#166: Back To Basics, Forward With Purpose: Aesthetic Strategy Reimagined

Cameron is joined by Dani Naughton, an expert in aesthetics with 17 years of experience, and they discuss the fundamentals of running a successful aesthetic practice, the importance of understanding market dynamics, and the operational fundamentals necessary for profitability. Dani shares insights on common mistakes made in treatment rooms, the significance of staff communication, and the strategic approach to marketing and equipment acquisition. They delve into the true cost of goods, the impact of labor costs, and the hidden expenses that can affect profitability. The conversation emphasizes the importance of time management and understanding supply costs in treatments, providing valuable takeaways for practice owners looking to thrive in the competitive aesthetics industry.

Cameron and Dani talk about the importance of efficiency and understanding the financial health of aesthetic practices. They explore strategies for improving margins, managing chaos in operations, and the significance of patient retention. The dialogue emphasizes the need for new practice owners to establish a clear vision and for established practices to overcome stagnation by implementing effective systems and processes.

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Thank you for listening to this episode of Medical Millionaire!



Takeaways:

• Dani Naughton has 17 years of experience in aesthetics.
• Understanding the basics is crucial for practice success.
• Staff communication is key to implementing new products.
• Labor costs must be factored into the cost of goods.
• Hidden costs can silently destroy profitability.
• Time management is essential in treatment efficiency.
• Marketing should be strategic and well-planned.
• Practices need to survey staff and patients before acquisitions.
• Winning in the margins can significantly impact profits.
• A mindset shift is necessary to run a practice like a CEO. Winning in the margins can significantly boost marketing budgets.
• Practices should focus on EBITDA rather than just revenue.
• Efficiency is crucial, even if the practice isn't for sale.
• Understanding treatment times can improve patient throughput.
• Consistency in service delivery is essential for brand reputation.
• Operational chaos can lead to significant financial losses.
• Implementing cancellation policies can help mitigate no-show losses.
• Effective communication of policies enhances patient experience.
• New practice owners should clarify their vision from the start.
• Established practices must assess their operations to identify growth opportunities.

Unlock the Secrets to Success in Medical Aesthetics & Wellness with "Medical Millionaire"

Welcome to "Medical Millionaire," the essential podcast for owners and entrepreneurs in
Medspas, Plastic Surgery, Dermatology, Cosmetic Dental, and Elective Wellness Practices! Dive deep into marketing strategies, scaling your medical practice, attracting high-end clients, and staying ahead with the latest industry trends. Our episodes are packed with insights from industry leaders to boost revenue, enhance patient satisfaction, and master marketing techniques.

Our Host, Cameron Hemphill, has been in Aesthetics for over 10 years and has supported over 1,000 Practices, including 2,300 providers. He has worked with some of the industry's most well-recognized brands, practice owners, and key opinion leaders.

Tune in every week to transform your practice into a thriving, profitable venture with expert guidance on the following categories...

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-EMR's
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-Mindset
-Workflow Automation
-Technology
-Tech Stack
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Learn how to take your Medical Aesthetics Practice from the following stages....
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Medical Millionaire, your podcast for medspot owners,
medical aesthetics, cosmetics and elective wellness entrepreneurs. Each week, we
dive deep into powerful marketing strategies, proven scaling tactics, and
the secrets to attracting high end clients, all while staying
ahead of the latest industry trends. Join us as we

(00:25):
uncover insights from top industry leaders to help you boost revenue,
enhance patient satisfaction, and master the art of marketing your practice.
Hosted by Cameron Hemppill. With over a decade of experience
in the aesthetics industry, Cameron has supported thousands of practices
and providers, working with some of the biggest names, most
well respected brands, and elite industry thought leaders in the field.

(00:46):
If you're ready to level up your practice and become
a true medical millionaire, this is your podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Here's your host, Cameron Handpill. Hey, what's up everybody? Cam
Hempill here your host for Medical Millionaire. Hey, guys, thank
you so much for taking the time to tune into
the podcast. Our goal is to give incredible value and
insight for practice owners. So if you're thinking about getting
into this amazing world of aesthetics. You're looking to take

(01:13):
your practice to the next level. Every single one of
these episodes that we create, they are one hundred percent
designed for you and to help take your practice to
the next level. I have an incredible guest on today, guys.
She has been in aesthetics for seventeen years. She's seen
a lot of practices thrive and practices not thrive. She

(01:35):
was a CEO at a multilocation practice. She developed the
aesthetics inside of a durm practice and took that to
the next level. She has worked with Allergan, one of
the most well respected brands in our specialty. I want
to welcome Danny Notton to the show. She's with Esthetics
Elevated Consulting and she helps practice owners grow and thrive. Danny,

(01:57):
thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Heany youm thank you so much. I'm so happy to
be here.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
We are going to get into some amazing stuff about fundamentals, basics,
running your practice and the controlled chaos is I guess
if you will. But before we dive in, give us
more of your story, your background, and then I'll start

(02:24):
to get into what we're truly going to unpack in
this conversation.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Sure, So the foundations, the foundation of where you come from.
Whenever I was a wee kid, I went into the military,
so I have four years experience in the good old Navy,
and then, to be honest, a lot of my structure,

(02:49):
a lot of my respect for foundation, basics, protocols, keeping
things simple. That's where it comes from, because that's when
it was drilled into my head at such a young age.
It has nothing to do with the military. But when
I got out, I went straight into esthetics. I have
always had a passion for wanting to help people. I've

(03:12):
always wanted to be seen as an individual that people
felt comfortable coming to and bringing their problems to, and
who doesn't want to have the honor to make somebody
to feel more beautiful. I mean, that's a lot of
power that we have and it's a pretty incredible feeling.
So going into aesthetics, I've done treatment room as an esthetician,

(03:35):
been an esthetician for seventeen years. I had the privilege
of working at, as you already stated, a dermatology office
and kind of starting the esthetician groove there and then
going from there I went to Allergon. We all are
very well well aware of allergon what they have to offer.

