Funny Botox Faces
Grow Your Aesthetic Practice One Patient at a Time
Grow Your Aesthetic Practice One Patient at a Time
You build a successful practice one patient at a time. You really do. A successful practice can be measured in a slow and steady growth over the years rather than a rocket rise to the top. There can never be one single client, no matter how famous, who will make you an overnight success; instead it is the complex network of personal relationships and individual interactions which over time bring the financial rewards of a truly successful practice. Every single encounter with a prospective patient is vital to your success and the overall growth of your practice.
Let’s take a look at the lifetime possibilities of one theoretical prospective patient:
The Value of One Aesthetic Patient – Case Study
A friend tells a friend named Sue about you. Sue is 36 and concerned about her sun damage. She’s got wrinkles around her eyes and brown spots on her face. On the strength of her friend’s recommendation, Sue makes an appointment with you. Your appointment with Sue goes well. During the consultation, you find out that Sue works for a large financial institution downtown and she comes from a big family.
You treat Sue with her first laser treatment and then introduce her to Nancy, your skin care consultant, who sells Sue sun block and a nighttime moisturizer. Your receptionist rings up Sue’s order and books her 2nd laser treatment. Each interaction is friendly and competent, and Sue can tell right off the bat that you value her business.
Sue has dinner with friends that evening and mentions her treatment and products. The friends are curious and will watch Sue’s results. Once Sue has been in four times and is very friendly with you and your staff, she is comfortable with you and trusts you enough to expand the range of her treatments. She decides she also wants Botox which you inject into her crow’s feet and glabeller lines.
At work, Sue is getting compliments on her clearer-looking skin and tells her co-workers about you. Sue attends a family reunion and her sisters and Mother want to know what she’s been doing since she looks so great. Of course, Sue tells them about you.
The following week, your office books consultations with two of Sue’s co-workers and with one of Sue’s sisters and mother who want to come in together. Sue’s co-workers get Botox and one of them signs up for the same laser treatments Sue is having. One of Sue’s friends calls to book a consultation.
You send Sue a thank you note for the referral with business cards and a complimentary gift, which impresses her and reminds her to give your number to another friend. She appreciates the personalized note, and this simple gesture greatly increases the chances that she will refer you again
In the mean time, Sue’s sister buys a complete product line and books a liposuction procedure. Sue’s Mother also buys products and books a bleph. Later in the year, Sue attends her monthly business women’s luncheon where, again, people comment on her clear skin and, again, she tells them about you. She mentions how well you communicated during her visits and how personable you are. Intrigued, one of the ladies asks if you would be willing to talk to the entire group at next month’s luncheon. Sue says she will ask you.
Sue visits you for her last laser treatment and wants a little wrinkle filler in her nasal labial folds as well as plumper lips. While she is in your office, she mentions that she belongs to a women’s business group of about 60-80 women in a variety of professions. She asks whether you would be willing to speak to them the following month. You say you will and thank her immediately for the opportunity.
At Sue’s women’s business lunch, your staff passes out your practice brochures and business cards, as well as your latest newsletter with a special promotion on Botox.
Your talk goes well and you show many before/after photos from the simplest skin care to full surgical procedures. You are lightly funny, connect with the women, and they ask you so many questions that you have to cut them off. Since time is short, you offer them complimentary individual consultations to discuss their personal concerns.
That week, you receive more than 12 telephone calls from Sue’s business group. Your receptionist books 7 consultations. One of the attendees is a reporter and wants to interview you for your local newspaper. Another of the attendees happens to work at the local TV station and wants to talk to you about participating on a panel of experts at their upcoming health event that is attended by more than 3,000 people and videotaped and shown on TV as well as their Website.
Another attendee owns two exclusive spas in your area and wants you to participate in their upcoming gala event to raise money for breast cancer. It is attended by 1,000 prominent community leaders (some with socialite, fund-raising wives). The media is there in full force. You donate a gift basket for the silent auction as well as attending the event in person to network with other powerful people in your community.
Sue visits her hair stylist for a trim and color. Sue’s stylist comments on how great she looks so they discuss you and cosmetic enhancement in general. Sue’s stylist wants to meet you and perhaps display your business cards in her salon so she can refer her clients to you since they often talk with her about cosmetic enhancement. Sue brings your cards and your practice brochure to her stylist on her next appointment.
Now, let’s fast forward ten years: Sue has since married and has two children. She returns to you for post-partum rejuvenation and books a tummy tuck, breast lift and bleph. You’ve kept in touch with Sue over the years with bi-annual newsletters, email messages with special promotions on products and skin care treatments, annual open houses, invitations to in-house seminars to learn what’s new as well as personalized thank you notes/complimentary skin care treatments for her referrals throughout the years.
In another ten years, Sue’s children are grown and out of the house. She has been running a home business but is ready to enter the work force again. She knows that in order to compete in her field, she needs to look and feel her best. She returns to you, yet again, for facial rejuvenation and books a face/neck lift and liposuction.
And so on and so on.
This is the story of just one potential client, and her friend and family network. During Sue’s lifetime, she has been worth more than $40,000 to you personally and another $90,000 in referrals to your practice.
Throughout this scenario, there were dozens of times where things could have gone differently. If your staff had been brusque with any of the new referrals, for example, or if you rushed through your initial conversation; or if you hadn’t been prompt and thorough with your promotional materials and thank you notes, then things would probably not have gone so well.
Every patient interaction is a potential goldmine or a potential disaster. If you had not remembered or taken the time to thank each of your patients, and to praise and reward them for referring you, they may not have been so quick to offer up your name in a positive light. If they felt you did not treat them with respect and consideration, then these same people with the same connections could be telling them to look elsewhere.
Because you never know which potential patient is the one who will tell his or her friends about you, or what they will say, it is crucial to the success of your business that you treat each and every one of your patient interactions with the same respect and generosity.
The aesthetic patient that feels bonded to you, your staff and your practice will become a walking/talking testimonial for your business to people they come in contact with throughout their lifetime.
These patients are your practice advocates and should be treated like precious jewels. Never take them for granted. You must acknowledge and appreciate each patient for what they are: your personal cheerleaders who keep coming back to you again and again and who bring their friends, family and colleagues as well.
It would be easy to dismiss an early interaction, to keep your eyes focused on the day’s schedule: one more quick appointment before lunch, and miss the big picture. Never underestimate the power of small, positive patient interactions to infuse your practice with the vitality and the financial success it needs.
That’s how you grow a successful aesthetic practice for the long term.
About the Author
Catherine Maley, MBA is Author of Your Aesthetic Practice/What Your Patients Are Saying and President of Cosmetic Image Marketing. Her firm specializes in growing aesthetic practices using creative marketing strategies. You can learn more at www.CosmeticImageMarketing.com or call Catherine at (877)339-8833.
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