How to make your medical spa impossible to compete with.

The world is changing rapidly — you might have heard to all of the A.I. tools like ChatGPT, Bard and the rest… and what used to work for cosmetic clinics and providers in the past is no longer enough to compete in today's market.

There’s been a 63x increase in telemedicine since 2020 (Yep. Covid.) [1]. Additionally, a whopping 71% of all in-person clinical visits can now be done remotely [1]. Patient expectations have shifted too. The result is that 81% of existing patients are open to switching providers at any time[1]. Patient churn, redundant and inefficient practices, and lost revenue opportunities are killing your growth, and your practice.

With increased competition, evolving patient expectations, and the need for a unique value proposition, it's crucial to find you unfair advantage and put it to work — you need to be impossible for others to compete with.

Just because you’re unaware of the losses doesn’t make them any less real. Remember this; you can’t just be good — you have to be better than everyone else. Patients have access to everyone and all the information they need, and they will move to whomever they feel best fits them.

Finding Your Unfair Advantage

In this new healthcare landscape, there will inevitably be winners and losers. To ensure that your clinic is among the winners, you need to find your unfair advantage and learn to compete in ways that other’s can’t simply copy, and they’re working hard too. Think of it as ‘asymmetrical competition’ — the ability to redefine the playing field and the rules of the game.

Hint: It’s not going to be your IPL or laser or the lemon water or any of the bullshit that you hear from the sales reps about how they’re going to put you on their vendor website.

But you have a real problem…. you’re not actually much different.

If you’re like most providers, you’re kidding yourself. A massive 84% of clinicians believe they deliver superior patient care and experience, but only 8% of their patients agree.

While it’s most likely that your current patient care and experiences are lockstep with what they can get down the street. Your staff is similar, your offerings are largely the same, and your pricing too. The fact that you’ve got a different RF device or were the first to perform ‘whatever-treatment-you-want-to-insert-here’ for longer than your competitors is irrelevant.

Guess what; nobody cares. That’s just more marketing b.s. and you should not delude yourself based on hopeful thinking.

What does a real competitive advantage look like?

Success in this new world isn’t easy. It requires a combination of factors; exceptional patient experiences, streamlined operations, and new business models. All of these are massive opportunities for those who are smart enough to adapt and use them — especially since most clinics will be too slow to make the needed changes.

There are new technologies that provide a clear path to market dominance.

• Patient experience: Creating and automating exceptional and personalized patient experiences that go far beyond current tools to build strong patient relationships, and real loyalty.

• Productivity: Automating redundant tasks, personalize patient experiences, and build strong relationships with their patients.

• New business models: Creating new ‘hybrid’ business models that provide recurring revenue and subscriptions as well as your current services model.

There are technologies you can use do do all of these things.

Imagine your clinic where your staffs productivity is increased by 4x, and you’re increasing high-touch patient interactions by 260% (without any additional time)[3], and you’re generating recurring revenue from subscriptions (since we’re now in a subscription economy).

In this future, your clinic is more efficient, patient-focused, and ultimately, more successful.

You can’t just work harder, or do this by yourself.

Several obstacles stand in the way of achieving this vision of success for your clinic. In the past, you’ve just worked longer hours and hired more bodies, but those strategies have had diminishing returns for a while. It’s no longer a workable solutions, especially in competitive markets. This focus on manual work and care delivery forces multiple problems into your clinic:

• Time-consuming, manual tasks that prevent healthcare providers from focusing on patient care.

• Difficulty in personalizing patient experiences and building strong relationships.

• Inefficient workflows and processes that hinder overall clinic productivity.

To overcome these obstacles, you need tools that offer:

• Intelligent automation to streamline administrative tasks and optimize workflows.

• Personalization capabilities to create tailored patient experiences and foster trust.

• Advanced technology solutions, such as behavioral AI, to automate patient interactions and improve care.

Here’s what market domination actually looks like.

The reality is that dominating a market requires that you’re doing things that others can’t match. If you have unlimited funds you can simply outspend the competition and suck up all the oxygen. (When I was running clinics my average spend per clinic was $40,000 per month.)

The better way is to build a much better patient experience, but you can’t do that with your current tools or by adding aromatherapy or whatever. You actually have to deliver value that no one else can match.

Fortunately, the newest healthcare technologies that have been developed for the enterprise and clinical trials that are now available.

The best of these is Storyline.

Clinics that have adopted Storyline have experienced a 4x increase in team productivity, a 260% increase in patient interactions without additional provider burden, and a 17% increase in total revenue [3]. And 96% of patients would recommend Storyline to their primary care physician, and give it 4.9 stars.

The landscape has changed, and clinics must adapt to compete effectively. By finding your unfair advantage - which is probably going to be tech - you can build a market dominating clinic.

References

Telemedicine's growth and potential:
"Telehealth: A Quarter-Trillion-Dollar Post-COVID-19 Reality?”
Description: This article discusses the rapid growth of telemedicine and its potential to become a significant part of healthcare services post-COVID-19.
URL: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/telehealth-a-quarter-trillion-dollar-post-covid-19-reality

The changing landscape of patient expectations:
"The Healthcare Consumer of the Future: How Patient Expectations Are Changing"Description: This article outlines the evolving expectations of healthcare consumers and the factors driving these changes.URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshealth/2021/06/29/the-healthcare-consumer-of-the-future-how-patient-expectations-are-changing/?sh=1d4e40d07351

The importance of patient-centered care and relationships"The Importance of the Patient-Provider Relationship in the Digital Age"Description: This article highlights the significance of patient-provider relationships in delivering high-quality care and the role technology can play in strengthening these connections.
URL: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.17.0556

Clinician workload and the impact on patient care:
"Physician Burnout, Interrupted"
Description: This paper discusses the issue of physician burnout, its consequences on patient care, and potential solutions to address the problem.
URL: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2003149

5 Lessons We've Learned About Building A Successful Cosmetic Practice

John D. Rockefeller's quote of "I would rather earn 1% of 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own" is exactly right. So how do you get your patients to help you out just 1% and turn your dribble of patient referrals into a torrent?

The smartest clinic owners know that getting your patients to work for you just that 1% is the path to easy, repeated sales, makes life difficult for your competitors, and isn't forcing you to work 80 hours a week to keep your head above water. Savvy clinicians intuitively work towards each of these goals, but they often don't think of them as part of a whole. In this series of posts we're going to pull these topics apart and detail why and how they all fit together to build a machine that perpetuates and grows your clinic's income. 

I'm going to break down 5 critical areas that you need to spend effort on improving if you're going to move past the average medical practice income and reputation and get into the VIP section of top performers. Leave any one of these out and you're hamstringing your business. 