(03:56):
But I represented Skin Medica and Diamond Glow when I
was there, and then I went to San Diego and
I was able to be a few different positions, but
my most prized kind of would be a COO at
a multi level or a multilocation practice. From there, I
just kind of decided I really want to be able

(04:18):
to dive deeper with other businesses, kind of like on
my own terms obviously, but I really wanted to focus
in on basics with other businesses. So I wanted to
create elevated aesthetics consulting and to be able to partner
with METSPAS and see where challenges lie, see where we
can just kind of go in, whether we're restarting things

(04:41):
or just kind of making sure things stay nice and smooth.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I appreciate it more than I can say. The fact
that you have this amazing background, this career, the military
fundamentals of discipline, of controlled chaos, of foundational approach. It
brings in a completely different mindset that's got to be
from your core. And I know that you've probably put

(05:08):
that into your consulting business, which is amazing. And then
backing that up by how long you've been in the
industry and what you've seen and what you you know.
There's certain like being in the industry as long as
you have you know what to do and what not
to do, and maybe not everything right, but it takes
a lot to run a very successful practice, and especially

(05:32):
in today's market where there's competition everywhere where there is.
You know, there's a tremendous amount of demand, but there's
really like there's not a whole lot of supply of injectors, right,
Like there is a shortage of injectors actually, and I
think a lot of people think that it's a saturated industry.

(05:53):
I tend to think very differently based upon the data
that I've seen, and I think that the demand is
only going to get much larger. And that the reason
why I bring that up is because as this market
continues to grow, Danny and as the demand continues to increase,
the wellness side, the esthetic side, biohacking, right, all of

(06:15):
this like everything's kind of coming together when I zoom out,
everything's kind of coming together under one rooftop, if you will.
In fact, I was just at a really cool medical
asthetics practice in Miami, and this guy had a state
of the art SPA on the first level, like it
was red light therapy, cold plunge massage, you know, ivy drip.

(06:39):
Second floor is medspa, peptides, wellness, biohacking, and then the
third floor was like hanging out and almost like an
event area. It was really really cool practice. But the
reason I bring that up is because I want people
to see that everything's coming together, which is going to
create more chaos. Okay, Like it doesn't necessarily mean and

(07:00):
like the new laser, the GLP ones, like the new peptide,
just bringing them into the practice is going is the
solution because it can create more chaos. Right. So what
we're going to get into today, guys, and she is
the woman to answer these questions for us. She has

(07:21):
the background and knowledge to help us interpret how to
put ourselves in position for success is we're going to
talk about a clearer understanding of how to calculate true
cost of goods, like including labor late labors of this
is a real thing. This is a cost. You guys
do sell time, You sell time. We're going to talk
about real world insights on how to on how like

(07:44):
there's waste in the treatment room, right, and how it's
like there's this silent there's some silent killing in your margins,
there's waste in the treatment room, right, utilization, raise capacity,
you know whatever. However, you guys want to like look
at that, even to the inventory life levels. She's going
to share with us some actionable systems and operational fundamentals

(08:05):
you need to scale profitably. Who doesn't want to scale profitably?
We all want to scale. I always hear it all
the time. I want to scale undergrow by twenty percent,
thirty percent. We also want to make a profit. Like
these these practices they trade on EBITDA, they trade on
profit and also a really a mind shift, like a
total mindset shift in the sense of how to run

(08:26):
your practice like a CEO instead of a clinician. So
you know, Danny has the background, she has the experience,
she has the understanding. And what I want to ask you,
Danny is most owners they focus on like marketing, top
line revenue growth. But from your perspective, what are some

(08:50):
of the biggest mistakes that you see happening inside the
treatment room that silently destroy profitability.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
We're just going in heavy with this one. So we're
just going to rip off the band aid. Let me
just start by saying, I'm definitely not here to say
that there's no value in marketing. There's no value in
all of these great technologies that the industry has to offer.

(09:23):
What I'm definitely here to say is that if you
don't have the basic structure for business set in place
prior to bringing those things on, there is a very
high chance that it's not going to be as successful
as one it was sold to you as, or two
that you're expecting. So those are the biggest things people buy.

(09:47):
Devices they purchase into marketing companies. You have to understand why,
why are you buying into this? Why is the staff
buying into this? Kind of answering going all over the
place here, But it's such a broad question, and the
simplicity is you need to know the basics with it.

(10:07):
I want to touch on staff, for instance. There's so
many practices that I have gone into. I've been able
to partner with them, and they're telling me of all
these new devices they want to bring on, or new
retail products they want to bring on, and I'm like, great,
how does your staff feel about this? I don't know.

(10:29):
I haven't told them they don't communicate with the staff, right,
So the staff need to be on board. More than
likely the staff is the one that is going in
and selling this product to the patients. So you know,
consumers are going to know when they're being educated passionately

(10:49):
and when they're being sold a used car. And you've
got to have the buy in from the staff. And
you need to be able to implement scripts, need to
be able to implement protocols on how you want everything
being discussed, pricing structures. So I kind of would say communicating,

(11:12):
communicating with the office, that would be the first thing
that my mind would go to. Okay, other things obviously
you have pricing. You have to take with consideration cost
of your labor. You kind of mentioned it earlier, cost

(11:35):
of your labor. A lot of people they don't look
into when they're pricing out goods, Yeah you don't. They
completely forget about the front desk. They completely forget about,
you know, their injector or their esthetian, whomever is performing
the service. And that's crazy to me because we all
know that salary that's the biggest cost within the office.

