00:00:04:09 – 00:02:50:17
Jay Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr, CEO and founder of Shorr Solutions. We are a team of national and award winning practice management consultants with experience running a multimillion dollar cosmetic, dermatology and plastic surgery practice. We’re here to share strategies and insights that will help you grow your practice viciously and profitably. In each episode will explore the steps and actionable insights to guide you through your journey to increase efficiency, boost revenue and decrease costs. Tune in and discover how to improve your patient experience and take your aesthetic practice to the next level. Well, hello again and welcome to another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr, along with four of my miraculous guests of Shorr Solutions. I have two of my business partners and two of my other staff members. So let’s get started. Today we’re going to be speaking about understanding and enhancing your aesthetic practice. So let’s define once again what medicine is. You’ll hear me say this all the time and when I’m doing a podcast or a lecture. But number one, medicine is a science. It’s a way to heal the sick and injured. It’s a way to keep our patients looking young and beautiful in our profession. It is still one of the most respected professions today because of all the education that you need. But never lose sight of the fact that medicine is a business and we have to treat it like the business that it is, or else we will be out of business. So today we’re going to speak about understanding and working on enhancing the following facets of your practice. Now. We have created and developed and this is not an advertorial, but we have created and developed a program called the Conversion Cascade. And it is a sales funnel. And it speaks about marketing, incoming leads, consults, procedures, patient retention, cross-selling and referrals and this is an online tool that each and every one of you can subscribe to. Take the test and be a professional in your own right. So what we’re going to do today is have a discussion with my team. It’s really my honor to be able to have my own team, our team La Familia as a discussion and all about attracting and being professional. So let’s get started.
00:02:50:18 – 00:03:16:12
Jay Shorr
All right, Ana, let’s talk about marketing for a second, about the marketing foundations and effective communication. And I’d like you to have a dialog basically with Paige, because Ana runs our marketing division of our company along with the client success. And Paige is our marketing coordinator, advertising and marketing coordinator. So, Ana, let’s get started and talk about marketing foundations.
00:03:16:14 – 00:04:28:11
Ana Suarez
Hi everyone. Happy to be here. In another episode of the Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. Yes, marketing is essential. We definitely work with each of our clients to make sure that not only are they doing marketing, maybe activities or different efforts, but that there’s like a holistic strategy behind their marketing programs. There’s a comprehensive plan that inputs different type of activities depending on what they’re trying to achieve. And that would include making sure that we identified the right patients. Also kind of like putting together a Swot analysis so that we can take a look at the strengths, the weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the practice may be facing, and then coming up with a strategy and different efforts that we can do when it comes to the marketing. Something else that we also work on is the brand brand developing, you know, not only the colors and the logo, but the values, the mission, the vision and Paige helps as well. You know, with like all of the implementation in our clients are always asking different questions. But when it comes to the marketing, they all have different type of situations with their marketing strategies and plans. And so we’re always there to guide them and provide them more than anything else, with a solid marketing strategy that they can work with and evolve as they keep growing.
00:04:28:15 – 00:04:37:23
Jay Shorr
Paige. Let’s speak about effective communications in your marketing and advertising world. Let’s speak about how we can effectively communicate with our patient base.
00:04:38:00 – 00:05:42:08
Paige Hamilton
Yeah. So as Ana was saying, your marketing foundations are some of the most important parts of marketing because you need to develop those key aspects of your brand before you can really do any other part of your marketing. So the communications is a big factor when you’re communicating with your leads and even patients that have already come in to see you because you want to stay in communication with everybody. It is less expensive for you to be able to keep existing leads and patients than to have to go and find new ones. So when a lead goes to your website or follows you on social media, you want to capture their information and keep them in your system. Send them your promotions, send them when you get a new treatment and send them a happy birthday coupon. Anything to keep you in their mind because you want to make sure that your patients know that you still exist. That’s what you want your marketing strategy to be. You want people to know you exist, otherwise how are they going to come to you?
00:05:42:10 – 00:06:00:00
Jay Shorr
So Paige, let’s get back to that for a second. So when a patient hasn’t been in for a really, really long time and having been a former practice owner, I can say a really long time is in excess of a year. If they haven’t come back to see you, at what point do you ever remove them from your database?