1. Mastering patient consultations
2. Replacing yourself with systems
3. Delivering the remarkable
4. Aligning your staff's perceived best-interests
5. Waging asymmetrical warfare against the competition

Note what's NOT on the list - anything about patient outcomes. (We'll take it for granted that you're not burning patients with your IPL or they're getting ptosis from your Botox.) Outcomes are really what patients "perceive", not the actual clinical result. Improving these 5 areas will readily increase patients perception of the value you're delivering, and their outcomes. What else is not on the list? Price. (More about this below.)

Here's why these 5 areas are of critical importance to your clinic, and what you can do to start improving them.

Mastering Patient Consultations 

Top performers know how to sell. Average performers hope you'll buy.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you rank your consultations? How good do you think you are? It's probably that you think that your consults are somewhere above average.  After all, you're getting patients and you're busy so what's the problem? Isn't being busy the goal?

Actually, no. Everyone is busy. That part's easy. Being successful and profitable is the goal. (Having a work/life balance and a 36 hour work week may be part of that too.) and if you're not delivering perfect consultations you're stepping on your own success. 

It's most likely that your consultations - like most - are completely average.

94% of college professors believe that their teaching skills are above average, a statistical impossibility, but there's nothing special in this regard about academics, clinicians also think they're above average in every self-assessment of skills.

We sent a survey to thousands of clinicians and asked them to rank their consults on a scale of 1 to 10. The results of that survey fit right in line with the college professors, every response rated their consultative skills between 5 and 9. So, if you answered the question above and ranked your consultations as a 7 or 8, you're right at the top of the bell curve and you can bet that your consultations are solidly average. Sorry.

Why is that important?

Poor consultations destroy your reputation and waste every dollar you spend on bringing new patients in to your clinic. Poor consults will put you out of business.

Average consultations generate some sales and leave you almost (but not quite) satisfied with your business - where you can't quite figure out what's missing and your clinic is just grinding along. 

Great consultations are the secret of incredibly profitable clinics. They almost print money. Great consultations fill your schedule and treatment rooms and create fanatically loyal patients and they boost your revenue faster and easier than anything else.  Best of all, mastering patient consultations is a skill set you can learn.

What to do: You need to improve your consultations. To that end, we're about to launch the 10X Consultation Playbook in the Training Academy in order to teach you and your entire staff how to master consultations. This masterclass teaches you everything you need to know to put your consultations at the very top of the heap. Oh, and it's 100% satisfaction guaranteed.

Replacing Yourself With Systems

Top performers use systems. Average performers don't.

 Stop working IN your clinic, and start working ON your clinic.

Systems are what every clinic uses in order to stop micro-managing, stop flailing, stop losing patients, and stop losing revenue. They're a way of replacing yourself. Systems help you pre-decide what’s important to you — ONCE — and then force you to stay focused. Instead of your clinic staff wondering what they should do… or making it up on the fly… you’ll have a clear system to follow that is both structured, and flexible, so you’re not constantly “trying harder” to “catch up.”

Once you integrate real systems into your clinic, you’ll feel the freedom of not being crushed by the necessity to be involved in everything (I'm talking to you, micro-manager) because you know that everything is getting done, and it's getting done right.

Think of the simplest system you use — where you put your keys. Maybe it’s by the door, or in the kitchen. Yet it’s become a habit and you never think about it. You don’t have to “try harder” to put the keys where they should be… it just works. It’s mindless. And it does what it needs to do.

You may be thinking that you already have systems. You have a manual, you have some "policies", everyone knows pretty much what to do and when.

Eh... I'm skeptical.

A few weeks ago, I sent a survey to 472 physicians asking about their clinic's efficiency and productivity. Perhaps you're not surprised by some of the results. You might even recognize your own clinic.

• Over 9/10 of physicians said that their clinic operated at less than 80% efficiency
• 4 out of 10 said that their clinic efficiency was below 60%!
• Physicians reported this "productivity gap" costs their clinic between $5k and $40k in lost revenue every month.
• When I asked them what doesn't work, the most common responses: "lack of systems" (44%), "wasted time and effort" (50%), and "micro-management" (40%).

There's a better way that can pull you out of the micro-managing, hair-on-fire, unproductive daily grind and put you in a position where you're working ON your business, not IN your business.

You're smart. You're tired of sloppy training, loose accountability, and variable patient care and you want some control of your business and your lifestyle. You're tired of putting out fires, answer the same questions, micro-managing everything, and running legal, clinical, and business risks.

Get real systems and put them to work for you.

Being Remarkable

Top performers are remarkable. Average performers are nondescript.

Please don't be beige.

Hard I know, but beige sucks. Beige is mediocre. Beige is completely forgettable. Unfortunately, most clinics aspire to beige... do what everyone else does. It's safe. They're thinking, "I should be able to make go of it... I can do what others are doing...  at least I won't make any costly mistakes that cost me."

Not so.

Working to be average is among the most costly mistakes clinics make, and the most common. Playing it safe leaves stillborn everything you might do that could cause a patient to 'remark' about your clinic. It leaves your patients in limbo and forces you to carry all the water yourself. 

To get your patients to tell others you need to do two things; first, you need to be worthy of being remarked upon and second, you need to make it easy.

Example of being remarkable: One of my clinics was located near a big U.S. Air Force base with about 20,000 military personnel and staff. When operation Iraqi Freedom was launched in 2002 many of those military members were about to be deployed to Turkey for a year. Just before this deployment were some politics going on in the UN and France vetoed a resolution which was unpopular at the base.

I took the opportunity to launch a tongue-in-cheek PR campaign to "Veto French Armpits" and we gave away free underarm laser hair removal treatments to every female military member as well as any wives or girlfriends of military personnel. It was open-ended and completely free series of 7 treatments, a complete package. We didn't tie it to other offers, and yes, we did get some patients who took advantage of it completely but that was what elevated it and made it remarkable. 

The result? We donated more than $40,000 in treatments which made us a lot of friends and brought in a massive surge of new patients, we got national media attention and a deluge of local coverage, and we took a massive chunk of the market that continues to this day. That investment in being remarkable produced about a million dollars in revenue over the years, dwarfing our investment.

If you're open to seizing opportunity, you can do remarkable work with just about any situation. We secured a massive patient population not by doing something that was simple, but by doing something that was remarkable.

Do something, anything, that makes you worth talking about.

Second; you need to make it easy for your patients to help you. If you don't,  you're missing out on all of the goodwill and positive thoughts you're generating.

How many times have you asked patients to share a Like on your Facebook page, or leave a review on Google, or just hoped that they would see how incredible you are and tell everyone?

Hope is not a strategy.