(11:57):
How is it so easy to forget about it? And
I think it's just because it's one of those mundane
things that we just it is what it is, so
we just tend to forget about it. But you just
need to implement that cost and keep it in mind
whenever you're charging that service.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, I completely agree, And you know, I mean, like, look,
I'm a marketer myself, and you know, work with thousands
of practices for many years, and I've always said, you know,
the most successful practices are truly the best marketers. And
I believe that because of it being a cash base environment,

(12:35):
a cash based system, a cash base ecosystem, if you will,
Insurance isn't running out of the woodworks to assist you. You
have to be a great marketer. But where I see completely,
like in alignment with you, is I see people spending
on marketing incorrectly, and I see them spending on marketing inefficiently,
and also before they have their systems and processes in place,

(13:00):
right where it's like, Okay, we're going to buy this laser,
we're going to buy this piece of equipment, we're going
to go in this new service category, and we're going
to start marketing it. Great. That all sounds wonderful. Obviously,
if you buy a laser, make sure to market it.
You need to have patients come in the door. But
more importantly, have a plan before you before you acquire
the laser, have a plan before you actually just say yes,
we're gonna buy a laser. We're going to the patients

(13:20):
are going to come, the staff is going to know
what to do because they're great staff. And I see
it all the time. I see like a practice owner
will go to a show and they'll get pitched a laser.
And I'm not saying like practice like like lasers are
bad for practices. I'm just saying, like, you guys get it,
have a plan and have a system in place, like
maybe survey your patient base, right, Maybe have a conversation

(13:42):
with your staff and say do you think that this
would bolt on and be effective for the patients that
we're seeing. You should survey the staff and survey your patients,
and then come up with your acquisition of what product
you're going to acquire, and then have a marketing strategy.
And then when you do have a marketing strategy, please, please,
please please have some sort of a system where you
can convert the patients into long term clients. So I

(14:05):
completely agree So building on that, you talked a little
bit about the labor and cost of goods. I want
to build on that just a minute. So walk us
through how labor should be factored into cost of goods
because what I see is is a lot of practices.

(14:26):
They can get that wrong. They can get that wrong
on how because I look at it, it's like you
guys sell time. If you're a practice owner, you sell time.
That's what you sell. We buy as a patient, we
buy future confidence, right, we buy the future of feeling
better and looking better. We buy this, we buy hope, right,

(14:48):
We truly do. But there's a cost with that, and
there's a time cost. So what are the consequences if
they get that wrong and they don't factor that into
their cost of goods? Danny love that.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
So I actually have some experience with that. There is
an office that immediately comes to mind when I'm looking
over at their numbers and just kind of looking at
profit margins overall based on a couple of services. Let's
just say, hypothetically, for this scenario, seventy five dollars seventy

(15:21):
five dollars of the injector's pay was not being taken
into consideration. Well, if that particular injector saw you know,
four patients that day, that's three hundred dollars already that
is being lost by the office because they didn't take
that into consideration. And to create even more of a

(15:41):
snowball effect, let's go a little bit deeper. Right when
you're making other adjustments to those numbers, whether it's you know,
obviously everybody's dealing with increased cost of goods with needles, gloves, gauze,
things of that that's being adjusted, you've still forgotten the
labor and okay, let's make it a little spicier. It's

(16:04):
not just the labor of the injector, but again, also
you have a front desk, you have other people in
the office on top of even the overhead that you
have to make sure you're taking into consideration. So it's
just money that essentially it adds to that chaos. You

(16:24):
think that you're looking at the books, you know, as
an owner, and you're like, it looks like we're busy,
it looks like we're making money, but I just don't
understand why. And you could have the best injector in town,
you can have the best laser, the best products in town,
but if the math just isn't adding up, and you
have kind of something is just off in those basic

(16:47):
protocols and those basic Excel spreadsheets or whatever somebody does
quick books to calculate, you're going to be off. So
you have to dig deeper and understand what's going on here.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
So if I hear you correctly, it's basically saying a
lot of practices will look at Okay, I have a
net new booking, A new booking comes in patient, spends
one thousand bucks. And let's just take the neurotoks an example.
Let's say my costs of goods on that. For the
actual product costs, let's just use fifty percent margin, it's
five hundred bucks. You're saying that most practices will look

(17:21):
at that as a five hundred dollars profit, right, And
really what they should also be factoring in is the
time associated to administer that appointment, from answering the phone
to booking the appointment, to the person conducting the treatment.
Here's one that you brought up that I thought was
actually really interesting in that I haven't actually associated with

(17:41):
like not just the tips and the needles, but the
gloves and like the other, like the gauze like stuff
like that. The cotton balls, I don't know, but those
are those are costs as well. Where do they go
on the P.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
And L that is going to be part of your
supplies anywhere between three and five percent of it is,
it's probably going to be within the supplies there. And
kind of to your point, it's those are kind of
like those little ones that just eat a people and
eat it people and you just don't realize. So again

(18:14):
taking things back down, keeping it simple, you just need
to know and understand that whenever this injector is in
the room, on average, they're going to go through this
mini needles, They're going to go through this many pieces
of gauze. And I know it sounds super tedious and
some people might think, well, that's micromanaging, that's this and that. No,
that's running a business like that. It's running a business.

