it. "Incomplete data is worse than no data at all," he says. But, his staff understood the importance of using CRM to track contacts and sales and, even though some of the company's subdistrutors, who work freelance, don't use the application, they do send in e-mail orders via their BlackBerrys.
Langtinga's staff can then translate this information into SalesForce data so that all inventory can be tracked. Another big benefit of the SalesForce application is that it can be integrated with QuickBooks, See Worthy's accounting software, which helps keep the company's books up to date.
See Worthy also uses SalesForce to help its customers find retailer locations on its website. The tool is tied into the company's active customer list on SalesForce. "Keeping the goggle retailer list current is crucial, but it would take a lot of time to do if we had to update the list manually," Lantinga says.
Keeping in touch with his far-flung staff is another top priority. See Worthy is a small company, but it's spread out: Lantinga is in Toronto; his vice-president of sales lives in Iowa; most of his sales representatives are in the U.S.; his supplier is located in Taiwan. And the company is looking to expand to Europe. That all adds up to huge long-distance phone bills. To help cut costs, Lantinga turned to Skype, an Internet telephony application that allows him to talk to non-Skype users for pennies a minute.
The system's Internet-based applications sure come in handy when Lantinga needs to talk to his supplier in Taiwan, who speaks only Mandarin. Lantinga Skypes his translator in Lethbridge, Alberta, who then gets the supplier on the line. While the translator is talking to Taiwan, she can send questions and information to Lantinga using Skype's instant-message function, and get immediate replies. Engaged in a three-way global conversation, they discuss orders, deadlines and prices.
Lantinga also regularly uses Skype to talk to an optical-technology company in France and to potential distributors across Europe as See Worthy prepares to expand overseas. Even so, his monthly telecom bill is still too high, and he's planning a move to VoIP to replace multiple phone and fax lines, a toll-free service, voice mail and Internet access. Of course, the move comes with its own cost—because his telecom provider won't let him keep his existing toll-free number, he'll have to reprint all his marketing brochures.
Although Lantinga had the idea of importing prescription goggles over a decade ago, he's glad he waited to take the plunge. The technology wasn't quite ready for prime time, he says. "But the tools are there to make it all happen now." And See Worthy is afloat.