You need to make it easy for them, and that means facilitating the action you're asking them to take - Keep a stack of postcards at the front desk and give them $10 off if they'll write a friends address and a short note when they check out. Give a free package for local business owners or their spouse. Start a corporate program. 

The key is that you want to build these out as part of your standard processes and make it drop-dead easy.

Take a look at the special offer from Podium, the leader in patient review marketing. It's a paid application that allows you to capture reviews from you happy patients right at your front desk when your patients are most likely to take the time to help you out.

Aligning Your Staff's Best-Interests With Your Clinic's Needs

Top performers are leaders. Average performers just pay.

If you think that anyone works for you, well, news flash -  they don't. They all work for themselves, just like you do.

Your job, as a business owner, is to align what they perceive to be in their own best interest with your business goals. This will always include money, but there are other areas where you can have a drastic impact. Workload, environment, professional and personal satisfaction, advancement and training, reputation... your goal is to make your staff believe that making your clinic excel is the most closely aligned with their desired path forward. Do this, and you're going to have a motivated team.

If you can't do this, you're going to have constant turnover and you'll lose income. Your staff may comply with your demands, but they're working for a paycheck, and it only takes a single arched eyebrow or eye-roll to cost you a $4,500 package sale or destroy a reputation with a patient. Multiply that by every patient interaction and you'll see a significant problem.

What's the difference?

Leaders understand that everyone works for themselves. They understand that leadership is given by those willing to follow from the bottom up. Leaders have to live up to very high standards to be worthy of being followed, and they work at it constantly.

Average performers think that their staff works for them. They have 'authority' that flows from the top down, but they're not leaders because they're not worth following. People work simply for a paycheck and will leave as soon as something better comes along. 

What can you do?

• Work hard to be be someone that others are willing to follow. It's not easy and there are challenges. You'll occasionally be taken advantage of but much less so if you just take the authority route. 
• Implement systems in your clinic that get your head above the ground and allow you to focus on bigger picture goals.
• Constantly talk to all of your staff members. Be aware of changing attitudes that may signal a problem. Ask them how aligned they think they are with the clinic. Most people will be very open if they sense that you're interest is genuine.
• Empower them to make decisions, and use policies to make sure that everyone knows which types of decisions they can make.
• Get better at interviewing people and asking the right questions.
• Fire faster. Firing is difficult and most people wait until there's real damage being done.
• Make sure you understand common embezzlement and employee scams. Forewarned is forearmed

When you've aligned your team you'll feel like you're running downhill. Everything is just easier.

Destroying Competitors With Asymmetrical Competition

Top performers make it happen. Average performers hope, and hope is not a strategy.

Like it or not, cosmetic medicine is a business, and that means that it's going to be increasingly competitive as treatments and services become commoditized and prices drop leading to increased competition.

Asymmetrical Competition is finding and exploiting game-changing opportunities that your competitors can't easily match or compete against. 

When we began opening clinics in new locations we devastated the existing clinics run by clinicians who were taking their patient populations for granted. These physicians (mostly plastic surgeons and dermatologists at the time) expected that they would simply inherit all new cosmetic treatments as part of their current fiefdom of "aesthetics". 

They couldn't respond or adapt to the playing field we created.

Rather than position ourselves as competitors to existing practices we redefined the market and positioned ourselves as the experts in nonsurgical cosmetic technologies. We positioned the existing plastics and derm clinics as experts in surgery and dermatology, and we took everything else. The competition didn't have an easy answer since what we were doing was a fundamental change that they couldn't respond to or reproduce.

We focused with absolute madness on keeping appointments on time, on incredible patient services, and on giving power to our patients. We built systems that put our clinics on autopilot and allowed us to easily scale. We empowered our staff to make any decision, as long as they could explain that it was in the best interests of the clinic. We initiated corporate programs, free educational seminars and consults, incredible comfort and atmosphere, and we took all design and marketing seriously. We trained our staff to perform consultations based on sales and service that crushed our goals while turning our patients into raving zealots. We embraced social media and email. We answered questions and posted our pricing right on our website. In short, we did everything that they couldn't do. 

Of course they adapted and started trying to copy us, but they couldn't actually compete. They didn't have the systems, or the desire.

Asymmetrical Competition is available to you as well. You just need to look at what your capabilities are and match those to the market's need. Most clinics don't have the ability to change. They're essentially locked in place and that always presents you with opportunities to exploit areas that they can't adapt to.

As a Medical Spa MD Member you have assess to a wealth of information and know-how about building your clinic. Special offers from partners when you're buying your next laser or IPL, group-buy wholesale pricing on fillers and injectables, software deals, design & marketing services. 

Be smart and take advantage of it all.

Note What's Not On This List

The cosmetic medical market has matured in the last 15 years, but 5 areas above are not entirely tied to medicine, they're really business strategies. You won't find "improving patient outcomes" here because those are simply table stakes. 

Patient Outcomes - You can't build a business marketing better patient outcomes.

Outcomes are what the patient says they are. You can have a perfect outcome but if the patient expectations are unrealistic, the 'outcome' from the patients point of view can still be negative. Trying to build your clinic and reputation only through your technical prowess is essentially a dead end because it's beyond your control.

(Now I'm not saying that this is not a priority and shouldn't be your focus, but I am telling you that trying to convince your patient population that you're 'better' than the competition makes you seem small and petty and is only a part of what a successful strategy looks like.)

Technology - Not a determining factor in your success

There are successful clinics using every platform.

Choosing the right technology is important, and can save you money, but the lasers and IPLs that you put in your clinic are all producing the same light waves. There are differences; customer service, cost, consumables, and usability, but none of those will either put your clinic out of business, or make you more money on their own. It's reasonable to let laser companies help pay for some of your marketing, but don't make the mistake that they're going to really help you much. patients don't buy based on which IPL you're using, they buy from someone they know, like, and trust.

If you're looking to save money and find a reputable vendor of used devices, contact anyone in our used cosmetic lasers classifieds who is a member of our Certified Partners program and you'll get a great deal. (And if you have a complaint you can contact us directly as a Member and we'll intercede on your behalf.)

Price - The death spiral of lowest-pricing.

Do not hitch your wagon to being the low-cost provider unless you love being on the verge of bankruptcy at all times. There can only be one lowest price in any market, and everyone who will come to you because of price will leave you just as fast. If you can't justify higher pricing then put the work in to build a clinic that does. 

Conclusion

In future posts we're going to dive into these areas in detail and help you take actions to improve them.

Have some thoughts on this or anything to add? Leave a comment. I read them all.