(18:37):
You need to know what money is being put out
before you even think that you're making money. So a
lot of I've received my own botox before and the
injector would take a big old piece of gauze, like
multiple layers just to put on my face, and I'm like, oh, oh, oh,
I'm okay. Just use one. You can just use one,

(18:57):
save your costs. But it's it's simple.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
You don't have to use all that.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yeah, it doesn't grow on trees, unfortunately, and when we
make that happen, let.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Me know, I'm glad you brought that up because I
think that there's a lot of ways that you can
win in the margins. And I think, like, you know,
there's a there's an old saying when when you know,
pigs give fat, hogs get slaughtered in a way. And
if you if you start to run like this, this operation,

(19:28):
this factory, if you will where you have patients coming in,
the practice starts to grow, you have staff that's handling
the front desk, you have staff that is doing procedures
for you, right, you have your provider headcount goes high.
You then you know you're as you grow, your expenses
go up. That that's obviously the case, but you can

(19:48):
start to lose sight of where your your true expenses
are going and you could be over spending on supplies.
You could have people be wasting on supplies and like
you know, so it's like going back to winning the margins.
Like you guys should really have a good threshold on
exactly what the supply cost is per treatment? Yes, what's

(20:11):
the cost to actually administer that treatment. I'm really going
to lean on this and say this is winning in
the margins, That's what it is. Yes, these are the
hidden costs. These are the silent costs. And when you're
running a factory, I'm gonna call it a factory that
is this revolving door, high velocity. You know, medical aesthetics
practice that is busy, let's take it. You definitely have

(20:35):
costs and expenses that are that are hidden because you're
not paying attention. You're not paying attention. And I'm not
saying it's like to the listener, guys, I'm not saying
it's you, it's you, it's you. What I'm saying is
like we're all guilty of it. Me as a business owner,
including like you know, you start to grow a business
and you run it differently when you start to grow,
because you start to care less because you're like, you know,

(20:57):
should I brought in five hundred grand last month? In
a million bucks last month? But every single cost factor,
it's about running with efficiency and when you want to
put yourself in a position to potentially even exit your practice,
sell your practice. I don't know. I'm definitely not here
to say everybody needs to sell their practice. I don't,
you know, I don't care what you guys do. It's

(21:17):
up to you. I think that there's always an expiration date.
But if it's me, I think it's time to, like,
you know, maybe pull yourself out of the day to
day operations for a minute and say, what does our
supply cost? How much does it cost to actually administer
this injection? How much does it really cost to us
to administer this night micron alien treatment. I'm really glad

(21:39):
you brought that up. I've actually haven't looked at it
through that lens before, and that's very impactful. I mean,
and maybe you can help me out with that. If
you are a practice that's doing five million in you know,
annual bookings, what what should the typical supply cost be?

(22:01):
And because that becomes material when you start talking about
three to five percent, I think you kind of had
that out there. What should that look like?

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Denny?

Speaker 3 (22:10):
So it depends what service is being performed obviously there
for instance, we can be as as much as like
some facials out there, your costs for that service. It
can be anywhere between twenty five and sixty dollars per treatment.
Your typical neurotox and appointment is going to be anywhere

(22:32):
between five and ten dollars. But even just saying something
like that five dollars or ten dollars, ooh, that's a
big difference. Again, that five dollars, it adds up, and
those are just things. It just adds up. That's money
that can be used on marketing. That's money that can

(22:54):
be used on training your staff. It's money that can
be used on hiring an additional body and office to
perform services to make you more money. So I know
it sounds simple, but if it was so simple, more
people would be more focused on it. And it's just
those are things that aren't focused on and I want

(23:14):
to touch on something else, kind of like another silent killer.
We'll call it. It's time. Time is our most valuable
resource that we don't get back. I wanted to mention that,
you know, botox appointments, for instance, they're usually like in
and out. From what I've seen, fifteen minute appointments. I've

(23:35):
seen some offices, other offices at forty five minutes. I
totally understand what the industry. I am huge into patient
experience and just making sure that you're you know, unique,
your unique offering, how it's going to differentiate you from

(23:57):
other offices. I know you want to make it special
for people, but if you look at your average when
the patient checked in and when they checked out for
a forty five minute appointment, if on average that provider
is only spending about fifteen twenty minutes with them, that
is two appointments within that time period that you could
have achieved. So you've got to make sure that you're

(24:20):
aware how much time is really needed for the services
being performed. I you know, again, I'm not here to
say an office should do fifteen minutes or forty five minutes,
but just knowing knowing an average time that your patient
is in there with the provider, I think that really

(24:41):
again that pays off. And these are all things that
don't cost offices anything. These are things that they can
just look at. You know, you just kind of mentioned
it with When you start making you know, profit and
making money and you're feeling good, you tend to forget
again about the basics. You always need to look inWORD
and see where you can do better. What's going on?

(25:02):
Where are inefficiencies.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
I'm really glad that you brought that up, and that
is a very different perspective than what I'm usually what
I'm hearing in today's market. Actually, let's just just to
hone back on the five dollars to ten dollars to
administer a treatment on the supply side of the boatox.

(25:27):
This is and you're talking and this is outside the
costing goods. That is correct, right, So we're not talking
about time, We're not talking about costing goods. We are
talking about supplies. Okay, five, let's just go out the
ten bucks. Now, let's just say you have a practice
that is, you know, has three providers. Let's just say
their utilization rate is max capacity one hundred percent. And

(25:49):
what that means is if you're opening up, you know,
eight hours a day, you got three providers, that's eight
times three, that's twenty four. Let's just say that you're
doing doing how many treatments should we say? Let's just
say you are doing two treatments per hour?

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yep, let's keep the math basics.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
What is that is that forty that's forty four, forty
four treatments in a day. It might it might like
that's let's just take ten bucks, three providers max capacity
eight hours. That's twenty four hours, two appointments per hour. Yeah,
that's forty four treatments. Correct, Right, that's what it is,

(26:31):
forty four treatments. Now let's take that ten dollars. What's
forty four times ten? Four hundreds, five hundred bucks?

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Right, that's a.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Lot, h It's for one hundred forty bucks. It's five
hundred bucks. Like, that's you know, it's it's four hundred
forty bucks. It's five hundred bucks. That's one day of supplies.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Now, then this is back to what I was saying
winning the margins, Like how can you control that environment?
What if you're able to break that down to five bucks?
And guys, I may be talking so great angular for
you right now that you're like, geez dude, can you
guys get on with it?