00:06:00:02 – 00:06:00:14
Paige Hamilton
Never.
00:06:00:19 – 00:06:01:11
Jay Shorr
Never.
00:06:01:16 – 00:06:22:02
Paige Hamilton
It can be weeks, days, years. It could be your first patient. Maybe they came to you once and never again. They should still. The only time they should be removed is if they remove themselves. If they decide they want to unsubscribe from your emails. You have to let them. But you should never be removing anybody.
00:06:22:04 – 00:06:45:03
Jay Shorr
All right. That brings me to a point. If somebody does unsubscribe and you know them, do you ever think that it’s a practice to maybe give them a call and say, hey, I’m just curious. I’m sure it was an error or a mistake. You hit the wrong button, right? Is there any reason why you unsubscribe? What’s your feeling on that?
00:06:45:05 – 00:07:42:10
Paige Hamilton
I would say if you feel comfortable with that patient. And maybe they were really loyal and you feel like nothing happened, they didn’t have a bad experience or something like that. You truly don’t know why they’re unsubscribing. Then I would say, go ahead and reach out, but make sure that you stay professional. You don’t want to kind of cut the ties with them by accusing them like, hey, you unsubscribed. What’s wrong? Like, kind of make sure that you’re doing it in a way that you’re just asking for advice. Like, hey, did something happen that we didn’t know about? How can we get you to come back in? Tell us about your experience. Just make sure you’re doing it really nicely, because think about if a business started attacking you because you unsubscribed. Maybe you changed your email and you just unsubscribed your old email and you resubscribe the new one. It could be as something as simple as that, but you don’t want them to then go and leave a negative review saying I unsubscribed and they started attacking me.
00:07:42:12 – 00:08:08:19
Jay Shorr
Yeah, I guess it’s like all of this new found social media where people have a fight and they block you. All right. That makes me crazy, actually. When I listen to that, people block each other. Yeah, that Kanye West block Taylor Swift, and now they’re back in the. He’s following her now. I don’t have time for all the nonsense. But Ana, what reasons are there? So the people listening will understand that people will unsubscribe.
00:08:08:21 – 00:09:58:15
Ana Suarez
And it could be a couple of reasons for for that. And I do like the idea of like maybe reaching out and getting some feedback, you know, maybe the content that we were including or that, you know, the practices are including within their e-newsletter, it’s not really relevant to, you know, kind of like the type of information that they’re looking for. So it’s always good to reach out. And the web Paige mentioned, maybe someone that we feel comfortable with and they would actually provide honest feedback and just kind of like get their information, their feedback and maybe like even suggestions. That’s what actually makes us put out like new information, do better, maybe like packages and services. And so that also applies with the practices as well. Just kind of like reaching out and just being like, hey, I saw that. I do have, unsubscribe from my e-newsletter. Do you have any feedback? And according to that, coming back to the practice and putting together, maybe like new promotions or offering your services so that everything comes like, you know, full circle. And then we’re servicing our, our patients the best manner that we can remember when it comes to marketing, we’re not trying to sell things or we’re not trying to push things on consumers. What we’re trying to do, what real marketing does, is understanding the services that we have with the needs of our patients, and then providing and communicating that information as clear as possible so that if they ever have a need, you know, when it comes to, maybe they want to get like a procedure for, for their hair, you know, or maybe they want to get something for their face, like Microneedling, or they want to have like, you know, kind of like more rejuvenated type of skin then, you know, we kind of like provide that information to them and we tell them, this is why we have this experience that our providers have, and this is how we can help you. And so if they have that need at that point is like, okay, so there’s nothing else to think about. You know, they have the experience, they know how to do these procedures. And so I want to go to their practice and keep coming back for more.