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References For This Post:

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2. Kruger, J. & Dunning, D. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, 1121–34 (1999).
3. Gabriel, M. T., Critelli, J. W. & Ee, J. S. J. Pers. 62, 143–155 (1994).
4. Hoorens, V. & Harris, P. Psychology and Health 13, 451–466 (1998).
5. Alicke, M. D. & Govorun, O. in The Self in Social Judgment (eds Alicke, M. D., Dunning, D. A. & Krueger, J. I.) 85–106 (Psychology, 2005).
6. Cross, P. New Directions for Higher Education 17, 1–15 (1977).
7. Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. Psychological Bulletin 103, 193S210 (1988).
8. Shedler, J. et al. American Psychologist 48, 1117–1131 (1993).
9. Colvin, C. R. & Block, J. Psychol. Bull. 116, 3–20 (1994).
10. Sharot, T. The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, New York: Pantheon Books (2011).
11. Johnson, D. D. P. & Fowler, J. H. Nature 477, 317–320 (2011).
12. Trivers, R. Deceit and SelfDDeception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others. (Allen Lane, London, 2011).
13. Barber, B. M. & Odean T. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, 261–292 (2001)
14. Johnson, D.D.P. 2004. Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (2004).
15. Enquist, M. & Leimar, O. J theor Biol 127, 187S205 (1987)

How To Write (Or Fix) A Killer About Page For Your Medical Spa

What's the most important and useful page on your medical spas website? It's your about page. Your "about page" is where new patients learn why they should choose you, stick with you, and what's in it for them.

After your homepage - which is where you're trying to drive all of your traffic too and so the number are skewed - your "About" page is going to be the most visited page on your site.

People want to know who you are, what you look like, why they should trust you over your competitors, and if they should trust you with their face and body. 

Crafting Your About Page

Crafting a grade A About Page requires more than just a location, your office hours and a paragraph on how you're great. While it's not easy writing about yourself, I'm going to walk you through, step-by-step, how to squeeze the most benefit from this critical page.

1. What Value Do You Give Your Patients

This one is a biggie, which is why we're starting with it. Your About Page should be ALL about the value you provide to your patients - NOT all about how great you are. Don't squander the chance to answer the questions that your perspective patients are looking for. Yes, patients want to learn about you and your team and we'll get in to that, but the most important thing they're looking for is how YOU are going to help THEM. That's what they're going to make their buying decisions on and that's why you have a website in the first place.

2. Who Is Your Clinic For? Who Is Your Target Patient?

Who is your most profitable patient? What is your most profitable treatment? Which treatment attracts the most new patients? These are the questions you'll want to start with. Don't fall in to the trap of trying to be everything to everyone. (The cliche holds true in cosmetic medicine as it does elsewhere.) Find a a patient who is right in your sweet spot and write directly to her. Why should this patient choose you?

On the Medical Spa MD page you'll see that right up front we're speaking to clinicians who are looking for info on the business of nonsurgical cosmetic medicine. Those 3 items; nonsurgical, cosmetic, and medical providers are how we filter and segment who we're talking to. It doesn't matter where you are in the world or if you're a MD, DO, PA, NP, RN, if you're a clinician we can help you. We don't cover lotions and potions, we don't talk to patients, and we don't tuck in to invasive surgical techniques.

It's all intentional. Why? Because when the right people visit your About Page you want them to immediately recognize themselves. You want them  to know that the site was created for THEM. Anything that detracts from that central point should be included only with great hesitancy. You're looking to connect to the right people, not all of the people.

3. How You're Going To Benefit Them

Ok, you've written a few sentences geared towards your ideal audience. Now what? Most sites you'll see will begin by talking all about themselves; what medical school they graduated from, how committed to patient care they are... There is a place for a little of that but it's not the main course (it's more like the mint at the end of the meal.)

Key takeaway coming here: Patients want to know about you because of how it may relate to them!

Some ways to think about your About Page.

1. Tell a story: When you have a great story about how your clinic or medspa was built to change lives (even if they're your own), share it. Good stories humanize you and provide context and meaning to your services. Even better, good stories are 'sticky', meaning that your patients are more likely to remember them and pass them on as part of their story about your brand.
2. Be human: Most medical spas, plastic surgeons and dermatologists have pages that scream stuffy and formal. Physicians were taught to control the situation after all and formality and hierarchy provide easy to see guard rails that keep everyone in their place. I'm the expert. you're the patient. You're lucky to be seen and treated by someone as magnificent as I. Patients hate that. My advice is to step off your pedestal and use your About Page to tell the human story of you, whatever that is. Don't be afraid to pull out a misstep or mistake (as long as it's not a negative treatment outcome) like switching majors in college or making a difficult life choice. People want to be treated by other humans, not gods.
3. Skip the medical babble: Please don't use medical jargon. You may think it makes you sound super-smart to use "neuromodulators", but it really just makes your patients think you're talking down to them. People want and appreciate straight talk and clarity. Just be authentic.
4. Be unique and visually interesting: Instead of following the classic script of writing a few paragraphs about your 'mission', try something that makes it more interesting and compelling. Everyone has some photos of their blank waiting and treatment rooms. Make something interesting that demands attention and that people will remark on. Boring = death. Don't do what everyone else is doing.

Here are some example About Pages that I've included for you to take a look at. I've purposefully excluded any medical spas or clinics since much more can be learned by looking at the best About Pages rather than just those from existing practices.

Great Example About Page Examples

If you have any other suggestions from sites that I have missed please leave a comment and let me know. Even more importantly, if you don’t like one of these pages I would love to hear why not. Oh, and these are in no particular order. I just couldn’t do it.

TUMBLR - A great about page that has credibility oozing out all over the place in an interesting package. It's clever and communicates very clearly with human copy

Bentley Motors - Bentley's About Us page does an excellent job of creating that magical and illustrious vibe. They use rich professional photographs and enticing copy. The whole point of this About Us page is to get you to feel part of the experience. To draw you in to their way of thinking and acting which is, in fact, their marketing plan and branding.

Eight Hour Day - Here'a creative studio with an awesomely human about page that tells the story of the people behind the brand. They use some straightforward copy and photos that make you feel like these are people who know what they're doing and that you'd really like to work with. Hey... that's the point.

Harry's - Yep, the razor guys. They don't even call this the about page. It's "Our Story". It's clean, there's plenty of white space, it has purpose and it's well designed.

Hello Alfred - A services platform for residential buildings, Hello Alfred's about page puts the founding story front and center and tells the "why" of their business, not just the 'what'.

The Saddleback Story - Leather travel bags hand made in Mexico. Another "here's how it happened" story about page that really checks all of the boxes. It's human, compelling and relates some really interesting stories that elevate their products from expensive leather bags to a complete lifestyle.

Ok, so there are some great About Pages out there to learn from.

Take a look at your existing About Page - if you have one - and just start making it better. Change out the photo. Write some better copy. Add some white space. Your About Page is going to be the most visited page on your site. Make it great.