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Can you? Like?

Speaker 2 (27:03):
But but what I want to say is this kind
of goes back to like the fundamentals of saving cash. Right.
Remember when we were all young and we're like, hey,
you know, I want to start saving money, and in
your mind you're like, well, I don't make enough money
to save any money. That's really impactful well, start by
saving twenty bucks, and start by saving one hundred bucks,
to start by saving a thousand bucks. Like it's it's

(27:26):
about the mindset and the understanding that everything has a
cost and you have to start somewhere, right, And I
can go back to me like when I was in
my early twenties, I was terrible at saving, terrible, right,
and because I always thought my mind, well, I'm not
making enough to actually save enough at my expenses kind

(27:47):
of like in my income is just it's just I
kind of like spending every paycheck. Basically I live in
paycheck to paycheck. I don't really have enough money to save.
And you know, it took a while for me to,
like I read a lot of financial books and you know,
a lot of entrepreneurs, and it started with the mindset
of like, dude, saving saving small actually over time and
compounding that that's where you win. That's where you win.

(28:11):
There's so many ways to win. So if you have
this ten dollars and it's costing you this five hundred
bucks a day, well how many days a week are
you open? Let's take seven, seven times five, that's thirty
five hundred dollars, right, thirty five hundred bucks. Now, let's
like compound that over the course of a year. Right,
it's seven grand every two weeks. It's fourteen thousand dollars

(28:32):
a month, fourteen times twelve. I mean, shoot, this is
like one hundred and eighty grand supplies. This is crazy. Now,
you're making great money, you're making great profit and all
that stuff. I get it. But if you're able to
put the cut that down into half, yes, now you
have a massive marketing budget just on looking at your
supply costs, massive marketing budget, the ability to hire another provider.
I don't know, guys, but what I'm saying in what

(28:54):
she's saying is there is a lot of ways to
win in the margins and get back to the basics,
get back the fundamentals, and really look at your expenses.
Because practices trade on EBITDA, they do not trade on
top lane revenue, and you need to run them efficiently
even if you're not going to sell. I'll say it again, like,
even if you're not going to sell.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
This podcast is sponsored by Growth ninety nine, The game
Changer your MEDSPA has been waiting for. Running a business
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Speaker 2 (29:38):
But what if you had a partner to help you
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Speaker 1 (29:42):
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(30:05):
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(30:26):
out at get dot growth ninety nine dot com, slash MM.
Your practice deserves the growth you've always envisioned. Let Growth
ninety nine help you make it happen. Now back to
the show.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
The other thing you brought up, Danny is the time,
So you're saying, hey, how long does it actually take
you to administer the treatment. And what you're saying is
some of these consults can potentially become they become fat
if you will too that they're too long of a console,
and you could be doing more. You could be seeing

(31:07):
more patients, more frequency could be taking place, more velocity
could be taking place if you actually not only looked
at how much money your providers are making the practice
per hour, but how long are they actually conducting the
treatment in that time period, and maybe you could actually
your providers could be doing two treatments or three treatments.
It's a very interesting idea outside of like long consultation,

(31:31):
like treatment plan ongoing, you know, those types of things.
But I think there's something to really look at there
that's interesting perspective.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
It's just really it boils down to making sure you
have an understanding of what's really taking place at your practice.
It's not stating that people have you know, they're going
against protocol or anything of that nature. It's just knowing
where can you create more efficiencies. Should somebody else be
performing the consultation and where they discuss pricing or does

(32:02):
your practice prefer the provider to be the one that
discussed pricing. It's just again consistency. You think. I always
when I think consistency, I think about Starbucks. No matter
where you go in the world, your cup of coffee,
no matter what you order, it takes the same every
single time. So as an owner, you want to make
sure and be able to have that same understanding of

(32:25):
what's being offered in your office.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you bring up Starbucks. I
was actually literally working out in the sauna with we
were talking about Starbucks and how they how they make
so much money, and one guy said that the Starbucks
is actually the third largest bank because of the gift
cards that they sell and how they sell them, And
I'm like, talk to me about that. And I'm just
going to like go totally off course here for a second,

(32:50):
but this will come back home for you guys. They
strategically sell these gift cards and increments of like twenty
five dollars fifty dollars, and basically it gives you the
ability to only buy like one and a half cups
or two and a half, so you always have money
left over on these cards always, and then there's always

(33:12):
a tremendous amount of cash just sitting in these cards,
these gift cards, and a lot of it goes unspent.
And you know, they're brilliant minds. These guys are you know,
financiers and you know, very very well educated like individuals.
On why they came out with that plan, right, is
they knew that there was a potential to have this
cash sit in this environment. Of course you're able to

(33:34):
spend it whenever, but a lot of times, you know,
they just buy another card, which I thought was interesting.
And the reason why I bring it up again is
like winning the margins, they have figured out how to
win the margins for them, and I'm not saying like
it's I'm not saying, man, maybe that's the most ethical
thing to do, right from what they are doing. But
then another guy brought up he said, you know that
the cup of coffee, the actual cup itself, costs more

(33:57):
than the coffee to make. And I'm like, yeah, that
kind of makes sense, and he's like, yeah, but you
realize how much. I'm like, I don't know. Apparently all
you guys know a lot about Starbucks, but yeah, like
the majority of their costs are in the supplies. The
majority of their costs so talk about a company that
has to be very diligent on supply costs right on
controlling that cost, controlling that supply chain, of the cost

(34:21):
of the supply to administer the cup of coffee. And
I hope this is coming back to you guys to
understand that the time is very, very important. When you're
selling time, the supplies that you have that you're administering
to have these type of treatments and give your patiency outcome.
There is a true cost associated with everything, and marketing
is absolutely critical. You have to have patients coming in