00:09:58:17 – 00:11:19:08
Jay Shorr
That’s why we always have to be front and center with adding of new services and even letting everybody know of the services that we provide, plus all the new services that we bring on because there’s no other way, maybe that a prospective patient or a patient may even get to know everything that we do. I use the example as a former dermatology and plastic surgery practice owner, I use the example that I had dermatology patients coming up and asking us if we knew a good plastic surgeon. We had plastic surgery patients asking us if we knew a good dermatologist. And it was then that I realized that I’m doing something wrong by not targeting to our existing client and patient to understand what we’re doing. So let’s move on now to enhancing and understanding our aesthetic practice. This is going to be for Cristian and Nan, you know Nan, as a former practice administrator and med spa, former med spa owner. Let’s talk about practice administrator training. I’ve known you for many, many years and I know as experienced as you are, you really always attended different, whether it’s med spa or plastic surgery conference. I know you’ve been on faculty with me. You’ve been you’ve attended with us, you know. What is it about a practice administrator that actually has you going to all these different trainings.
00:11:19:09 – 00:11:59:14
Nan Maddox
Is primarily just staying current and always learning. I’ve found that over the years I could hear the same lecture 15 times, but there was always something new that I learned from it, and it was just a way of staying educated, staying up on what’s going on. What are the latest pieces of equipment? Are there any new ideas or ways of things of doing better? So I think it’s always important for someone in the practice administrator role to have the opportunity to attend the conferences with the physicians so that they can stay on top of things and learn and be well rounded.
00:11:59:16 – 00:12:39:19
Jay Shorr
Yeah. Beyond just the equipment, is there anything else as a practice administrator, whether it is AI tools, whether it is, EMR website, is there anything else that, as a practice administrator that you get out of these different business tracks? I had doctor Randy Waldman on in a former podcast that we did speaking about conferences. And, you know, there are conferences and then there are educational conferences. One is a show and one is a conference. You know, how do you feel about all of the different things in the exhibit hall that you see to educate you as well?
00:12:39:20 – 00:13:28:06
Nan Maddox
Yes. The I always attended the business management track of these conferences, and in those tracks you learn about all of the different technology, whether it’s phone services, whether it’s now all of the AI driven products that are out there, how to take care of your people, how to manage people, all of those things you learn by listening to the lectures that go on. But then the trade show floor is where you actually have some hands on. You get to see it in action, you get to see the demos, ask questions of the providers that are at the trade show, and then you actually get to see all of the equipment, all of the new technology, and it’s a lot of fun to walk through and get to participate in that and learn and see what’s.
00:13:28:06 – 00:13:30:20
Jay Shorr
New, especially all the merch, right?
00:13:30:22 – 00:13:38:01
Nan Maddox
Yes. There used to be a lot more. Yeah, than there is now. But you still get a you.
00:13:38:03 – 00:13:43:07
Jay Shorr
Don’t I don’t take, I don’t, I don’t take the keychains and pens anymore. All right.
00:13:43:09 – 00:13:46:20
Nan Maddox
But if they want to give me a skin care cream, I’ll try it.
00:13:46:22 – 00:14:03:05
Jay Shorr
Cristian, let’s move on with you. You do a lot of HR training, a lot of HR training with the rest of our team. Let’s talk about the need for air training at every level and the types of training, because I know that we all do them together.
00:14:03:07 – 00:15:54:19
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. Well, it depends on the level you know, at every level you provide different types of training. For example, for your practice manager, you want to provide some kind of training regarding, you know, maybe the platform that they use to manage their projects. For example, a training that we have done before for our clients is, monday.com training, which is, project management tool. And there are many like monday.com where you can basically manage all the different tasks and things that need to be done in the practice. And that’s great for a practice manager to have, because that way they can, you know, make sure that everything is running smoothly, that they’re you know, turning things in a timely manner. Then there is training that you can provide for your phone people, which is lead management training phone skills training. And and when it comes to people that manage other people, for example, it could be a practice manager as well. And how do you train them to manage the rest of the team? That’s a very important training because you want to help them become a leader in the practice, and you want to train them to be able to lead the rest of the other staff members in the proper way. And we have seen this in many practices where when you have a practice manager that may be very good with, you know, management, but they are not very good with people management, it can be troublesome and you get people, you know, gossiping and with toxic attitudes and it becomes basically like a worsen in the practice. And there is a lot of drama. So having a practice manager that knows how to handle those situations and that knows how to manage those people is very important. And if you’re able to train them in those things or hire somebody to help you train them in those things like us, then we can totally get them to where you want them to be, and they can manage the rest of the staff. But there is all types of trainings that you can provide for the staff members. You just need to make sure that you’re always and consistently doing those trainings to ensure that they are always at the top of their game.