If you'd like us to take a look at your site's about page and provide some feedback, just contact us.

New Medspa Opening? What should I do?

Here's an email that we received a while back that is typical of where physicians new to the cosmetic space start - buying a cosmetic laser or IPL and then trying to figure out how to pay for it.

I am a newer reader and now subscriber to MedicalSpa MD. By the way great content!!

My wife's (Ob/Gyn) practice has recently purchased Syneron Emax and VelaSmooth equipment to begin their aesthetic practice within their Ob practice.

So now that the $$$ has been spent we are working on getting our Marketing, brochures, website etc together to begin to establish an image, look etc. and begin to take customers.

While you name several MedSpa www sites that have problems, do you know of any MedSpa sites that you really like?  We would rather not reinvent the wheel and if you might provide a few good www sites we might reference as starting points it would be much appreciated.

Also, I realize you are very busy, however, I think a "Top 10 list of things to avoid" in the MedSpa business or the "Top 10 things to do before you buy your aesthetic equipment" would be very helpful.  We just kinda jumped into this market and well as they say... now here we are.

I'm not going far out on a limb here to suggest that this probably sounds really familiar to a lot of clinicians who are just starting out, and to existing cosmetic practices who see competitors popping up around them.

So, we're going to break this down by parts and see if we can't provide some feedback that can help. In fact, we're going to make this part of a series of posts that pulls apart the hopes and false assumptions and injects both some hard realities and some tactical advice that you can put to work ASAP.

NOTE: If you have some questions like this, use the contact form and ask them. We'll do our best to answer your questions since there are others that also have them. (You will not be identified in any way so don't worry that your name or clinic will appear in a post.)

The Accidental Medical Spa

It's obvious from the first sentence in the email above that the spouse has been assigned the task of doing some 'market research' after the fact. It's not uncommon to have a spouse, office manager, or even a trusted friend take on the role of 'startup consultant' and try to bring some clarity to the chaos of trying to start a cosmetic practice inside or alongside your existing clinic. In a lot of cases the physician just wants someone else to do it and tie it up in a bow. After all, they're already working full-time in the practice that is paying the bills.

While I think there are better ways to approach a new business there are also some actual benefits to doing it this way. (Note that I'm not recommending this.) At least it causes you to focus in a way that gets you involved and problem-solving. After all, you now have laser payments to make and if you don't figure out things toute suite, you're in for a big loss. It has the effect of forcing you to pay attention and make some decisions. In the best cases you learn things quickly and make some smart decisions. In the worst cases you lose your shirt and sell your new lasers with a 60% loss which is a really painful lesson. In either case you're getting an education and you're paying for it.

More from the email: "So now that the $$$ has been spent we are working on getting our Marketing, brochures, website etc together to begin to establish an image, look etc. and begin to take customers..."

Ouch.

That's the sentence that really stands out more than the others. It's clear that - since the physician is an OB-GYN - the cosmetic portion of the practice is going to target the existing patient population, but once you start buying lasers you're on the hook for those payments one way or the other. It would be really nice if you knew that the demand was there before those payments start, and there are ways to do that. 

So what would I suggest?

If you're a physician who's thinking that you could bring in some additional revenue doing Botox and filler injections and getting a laser or IPL and selling those services to your current patient base.. well, you're right. IF you're smart.

First - and this is critical - sell the treatments before you have to deliver them.

It's not hard to do and you'll learn a lot.

The very toughest sales for everything you will ever do are the first ones. If you can make the sales you'll lower the risk and sleep easier at night knowing that you're going to be able to make your payments. Most physicians ask their current patients IF they would pay for something like Botox or stretch mark reduction or whatever... the real trick is to "presell" the treatments. The only real responses that you can trust are when a patient actually buys from you. That's the ONLY real test.

Here's how you do it:

1. Announce to your current patient population that you're going to launch a new service; Filler injections or whatever. Don't position this as "I'm thinking of this, what do you think?". Just proceed as though you're doing it with a specific date or timeline.
2. Attempt to presell the treatments or service to your existing patients. If you can't do it with your existing patients you'll find it even harder with new patients that don't already know, like, and trust you. Give them a discount for "pre-ordering" the treatment, something like 10 or 15%. (Don't make the percentage too high since you're trying to find out if you can sell it at full price.)
3. Collect the money. The ONLY think that counts here is real sales. Do not count any "I'll buy it once you do it" stuff. Patients will always tell you that it's a great idea to offer more services but you need to know how many patients will buy it and what they will pay. (NOTE: Depending upon what the treatment is the cost may vary widely. If it's really expensive you don't need to sell as many as if it's something cheaper.)
4. IF you're absolutely sure that this is a windfall, then actually buy the laser or add the service. If it's not clear, be very careful. Remember that you have to support every service you and and there are opportunity costs to anything you do.
5. IF it doesn't sell, refund the buyers you have with your appologies and a small free gift (something like a 20% discount on their next filler injection or a free facial) as a thank you.

See how that works? 

You want to start collecting money before you actually make the investment and doing it this way puts you in a position to ensure that you're going to be adding a profitable service and not an $80,000 towel rack.

As always, thoughtful comments or thoughts appreciated.

Nurse Practitioner Pay In New "Medical" Spas

What's a good Nurse Practitioner pay in a new 'medical spa' that wants to offer Botox?

I get lots of individual emails looking for information about pay for PAs, NPs and MDs who are being recruited by a local medical spa. Some of these are just entering aesthetics and others are old hands.

Here's an example email that's typical from a NP who's being solicited by a day spa who's wanting to offer Botox and fillers:

Hello, I am a Nurse Practitioner from Wyoming and I am going to start doing some medical aesthetics for an established spa that up to this point has offered everything except medical aesthetics. The owner of the spa and I are having trouble figuring out a fair pay for me. The products are being ordered under my license and I will also be doing all the injections. Right now we are just starting out with Botox and Fillers. She pays her staff an hourly wage plus commission, but I have also talked with other spas that pay straight commission. Both of us are new to this and we are having a hard time finding out what other medical spas pay. Any insight on this would be helpful.

Sincerely,

Stephanie

Ok, so here's where we're going to drop some knowledge-bombs on you. (For this post I'm not going to go too deep on whether these types of setups are good ideas on their own.)

First, think about what you're asking and how you're thinking about this new business. You're counting your eggs a little before you've got any eggs.

The fact that you're asking how much you should be paid reveals a number of problems with your understaning of how this is going to work and who's going to be responsible. (This isn't uncommon at all and we're going to disucss business models at lenght in future posts.) Since you're the clinician, you're going to be responsible for everthing to do with this business with the probable exceptions of: #1, paying for stuff and #2 supplying the 'patients'.  So let's look at what you're going to be responsible for:

• Purchasing all the Botox, Restylane and Juvederm under your medical license
• Patient care
• Charting and compliance
• Clinic operations and systems
• Malpractice insurance

Since you're going to be practicing medicine, the fulcrum in this relationship is you as the clinician. It's going to be your reputation, medical licence, malpractice insurance, and your ass on the line.