(34:43):
the door, you have to have patients that are staying
with you. But you have to control your costs. And
you know, I wouldn't just look at your P and
L and say, oh, here's the profit, Oh here's the loss. Okay, cool, yep,
look like we made some money. Cool right on there.
Truly is a mechanical way to look at your financials
and it's your responsibility to really understand what that looks
like and how to control your costs so you can

(35:04):
scale with efficiency and effectiveness.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
So that being said, I want to pivot for just
a second. We talked a little bit about you know
this chaos I want to talk about like double bookings, rooms,
running out of inventory, no shows, disorganized staff. What does
that chaos actually cost like from a business, Like on
the financial side, we talked a little bit about that,
but what about on the emotional.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Side, it costs sanity. You know, I know a lot
of business owners. Obviously they're losing sleep at night. I
know from being in the treatment room myself. Nobody likes
it whenever you're a no show or a cancelation. So
now if you're paying that employee, they're just sitting there

(35:50):
twiddling their thumbs. Obviously we all know that they should
be maybe doing posts for social media or checking inventory
so you don't have a shortage of inventory. But again,
you have to have things implemented and set in place
that when and if something happens, this is the next
thing that should be done. So the business I will

(36:12):
say this, I don't know if you're aware of this,
but on average, the small business within the aesthetics industry
loses about twenty six thousand dollars a year on cancelations
and no shows. That's just the average. I know that
I've worked at a couple of places and then also
being on this side of things in partnering with there

(36:34):
are people that they have these cancelation policies and they're advertised,
but they just don't implement them because they don't want
to risk losing or upsetting the patient. From an empathy side,
I understand, you know, we don't want to lose that money.
But you have to ask yourself, is that the patient

(36:58):
that you want to have on your team If you
have to worry if they're going to go somewhere else,
they're probably going to go somewhere else regardless. But if
they respect you your people's time, they're going to show
up and if they miss an appointment, they're going to
understand that they need to pay for that.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I'm a big believer in that, especially if you're in
the business of selling time. It's almost like, hey, you know,
like you, I'm a consultant. Hey, we're going to get
on a consulting call. Yeah, there's a fee for that, right,
there's a fee for that. And what you're paying for
is expertise. What you're paying for is an experience. What
you're paying for is someone's time, and that just needs

(37:37):
to be set up front, like that's the expectation that
I think every practice should carry out, and I think
to your point, maybe it has a lot to do
with confidence within themselves or running the practice, or you know,
just not having the belief if you will, and maybe
the worry out weighs the what if if you know.

(38:00):
I agree with you. I think that consoles should be
charged for, and I think patients should be penalized if
if they don't show up. But I think if you,
I think you have there's a there's a line there
that you have to set the expectation up front. Yes, yeah,
that way you're both going into it with the understanding
of what's expected, and I think it keeps that that

(38:23):
professionalism on the same you know, ground level if you will. Yeah, right, Hey,
like I'm a professional. I can't make it tomorrow. Maybe
there's a window of when you can cancel and that's
paid back or applied to the treatment. I don't know.
I actually don't know what best practices are, but there's.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Actually quite a few options and kind of how you
can present it, because I think you hit the knell
as far as why people maybe don't implement it is
maybe a lack of confidence or just overall just a
struggle risking to lose that patient. Yeah, you can still
liver your policy to the patient regarding the cancelation policy.

(39:06):
You can do that tastefully, and you can make it
not about the business but make it about the patient
experience overall. So you know, Cam, I really appreciate you
being a client of the office. Unfortunately, because of this cancelation,
we were unable to get another one of our patients
in and take care of their services and their needs.

(39:29):
So it's all about the delivery of the message instead
of oh well you wasted our time or oh well
we had a staff member here. It's all in delivery.
So there's things that you can obviously put it in
your branding paperwork, you can it's kind of tacky if
it's pasted all over the place because then it makes
people wonder, well, why are so many people canceling? Oh

(39:52):
this is where I want to be, you know. But
paperwork that's the patient goes over whenever they're signing their
other consent forms that they just have an understanding. So delivery,
everything is delivery.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Delivery, I mean. And guys, there's you know, great software
programs out there that you can obviously utilize to help
with online booking, help with expediting patients showing up, making
sure that they your no show rates are increasing, Text
messages can go out, shoot, voice agents, automatic AI conversations
are now taking place. You know, great tools out there

(40:31):
that can kind of help streamline the process where where
you know, tech owners have found like wow, there is
a big percentage of revenue that is lost in the
no shows or the cancelations if you will, or the
the rebookings the reschedules. Right, there's there's a lot of
silent cash that's gone out the door in that way

(40:52):
as well. So there's you know, I think, like what
I want to back her up on is implement a
good system. Make sure that you have automation out there
that does send out the text reminders that does and
not just like the day before, like you know, like
a couple of reminders they can opt out if they
want to, and then maybe in those reminders there also
is language that says, hey, if you don't cancel within

(41:12):
a certain time period, like there's a cost associated with this,
or if you're going to book like we do require
a credit card. Shoot, I've gotten reservations at restaurants where
they require a credit card tea times. Actually at the
golf course they require a credit card. Shoot, you know
what my country club here, Danny. If if you don't
give them a forty eight I think this one's a

(41:34):
little aggressive for a golf course. If you give them
a forty eight hour notice, they they'll charge you for
the miss tea time. I think it's like fifty bucks.
And so, you know, because those are tea times that
they want to give to other people. Right, it's the
same thing like, hey, like, if you're not going to
show up, we have this provider that's here ready to
service you. We're paying for them. You are, you know,

(41:57):
not making money coming here? Yes, so you might as
well have this expectation that it just keeps it so
professional and so clean. I completely understand why everybody should
do it, and I think if you guys are not
doing it, I think it's time to really look at that.
I think that you should experiment with it. Maybe if

(42:18):
you're not quite ready to full force roll it out,
maybe you could experiment with it. You know, maybe you
should survey your patients. I bet you would be surprised
by what they come back with, because the majority of
them want to have the open time slot. The majority
of them are like, yeah, you know what, I think
that's a great idea because if the people that aren't

(42:39):
going to aren't really booking to really show up, maybe
they should go to somewhere else, Yes, and give me
that spot. Yes, all right, So I got one more
for you.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, what's up? All right?