00:15:54:21 – 00:17:06:12
Jay Shorr
Yeah, hiring today… we speak about this as a team all the time and hiring is I’m not going to say it’s worse than it’s ever been before, but it’s certainly not better. All right. It is very difficult. My answer to that is great people have great jobs, and they don’t necessarily want to leave for the dollar bill. That helps, but that’s only temporary if you don’t have a great place to work that’s not doesn’t have a toxic attitude with fun people to work with, with everybody that helps one another. You could feel like an island unto yourself, and you can never learn from one another. You know, Cristian, let’s talk about management tools because you are coined in our team as Doctor Excel. I want to make a disclaimer. Cristian is not a doctor. We call him Doctor Excel. And we’ve even brought on a brand new service about Excel training and helping you with Broken Link. Let’s talk about management tools. You did speak about a CRM and a management tool like Monday.com, but what others are out there today that you have to teach to enhance your practice?
00:17:06:12 – 00:18:52:02
Cristian Devoz
Well, there is a lot of management tools out there. Excel is just the most basic one. I would say if you don’t want to invest in an actual, more technologically advanced platform, but Excel is quite good if you know how to use it. And that’s why we started doing this new service where I can help practice management managers and people that have management positions with Excel skills. So teaching them things like formulas, how to dashboards, how to create databases, and Excel can be great to organize data. It can be great to do even a lead management process and the tool. And it’s just something that a lot of people underestimate. And many people actually only use it or don’t know how to properly use it. So providing that service is going to help meet that need or solve that need so that people can actually get their staff trained to use it properly. But when it comes to more advanced platforms, CRM systems such as Salesforce such as Lead Loop and there is a lot out there, there is so many. There’s all these types of go, high level type of platforms that allow you to manage your lead process, to keep track of what each of those patients or those leads is in the progress towards becoming a patient. And then, of course, you want to make sure that you continue to nourish them when they become patients. And that and Anna was saying something earlier that I really liked was the first people that you should really market to is your the people that you already have, your current patients making sure that you’re reaching out to them. And that way you can keep driving that you know, those patients in your doors. But once again, there is just so many tools out there. And now with AI, there are tools that allow you to even do greater and better things, and that will save you a lot of time.
00:18:52:04 – 00:19:36:21
Paige Hamilton
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00:19:36:23 – 00:20:22:01
Jay Shorr
We’re going to move on to additional ongoing staff training. And Paige, I’m going to defer to you for a minute and in no particular order on this slide. Webinars and virtual workshops. And the reason that I’m bringing Paige into that, you know, Paige has taken over as our conference producer, is our podcast producer on the education. You know, we’ll give you information, but then you’ll go in and create the presentations, whether they are live for me when I go there, or even webinars, podcasts, virtual workshops. Let’s talk about how do you train people in your practice to put these types of things together, even if it’s only just marketing material in your practice? Yeah.
00:20:22:01 – 00:21:53:00
Paige Hamilton
So presentations can be helpful internally, as you said. Like if they maybe wanted to create a presentation for internal training, they’re not that difficult to put together. I feel like I’ve been doing presentations and PowerPoints forever just because I grew up doing them in school, so I’m very comfortable with all the different aspects, making them pretty, adding different elements. But there are many resources out there where if you just have the information and you just need to make a either quick presentation, maybe you’re going to talk at a conference or like I said, if you just want it internally for training internally, they don’t need to be pretty. If you just have the information, just make it, put it on right slide and present it. You know, there’s templates though that you can use, but use PowerPoint templates, use Canva templates and that you can just kind of plug in the information. A tip that I’ve always received for presentations is don’t make them text heavy. You want people to listen to you. And this is a big thing I know that you like too, Jay, when you’re presenting. You want the focus to be on you because if someone is focused on reading a slide, they’re not listening to you, then they’re going to miss something that’s important that you said that you wanted to emphasize, and they’re too busy reading the slide, or because you put if you put a paragraph on a slide that’s you can’t multitask in that way. It’s important to make sure your slides aren’t too wordy.