I'm reminded from a line from the science fiction novel Dune in which goes something like, "He who has the ability to destroy a thing, controls that thing." Meaning, that this is effectively going to be your business, not the spas. (Note, I'm not denying that the spa could probably find someone else to do this same deal, just that it's never going to be the spas business.)

The spa will invariably take the tact that this will be an add-on to their existing business and that the 'patients' are their customers etc. This is both wrong in practice and illegal. This will be the practice of medicine and that's pretty cut and dried. You're still going to regulated, HIPPA compliant, etc. and that's it.

You're also going to need to set this up legally in your state. In most states you can't become an employee of or partner directly with a non-physician. (Not sure about how this applies to NPs so if anyone knows, please leave a comment.)

The patients are going to be yours, the responsiblity will be yours, the insurance will be yours etc., and you can't just be paid for performing medical treatments by a non-physician. All that being said, there are ways that this can be done if you're smart, and the spa owner is reasonable.

1. Set up a legal entity for yourself. (Have a real lawyer do this who has knowledge with clinicians.)
2. Make sure that the spa has a legal entity. (Different lawyer there.)
3. The agreement will be between these two entities. (There are different ways to set this up depending on state. In some cases it might be the NP's entity that is 'renting' space from the spa but there are other options. Read through the forum threads on this site for those.) The agreement should also clearly define scopes and responsibilities and what will happen if the business fails. In cases like this, the spa is often 'paid' for rent and/or 'marketing' expenses, not fee splits or referrals. A technicality maybe but an important one.

People always try to overlook the 'business fails' part of the equation but it's a necessity to outline this up front since this business will end at some point in the future, even if both parties are happy.

Since it's illegal in most states to be a clinician who is an employee of a non-physician, that becomes somewhat problematic since you can't be 'paid' in the normal way. I would also suggest that all monies go though your legal entity before being distributed. In effect, you take all payments, not the spa. Headache yes but medicine in the US is the most highly regulated and litigious market there is. Don't sit around on your thumbs with this.

If you look at what you're going to be required to do, the conversation with the spa should be much clearer and should help the negotiations. If the spa owner refuses to understand how this should be set up, don't do any deal. You can't negotiate in good faith with someone who is willing to put you at risk right at the start.

About your Pay?

The real question is, "how much money are you going to make?". 

Business 'partners' always run into personal conflict when; they don't make any money, or.. they make a lot of money. I would suggest that you make sure that you go into this with your eyes open and the spa owner does the same. If you can't resolve the above issues then the money won't matter.

Comments welcome.

Medical Spas + Student Doctors

Preparing for a future in cosmetic medicine as a medstudent or resident.

Here's a question I received from Josh:

I'm a medical student, and will be graduating med school in 5 weeks. I'm planning on doing a residency in Family Medicine, and I am curious as to what type of training is applicable to medspa's? What procedures should I try and focus on during residency? What can I do to learn more about building a practice after I finish my residency?

First, I'd suggest that any medschool student or resident check out the new community at Uncommon Student MD. We're building Uncommon as a sister site to Freelance MD by to address the specifics of how to control your medical career and lifestyle early on.

Second, I'd suggest that you take advantage of the the community here at Medical Spa MD. You may find a mentor and you can certainly find a lot of information and make some connections with physicians how have been around the cosmetic block.

Does anyone else have some advice for Josh or other medstudents who are looking at cosmetic medicine? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Break Your Ideas In Half

This video isn't about medical spas or even medicine, but it's right on target with it's message about cutting all of your ideas in half and getting the basics of your business running well.

Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of a company called 37 Signals that makes business software for things like project management and customer relationships. They've had a lot of success and have a large following among techies.

I'll Be Speaking At The Medical Fusion Conference, Nov 11-13

I'll be speaking (twice) at the non-clincal Medical Fusion Conference on November 11-13th in Las Vegas.

The Medical Fusion Conference is a unique event that allows clinical physicians the opportunity to learn about unique niches where they can apply their clinical knowledge and gain real control of your income and lifestyle. (Isn't that why most docs are in cosmetic medicine in the first place?)

I've been to a lot of aesthetic and cosmetic conferences and trade shows, but this conference is different. I went to it last year and the result was that we launched Freelance MD!

Medical Fusion is purposely small. It allows you to sit down (multiple times) with any or all of the speakers and pick their brains. (If you've been to any of the big conferences you know that a the end of a talk or session there's a pack of people around the speaker for ten minutes and that's about it. Not at Medical Fusion.)

Who is Medical Fusion for?

Any physician who wants more control of their income, career, and lifestyle.

• A plastic surgeon who want's to learn how to invest in real estate.
• An internal medicine doc who want's to retire and write a book.
• A dermatologist who want's to leave clinical practice and consult to big pharma.
• A family practitioner who want's to leave Medicare and Medicate and start a concierge practice.
• A surgeon who want's to make sure his retirement is secure.
• An ER doc who want's to travel and work internationally.
• A Pediatrician who want's to publish a children's book.
• A cosmetic surgeon who's ready to grow his cosmetic practice or medical spa.  ; )
• Any doctor who's thinking of leaving clinical practice.
• Any doctor who want's to spend more time with your family and kids.
• Any doctor who's looking to increase their income.
• Any doctor who's looking for a change.

And that's just a part. In short, if you're a physician who want's to take control of your life, this is the conference for you.

Read what other physicians are saying about the Medical Fusion Conference

I'll be speaking on two topics; how to start/add/run and grow a cosmetic practice, and how to use online technologies to make money as a physician.

There will also be speakers on personal finance, investing, product development, and a bunch of other stuff including concierge medicine which a lot of you have expressed interest in. (More about that in another post.)

Register before October 10th and reserve your room at the beautiful Aria Resort for a special discounted room rate of only $179 plus resort fee. These rooms are regularly around $400. (You must book your room at the Aria prior to October 10th to lock in these special rates!)

Take a look at some of these videos that Greg made about Medfusion and then run over and register for the Medical Fusion Conference.

Discover all of the options available to you as a physician.

Medical Fusion isn't just another conference where you're sitting around and listening to an endless parade of speakers that lecture from behind a podium. Instead, you'll have every opportunity to talk to any speaker you're interested in learning more from. Our Accelerator Sessions are a perfect chance to make connections and deep-dive into the areas that are of interest to you.

More about our Accelerator Sessions

The Very Worst Medical Spa Names

There are some terrible medical spas and some even worse names out there.