Speaker 2 (42:53):
What should I'm thinking about? You know, just like medical
aesthetics owners here, what should they be doing from you know,
day one, like day one to avoid costume mistakes. Let's
say they're going this is a let's say two personas
new practice owner, what should they do day one to
avoid costing mistakes? And then I'll have you back it

(43:15):
up by an existing one who feels stuck, who feels overwhelmed,
who you know, like, what are some of the changes
they should prioritize to maybe turn things around? So let's
take PERSONA number one, what should they do if they're
like opening up a practice, like, because man, what a
great opportunity to just get things right out.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Of the gates, I know.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
And the number two in existing Yeah, OK.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
So number one you need to understand your why why
are you in the industry? What are you trying to
do within the industry. Are you there to just be
as cheap as possible just to get as many bodies
in the door, or are you trying to be a
luxurious brand and make a lifestyle brand of yourself And

(43:59):
that's going to be what differentiates you and other offices.
So knowing who you want to be and why you
want to be that way before you plan anything else out,
I think is very key because then you can just
base everything from there. The next thing, I think it
would be a little bit of role playing, kind of
act like a client, or think even let's take it

(44:22):
a step further. Think about some of your favorite times
that you went to receive a service somewhere, whether it's
an aesthetic service, whether you went to a nice restaurant,
whether you went and made a purchase of clothing. What
was it about that experience that made it wow? What
was it? Write these things down? I think it's very

(44:45):
important to write these things down because then you once
it's on paper, then you can visualize and see how
are we going to implement that into our patient experience.
Once you do that, do a step by step. I
would strongly encourage people to do like step one, when
patient walks in stand at front desk, greet patient with authentic,

(45:05):
genuine smile, offer them water, offer them and experience. Start
elevating things immediately. Then before you even place any orders
in your office, start writing things down, creating an Excel
spreadsheet again, or I go to Excel because that's just
very basic. Everybody has it going there knowing the cost

(45:26):
of goods, with everything, simplifying absolutely everything, and then you
just you have to build on top of that. That way,
you don't have this snowball effect of holy crap. I'm
already three months in. I didn't write any employee handbook,
I didn't write any protocols. I don't have any SOPs.

(45:46):
I don't have I have no idea about my profit
margins because all my friends and family just immediately came
in and immediately started treating them because I was so excited. Okay,
that's wonderful, that's exciting, But you totally missed an opportunity
really to build and build yourself, build yourself, set yourself
up for success. So when your friends and family are

(46:09):
dwindling off because you're no longer giving them a discount,
then you're like, holy crap, am I making money? I
don't know am I making money? So knowing your why,
figuring out who you want to be to what you
want to offer, figuring out your cost of goods immediately.

(46:29):
That's also including your labor, your supply. How much time
is required Obviously in the beginning might take a little
bit longer, and then once you start really honing in
on your skill you can shorten that time. But making
sure that you are able to pivot with any changes
as you learn through the process. No matter how established
of a business you are, you should be able to
do that and baby steps kind of just going from there.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much
for sharing. And if if it's like a well seasoned practice, right,
it's like a well seasoned practice. They've scaled, they've grown,
they've spent the money on marketing correctly with revenue. They
have a good p and L, they have a good structure,
they have good staff. But maybe they feel overwhelmed. Maybe

(47:21):
they are looking at the p and L, they're having
the staff meetings, they're having the conversations. Everything can seem
to be going well, but there's almost like this this stuck,
this like stagnant mind. They're overwhelmed in a way. Because
they've maybe grown too fast or they've hit a wall. Right,

(47:42):
they've hit a wall. Things are going well, right, like
things are going well, but they've almost hit a wall
because they want to go to the next level, right,
they want to either second location, more bookings, more staff.
Maybe they want to just pull themselves out of the business.
I want, you know what, I've been a provider for
ten years. I kind of want to just like go
on vacation for a minute. What's some advice for.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Them for your business to get that successful. Everybody deserves
a huge round of applause because that's definitely not easy,
and that's a lot of hard work, a lot of
hours of sleep loss. So huge congratulations already. But it's
a matter again of before you can go in immediately

(48:27):
answer something like that, you need to know what's going
on in your office. So I would kind of shadow
and see how the office is being ran, to see
where you can implement certain structures in there. You need
to be able to make sure that you're recruiting new patients.
You need to make sure that you're still retaining the patients.

(48:50):
And how about those patients whenever they're in with the provider,
are they converting them over to other services. Make sure
you're conversion so there are still different things in there
that can be looked at to make sure that you
can grow. Is there a beauty bank, you have a
loyalty program, things of those natures. That's very very important

(49:13):
to growth, to retainment obviously, and then again kind of
like your last thing, everybody wants to still be able
to have a life and go on vacation and go
out and do things and make sure the office is
being ran properly. Make sure everybody is doing things in
line with how you want the brand to be represented.