00:21:53:02 – 00:22:34:12
Jay Shorr
All right, Ana, we’re going to shift to you now for conferences and ongoing staff training conferences and CME. And you’re a perfect one to ask this because, you know, of all the conferences that I go to and lo and behold, last the last quarter of last year, we took our entire team into a conference here in Miami Beach. And it was a CME course. Of course, we as non physicians don’t really have to worry about CME courses, but they are important and conferences to educate your team. Let’s talk about how you feel that the conference really aids and assists in educating your entire team.
00:22:34:12 – 00:24:37:01
Ana Suarez
Yes. And this is a big topic. Like you said, we went to the conference, one of the conferences last year, and we had a great time because it was a huge learning opportunity. You get like exposure to different people, different practices, and they all discuss what they do, in their different practices, what they have learned along the way. And so it’s like this golden pieces of information that you kind of things receive right then and there have first hand experience then, then you can come back and apply, in your business and your practices in addition to that, things are always changing, you know, when it comes to the technology now with AI, and even just like people, you know, we’re all kind of like changing and evolving. So it’s nice to be exposed to those different topics, that they had in the practice management tracks where they kind of like discuss. Okay. So this is like something that we’re implementing in our practice. This is how we’re doing now, team meetings and how we’re adding technology to our systems to make operations in kind of, I just say interactions more effective but also more enjoyable, like any tasks are very repetitive. You know, we’re now using it depends, you know, different tools with AI, technology to make sure that those get automated. And so then we can concentrate on giving our staff and our teams, that one on one interactions with our patients, because that’s what really sets you apart from the rest of the competition, developing relationships and being there for your patients and responding quickly whenever they need anything, whether that is a question and they need to make an appointment. So conferences just expand your world and you make new relationships. You network. And so the most important thing is that then you can come back to your own business, to your practice, and be able to apply, different methods that have already been tested and proved, and they work. And so it saves you time and money. And in addition to that, you keep building relationships. So I think it’s something that I would definitely recommend, for everyone in all of the practices, because you always get a lot out of it. And it just kind of like keeps helping you to, like, develop not only professionally but also as a human being.
00:24:37:01 – 00:25:05:14
Jay Shorr
So and Nan I want to defer to you on the last part of this. On the staff training consultants. All right. And the reason I ask you is having been a practice administrator after having your own med spa, you were a client of ours. All right. And let’s talk about staff training and how consultants can help you at any stage, even from the practice administrator on down to the patient coordinators.
00:25:05:16 – 00:26:35:01
Nan Maddox
I owned a med spa back in 2005. When I first started, I knew absolutely nothing about that industry. So the first person that I sought out when I purchased the spa was a consultant, and I definitely believe that when you’re starting out, or even if you’ve been in business for years, everyone seems to have the same pain points. And a lot of that deals with HR. So it’s important to reach out to get guidance, to learn how to better manage your people, to learn how to better manage your processes, your protocols, your, establish key performance indicators. A lot of those things, when you either don’t have time to do yourself or you just don’t know how to do. And so consultants are a great avenue, a great resource to reach out to, to help you with those things. It is a help. It is not a hinder. So I’ve used them since 2005, and now I’m happy to share all that I’ve learned over those years with other practices to better their process, to help them, to help them with their people management and just overall how to make more money and to enhance their patient experience and to keep their people happy.
00:26:35:03 – 00:27:13:06
Jay Shorr
Great. So I’m going to defer to both you, Nan and Ana when it comes to skin care retail. Wow, so many practices don’t do a great job of this. And if you only knew the profit in your business, it’ll it is one of the only products that you don’t have to physically perform a service. You have a 100% markup with a 50% net margin only for ordering the product. So then why don’t you start talking about how to manage the product?