I've seen some really bad medical spa names that range from the insulting to the embarrassing to the 'I don't get it' to the just plain dumb.

Naming your clinic or medical spa is an important marketing consideration. If you aren't quite sure that you've hit the nail on the head, wait until you are. You don't want to get on this list.

(If you are on this list, I'm sorry, but you have an atrocious name.)

Here's my list of the worst that I'll add to from time to time as I run across terrible names.

• Elegant Skin: Trite, corny, lame, and just plain tired.
• Feel Worthy Aesthetics: Just plain insulting.

If you've got a favorite 'worst medical spa name' just add it as a comment with a link to the site...

Rules: It has to be a real medical spa... no made up names.

If You're Not Getting Paid What You're Worth, There Are Only Two Possible Reasons...

Are you getting paid what you're worth?

In reading through the comments on my post  "Are Groupon Deals Killing Your Medical Spa?" it's obvious that there are some very strong feelings about pricing, Groupon, and the prices that some clinics are able to charge, or not.

Then there's any number of discussion forums on Medspa MD where you'll find a common thread around dissatisfaction with what someone's making as an employee, from the physician owner to the staff.

At the core, it's really around the perception of value on the part of the buyer, whether the buyer is a patient looking for Botox, or an employer that's staffing a clinic.

Here's what technologist Seth Godin has to say about value and what you're worth:

If you’re not getting paid what you’re worth, there are only two possible reasons:
1. People don’t know what you’re worth, or
2. You’re not (currently) worth as much as you believe

The first situation can’t happen unless you permit it to. If you’re undervalued, then you have a communication problem, one that you can solve by telling accurate stories that resonate.

Far more likely, though, is the second problem. If there are reasonable substitutes for your work, and those substitutes are seen as cheaper, then you’re not going to get the work. 'Worth' in this case means, "what does it cost to get something like that if something like that is what I want?"

A cheaper substitute might mean buying nothing. Personal coaches, for example, usually sell against this alternative. It’s not a matter of finding a cheaper coach, it’s more about having no coach at all. Same with live music. People don't go to cheaper concerts, they just don't value the concert enough to go at all.

And so we often find ourselves stuck, matching the other guy's price, or worse, racing to the bottom to be cheaper. Cheaper is the last refuge of the marketer unable to invent a better product and tell a better story.

The goal, no matter what you sell, is to be seen as irreplaceable, essential and priceless. If you are all three, then you have pricing power. When the price charged is up to you, when you have the power to set the price, there is a line out the door and you can use pricing as a signaling mechanism, not merely a way to make a living.

Of course, the realization of what it takes to create value might break your heart, because it means you have to specialize, take risks, create art, leave a positive impact and adopt generosity in all you do. It means you have to develop extraordinary expertise and that you are almost always hanging way out of the boat, about to fall out.

The pricing power position in the market is coveted and valuable... The ability to have the power to set a price is at the heart of what it means to do business profitably, so of course there is a never-ending competition for pricing power.

The curse of the internet is that it provides competitive information, which makes pricing power ever more difficult to exercise. On the other hand, the benefit of the internet is that once you have it, the list of people who want to pay for your irreplaceable, essential and priceless contribution will get even longer.

So the real question to ask yourself is if you're really irreplacable and essential as a business or as an employee.

For medical spas or clinics this means that your offering is not comoditized and that you're offering is not /can't be replicated.

Unfortunately, most clinics seem to tag along with a t me-too idiology that seeks to find what others are doing that makes money, and then offer the same thing at a reduced rate. (The Groupon rush is just one indication of that.)

Making your services irreplacable and unique will go a long way to giveing you pricing power.

Related Posts

Groupon: Are Groupon Deals Killing Your Medical Spa?
Pricing: Pricing, Cognative Dissonance & How To Charge More

Niche Yourself & Your Medical Spa

If you're not comfortable with creating or finding a niche that your medical spa can dominate... get familiar with it.

Guy Kawasaki is a well known speaker on technology, venture capital and startups. I've seen him give this presentation a number of times and this is dead-on accurate for any business, including your laser clinic or medspa.

If you're just copying everyone and trying to feed on the edges of the marketplace, your medical spa's just an also ran and you'll never experience the ability to control your prices or your income and you'll always be playing second fiddle to those clinics and physicians who understand these principals.

The New Medical Spa MD Podcast

Medical Spa MD now has its own podcast for physicians and medical spas and the first couple of episodes are now live.

I've been looking to start a podcast for Medical Spa MD for a while now, and we've finally launched.

With each new episode, we'll talk about cosmetic medicine, plastic surgery, cosmetic lasers, clinic operations, management, marketing, sales, treaments, cost controls and everything else you'll want to know. We'll be asking (and hopefully answering) the tough questions. How do different cosmetic lasers compare? Which IPL company provides the best service? How should you compensate and motivate your staff? How to market your clinic? Where to spend your advertising budget? How to get started. How to grow. How to compete. Finally, what does that mean for your business and lifestyle?

To start, we're interviewing physicians who discuss their own concept of personal brand and how they've managed their careers outside of clinical medicine. 

In the first episode we talk to Dr. Greg Bledsoe about the Medical Fusion Conference and his desire to help physicians control more of their career. Greg's speaking from experience here. He's a leader in expedition medicine and organizes his other businesses to facilitate the lifestyle and income that he wants.

In episode 2 we're talking with Dr. Elliot Justin of Swift MD about telemedicine and the efficient delivery of medical services remotely. Elliot talks candidly about Swift MD and how company got started and functions operationally. He's also got some views on the state of US healthcare that resonate with almost every other physician I know.

We've already got another few episodes being edited and a long list of physicians and others who are scheduled to appear. My goal is to get out at least one every other week for the foreseeable future.

This new podcast will focus on providing relevant information for physicians, with a special emphasis on cosmetic practices, techniques, marketing, operations and just about everything you'll want to be aware of the field of nonsurgical cosmetic medicine. While we'll have plenty of physician interviews, we'll also be talking to technology companies, marketing gurus, and others about what it takes to run a successful medical practice, and exactly how to use these tactics and operations inside your own clinic. We'll be providing broad overviews as well as delving down into specific treatments and 'how tos'.

The Medical Spa MD Podcast is a permenant addition. You can find it by clicking on the link in the main navigation at the top the page. You'll also be able to subscribe to the RSS feed directly or subscribe via iTunes as soon as they index the feed.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. What topics would you like us to cover in the future? What guests would you like us to interview?

Effective Link Building Strategies to Increase Your Medical Spa's SEO

If you are new to "link building", it really isn't as hard as it seems.

Basically, link building is just a link from another website back to your own medical spa or laser clinic. The more back links your site has, the higher it will rank on the major search engines.