(49:36):
So again consistency across the board. Every provider is going
to have their own personality. That's what's going to make
them special, that's what's going to make your office special.
But everyone needs to make sure they're pulling back that
patient the same They need to make sure that they're
converting to other services to help with that and that

(49:59):
especially at the end of the day, whenever they're taking
them back to the front desk, they're saying, let's get
you back on the books, Let's get you pre booked
for your next appointment. Don't just send them on their way,
get them pre booked, commit them to their next appointment,
so they're coming back in your office.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yes, it's I'm glad you mentioned that, and congratulations to
the practice owners that have gotten to that level. It's
not easy. There's oh my gosh, I know what it's
like being an entrepreneur and running it like ten thousand
RPMs for as long as you know, as long as
you can. I think there's a lot of providers out
there that are doing that. They are running this practice

(50:42):
like internal factory where they have loyal patients. They love
doing what they're doing. They love it, they love servicing others,
they love seeing patients just get this overwhelming joy of
confidence and boost and energy, performance and all the great things.
And that's that's special. That's very special. That's why I

(51:03):
think that this industry is so amazing. As you guys
are helping people level up themselves, you're helping them get
it like they get it, reinspired in a way, and
you keep them inspired, which is so cool. But if
you are running it like one hundred, one hundred and
ten percent utilization yourself and you're trying to grow your practice,
it's really hard. You already are hitting a wall. You
just haven't admitted it to yourself yet, right You're you're

(51:26):
you're hitting a wall and you are so overworked that
you have no time to work on your practice. You
have no time to work on your business because you
are seeing so many patients and hey, you're probably making
great money, like you're probably making great money, and but
you know time is money. Your hands are valuable, and

(51:46):
you know, I think it's it's okay to delegate things.
It's okay to higher staff and lower your take home
pay for a minute, to you know, to make sure
that the practice can run by itself. Like, that's my
challenge is put yourself in a position to where your
practice can run by itself, you know. And I'm not

(52:08):
saying that's what you have to do. I'm just saying,
if you feel like you're hitting a wall, you know,
you can only run on these RPM levels for so long,
and you know you need to take time for yourself
for sure, And I think if you don't do that,
the consequences are are serious. You know. I think you

(52:29):
really need to look at saying Okay, I know I
can delegate this to someone, but they're not going to
do as good of a job as me. Even if
they do eighty percent as well as you. It's it's
it's a better position than you trying to wear every hat,
doing everything, running at full capacity, and then patting yourself
on the back like I'm super busy. You know, because
there is other providers out there that definitely want to

(52:50):
learn from you. You can bring on your wing. You
can mentor them, kind of wear that other hat, build
them up, help them run the practice. And you know,
maybe you take a a pay cut for a minute.
I'm not sure, but as the practice continues to grow
and you strengthen your brand, you'll find yourself that the

(53:12):
practice actually will start to make more money for you.
Then you make money for the practice.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Yep, cam M, I have a personality for this, Go
for this. It just came to me so thinking about
the time and the treatment room whenever a patient with
hyperpigmentation comes in and they want to receive the laser treatment,
So that's going to be equivalent to that owner that
just wants to come in and make a lot of money.
Of course, as a provider, I can immediately take that

(53:39):
money right then and just treat them. But if you
don't pre treat a patient who has hyperpigmentation, you're going
to get rebound malasma, you're going to have post inflammatory
hyper pigmentation. In the long term, you're going to have
a lot more issues Versus if you just took a
little bit extra time in the beginning to pre treat
that patient. There's a huge difference in outcome. And I

(54:04):
hope that makes sense. It makes sense in my head.
But it's just a matter of doing the work up
front so that at the end of the day you're
going to have the best outcome, and then that patient's
going to be there for life, meaning your sanity is
going to be there for life.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, if you keep doing this, it's like they've keep
doing the same thing over and over and over and
over again, and you can automate it or delegate it,
like it's time to delegate it, because you know it's
I totally get it. It's you know, you got to
you got to buy your time back. That's what it is.
So you do, Danny. I know that you're super busy.
I am so thankful that you're able to join today
and share all your knowledge, expertise, your guidance. If if

(54:47):
people want to find you, like where is the best
place for us to go.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yeah, so obviously I have Instagram. My handle is Elevated
Aesthetics Consulting, and then my website is www dot Elevated
Estheticsconsulting dot com.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Gotcha and on there looks like they can go and
they can contact you, they can reach out, they can
drop you a DM, they can connect do a consul. So, guys,
I strongly encourage you to reach out to her. She
knows her stuff. Again, seventeen years in the space, worked
with practices, work with all ergain, Like, she's got a
really impressive resume, and you know, I would, I would,

(55:26):
oh to yourself. You know, if you guys are not
having conversations with people that have been in the industry
for as long as Danny has, have a conversation, it's
it's absolutely worth it because there is so many areas
where you can win in the margins that I know
that all of us are probably now questioning, and that's
the purpose of all the content here that we create. Guys,

(55:47):
my only ask is share the episode. If you found
it valuable, share it. If you didn't, don't share it,
But if you found it valuable, share it and share
it with your colleagues. Share it with your staff, you know,
and then not only share it, but like take action
from it.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
My entire purpose behind this thing is truly just to
get back. It's all about just giving back and helping you, guys,
get into a position to take your practice and your
business and your skill set to the next level. So
Danny again, thank you so much for joining. I'll leave
it at that, guys, until next time, happy injecting. Thanks
for tuning in to Medical Millionaire.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Every week, we're here to help you transform your practice
into a thriving, profitable venture, covering everything from marketing and
patient bookings to mindset, workflow, automation, and beyond. Whether you're
just starting out, scaling up, optimizing operations, or planning your
exit strategy, this podcast is your go to resource for

(56:46):
success in the medical aesthetics industry. It's time to supercharge
your practice and take action today.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur, Rate

Speaker 1 (56:56):
The show, and don't forget to click the link in
the show notes to access powerful tools and expert guidance
at get dot growth ninety nine dot com, slash MM,
and make sure to tune into the next episode of
Medical Millionaire