00:27:13:07 – 00:27:22:11
Nan Maddox
So the first thing you want to do is to have a good inventory system. Because if you don’t manage your inventory, you don’t know how much of your product is actually walking out the door.
00:27:22:13 – 00:27:23:10
Jay Shorr
Ouch.
00:27:23:12 – 00:27:32:09
Nan Maddox
Yes, that’s what happens. So you want to have a good inventory management system, but a lot of times that’s done through your EMR.
00:27:32:13 – 00:27:41:00
Jay Shorr
So let me interrupt you for a second. It walks out the door. I hate to have you answer this question. Who’s walking out the door with it?
00:27:41:00 – 00:27:43:06
Nan Maddox
Can be walking out the door with your staff.
00:27:43:09 – 00:27:44:06
Jay Shorr
Ouch.
00:27:44:08 – 00:29:44:04
Nan Maddox
And patients, especially if you have it displayed, actual products displayed on your counter. They’re very easy to lift and walk out the door, so the first tip is to not have an actual product on your counter. Have it as you know, the empty containers or at least sample products. But you want to make sure that you have inventory management. You want to engage the trainers of the skincare product that you select. They’re very valuable resource to come in and train your staff on the product itself, and they will give you some sale strategies of how to sell it. You want to have everyone trained from your front desk to your estheticiantions, to your injectors, and even your medical assistants because who is in the room with the patient more often, and has an opportunity to discuss, skincare, with the patient. So you want to just have a well-rounded training program with the skincare, and you want to have mechanisms and processes in place that you make sure you introduce it to a patient, even if it’s for a follow up visit or at the front desk. You have things there that the patients can smell or try and the front desk talk about it. You have a treatment plan. Whenever a patient sees an esthetician, they should not walk out the door without some product in their hand. So it’s very simple to do. And I called it the skincare prescription. And every patient that left had a prescription in their hand that they took to the front desk. The product was already sitting out for them. They already understood what I was recommending. The front desk was already apprized of what I was recommending, and, a prescription was in their hand. And you know what patients do whenever they have a prescription, they fill it.
00:29:44:06 – 00:30:49:09
Jay Shorr
Let me ask you a question. I’ve seen so many times with other practices that it’s a quick sale without ever sending the patient home with how to apply it. I know in our former practice, any product that we sent you home with that you purchased had a regimen, a written regimen of what to do. Morning, afternoon, at the end of the day so that you’re not putting too little or too much so that you can get the real result of a good, efficacious product. All right, Ana, let’s talk about private label, because there are so many major brands out there. And like I use the old expression, if they don’t buy it from you, they’re going to buy it from the beautiful lady in the white coat with the bright lights and the pretty glass case at Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. I didn’t even want to mention Walgreens and CVS. All right, but let’s talk about private label for a second.
00:30:49:11 – 00:32:00:09
Ana Suarez
Yeah, certainly a private label is a wonderful opportunity. It’s just another income stream. And like, I, like you mentioned, Jay, either way, they’re going to be getting these products. You know, we all use moisturizers. You know, cleansers. So you might as well take advantage of that opportunity and also help your patient because you know, you’re the doctor, you’re the provider. And so you’ll know what to recommend, what to prescribe for them. So they can continue their, skincare at home, you know, after they have the procedures at the practice. So that’s a huge opportunity. It’s another income stream. And in addition to that, from the marketing perspective, is amazing because they’ll live with your products and so they’ll apply them in the morning. And then, you know, they’re following the skincare routine that you know, the provider is recommending and then applying it, then applying the products online as well. And so is the first thing that they see in their morning, and the last thing that they see a night before they go to sleep. So from the marketing side of things is, yes, you know, it’s brilliant. They’ll always see your branding and so they’ll think about you all the time. And, you know, at the same time you’re helping them to have better products that they can apply. And then they’ll have like a, like a structure skincare routine, as you mentioned.