Link building can be very time consuming, but the FrontDesk SEO tool can really help you go out there and find the sites you should be listed on. This saves you a tremendous amount of time.

Because you will be resubmitting the same text over and over again, make yourself a document that you can keep all of your submission text on. This should include your Page Title, your website's URL address, a brief description of your practice, and important keywords. Website submissions also ask for a name of the submitter and email address. I would suggest setting up a email address with Google or Yahoo, one that you only use for submissions, this way your personal email won't become inundated with confirmation and/or spam emails as a result of your submissions.

View: 5 minute video introduction to linkbuilding and SEO

There are several types of link building methods you can do. Some are just basic data submissions, and some are blog and article submissions. I will describe the differences amongst the major link building methods:

Article Submission

There are directories on the web designed just for submitting articles and some for writing blogs. When you submit something you wrote about your practice or even a particular therapy you offer, you can attach hyperlinks to keywords in your article that direct the reader back to your website. Some quality sites are Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger, and Wordpress.com. Let me show you how this works with just one line taken from a blog I wrote on my own blogpost:

"It's your body and you do have to be careful of who you choose to perform your laser lipo procedure. While no physician can have a 100% satisfaction rate, don't be afraid to ask questions about how long a physician has been performing these procedures, who they trained with, how many procedures do they perform a month, and also if they have any satisfied patients you can chat with. Also, it's important to ask to see a before and after photo book with their patients, and not someone else's."

By choosing a keyword you think your reader would be interested in, you can immediately direct them right to that page on your website with the hyperlinks.

Google considers a "Yahoo Directory" link as a quality back link. Unfortunately, they charge an annual fee of $300. It may be worth submitting to; however, there is no guarantee from Yahoo Directory that your site will be accepted.

Directory Submission

DMOZ is a directory worth submitting your site to. DMOZ is an Open Directory Project (ODP) mainly known as DMOZ which stands for "directory.mozilla.org" and is owned by Netscape. While DMOZ can substantially increase your SEO ranking, it's tough to receive their approval and the entire process could take months. If you are fortunate enough to receive their approval, many smaller directories use the DMOZ directory categories so if you can become listed with DMOZ this would mean you would also become listed on many other web directories as well.
There are other major directories you can submit to such as the BOTW (Best Of The Web) directory ($99/year or $299/permanent).

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is changing in it's effectiveness all the time. In social bookmarking websites, users save links publicly (not personally on their own computers) to web pages that they want to store and/or share with others. Usually, these bookmarks are shared within an individual "group" someone may subscribe to (such as "Laser Hair Removal"). You can add descriptions to your bookmarks in the form of metadata, or meta tags, so that other users can understand what the content is of your bookmark without having to download it beforehand. Different types of "descriptions" can include comments or even reader's votes (favorable or not - like on YouTube or Digg). Again, FrontDesk SEO makes this process relatively easy.

Blog Commenting

MedicalSpaMD is a blog and, like most blogs, it is highly susceptible to spammers like we have all seen and Jeff so diligently tries to eliminate on a daily basis as it can be a true nuisance for people like us who use this site as a valuable tool for your practices.

If you want to find blogs to participate in and comment on, try to find quality blogs that are related to what you do as a profession. Again, FrontDesk SEO can help with this. And when you add your comments, try to make them content-relative because not only do your comments add value to the blogpost in general, they also have greater chance of staying on the blogpost with a link back to your website.

Press Releases

Press Releases have worked well for me, and I'm not too proud to say that I didn't write the ones that really worked. There are a lot of good and bad example press releases out there and I am no exception. Writing a quality press release is an art and, frankly, I don't have the talent for them and pay someone else to do it. Let me give you an example of my own good and bad press release experiences.

While this press release still continues to give my website hits, all it is is words: Paula's Bad Example

Now look at the one I paid Fran Acunzo from Acara Partners to do for us. It includes a photo, links and even video: Paula's Good Example

If writing a good press release including videos and back links is not your forte, then it's worth it to farm it out. Just writing a good press release is half the battle. Submitting it to the right press release agencies that will index it effectively for you is the other half.

Social Media Sites

Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube work very well by providing quality and relevant back links to your site that all the major search engines love.

So, this is back linking in a nutshell and we can really go deeper into the categories, but I fear you will become bored or even glassy-eyed if you're not a geek like me. So if you don't have someone out there performing these activities for you and you really are serious about your web presence, you really might want to take a look at FrontDesk SEO and see what it can do for you. Just remember, building links doesn't increase your website's internet presence overnight. It does take some time, like my good friend Jeff keeps reminding me! In a world of available "instant results", it's hard to be patient sometimes! 

Author: Paula D. Young RN runs internal operations and training at Young Medical Spa and is the author of the Medical Spa Aesthetics Course, Study Guide, and Advanced IPL & Laser Training course for medical estheticians and laser technicians.

Submit a guest post and be heard.

Financing for Your Medical Spa Patients

Perhaps it is true that the medical spa aesthetic industry is beginning to bounce back, as indicated by the post on Allergan's increase last quarter.

I do know that in our practice we have seen an increase in patient flow. However, while the patients are gaining interest and beginning to come in for consults, one major problem still exists for some.  Financing.

With the credit card companies raising interest rates for some, and all out cancelling accounts for others, the method of using one's credit card for paying for aesthetic procedures is not as easy as it once was.

Awhile back I posted on Care Credit sending "Dear John" letters to many practices. The practices that Care Credit retained found that the criteria in financing approval had been increased making it difficult, if not impossible, for some patients to finance their procedures. I do have to say, though, that I am beginning to see Care Credit lax their criteria a bit as more of our patients are beginning to receive financing.

We use a couple of finance companies who have imposed these new credit limits on our patients. I had sent out emails to colleagues in the industry inquiring as to who they're having more success with. I ended up adding a brokerage finance company, MyMedicalLoan.com, who delivers a patient's financial application to a variety of finance companies. Our representative told me that if they can only get the procedure amount partially financed with one company, then they will propose the remainder of the balance of the procedure to the other companies. In some instances, there may be two or three finance companies involved with the patient making one payment to MyMedicalLoan.com.

How has it worked out for us so far? On average, for every five patients we send them, approximately two or three receive financing. As it is now, we have more patients waiting for better financing options.

So, the patients are beginning to come in again and we are faced with providing sufficient financing options. I encourage anyone to share their experiences with others on financing options that are truly benefiting their patients and their practice.

Paula D. Young RN runs internal operations and training at Young Medical Spa and is the author of the Medical Spa Aesthetics Course, Study Guide, and Advanced IPL & Laser Training course for medical estheticians and laser technicians.

Submit a guest post and be heard.