00:32:00:09 – 00:34:45:23
Jay Shorr
So let’s talk about finances and accounting to increase profitability by reducing expenses as well. I mean revenue increase is a good way, but it’s not the only way. So on our team, it’s Cristian, Nan and I that are exclusively handling the finance with our clients. And we even have a new program that we’re offering. It’s not doesn’t have to be under a contract, but we will actually do finance training and we’ll do finance analysis for those who just really basically want to get a grip on their finances and don’t really understand their PNL. So I want to explain it’s P and the ampersand sign and L it’s not PNL, it’s P & L for profit and loss. So many times I get people that send me. Can you review my PNL and I, I don’t laugh, I just try to educate because in a P&L the first thing we really want to do when we analyze it is make sure that you have a proper chart of accounts, and the proper chart of accounts are all the categories, subcategories, and sometimes even sub subcategories that allow you to know what your income stream is and what your expense stream is. Because when Cristian, Nan, and I go over your P&Ls with you, we’re looking for opportunities. We’re looking for why is one expense higher than it should be as a percentage of total revenues, or as a percentage to total expenses? I don’t care if it’s rent, H.R, payroll, maintenance, training. There’s so many charts of accounts on there. So we try to help you define and refine what they are for different types of growth opportunities and really reduce unnecessary expenses. Please understand something in a great practice that does 35% margin, 30% margin, every dollar that you bring in, 30 or $0.35 of that dollar is a profit. Think how hard you have to work to bring in that dollar. But when you reduce an expense by a dollar 100% of that dollar is profit may repeat that when you reduce an expense by a dollar, 100% of the dollar is profit. So really have people in your corner and sometimes your practice administrator. I have practice administrators that come to me and ask for help in creating and developing charts of accounts. It really helps because people don’t understand or shall I say, people don’t know what they don’t know.
00:34:46:02 – 00:37:34:21
Jay Shorr
Now I want to talk about what keeps people up at night, legal and compliance. And I basically handle that as part of the company in legal and compliance, because there are HIPAA regulations and you must follow them. People have said, well, no, I don’t have to really worry about HIPAA because I’m not an insurance based practice because HIPAA stands for health Insurance Portability Accountability Act, and that’s what it stood for when it was first adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services. I don’t want to get into that. That’s a separate course that I teach. However, every practice is governed by HIPAA, and violations of HIPAA for protected health information can be extremely. Secondly, here comes Jay the safety guy. Jay, the safety guy says, I need to protect you from you in spite of you and anybody that knows me will know that safety of my staff and safety of our patient is my number one priority. More important than making money? Because what’s going to happen is if you violate safety and people get hurt, you are not going to make money. You’re not going to get the people to be able to perform the services. And the fines, if you have an OSHA regulation is just going to be insurmountable. And then our client base contacts us all the time because they need to know about local, state and federal regulations. What might be legal in your state may not be legal in another. Allow me to give you an example. I’m based here in Florida. In Florida, I was legally allowed to be a practice owner for a med spa, as long as it was not a professional association professional corporation MD DO PA You can be an LLC or a corporation in other states, for example, California, a doctor has to own 51% and another medical license provider can own 49. In the state of Texas, it’s 100% doctor, 0%. We won’t get into the MSO/MSA model for a management service organizations and dental service organizations. That’s for another podcast where we’ll have attorneys on with that one. So it’s important that you really understand because in Florida, a nurse may not inject a dermal filler or a neurotoxin or in probably most of the other states, they can. So please be aware of what you have to do. And if you’re not sure, call the professionals like us in to assist you.
00:37:34:23 – 00:38:11:03
Jay Shorr
And as we conclude this presentation, I’m going to lead this to Ana, Cristian and Paige. I’m sorry, Nan, but you and I this it and this digital and this automation and I, we know it because we’re forced to know it. But I want to leave it to the young blood. All right. So Ana, let’s talk about lead management. And then I want Cristian and Paige to finish it up with automation I lead generation and lead conversion.
00:38:11:05 – 00:39:57:14
Ana Suarez
Yes, that is key. Lead management is something that on a for our clients, they’re always working on kind of like processes to put in place or to just like improve the whole entire method of kind of like following up with the leads and making sure that they get schedule, that they booked their treatments. So when it comes to technology and automation, definitely having a CRM is very important and there’s many options out there. You know, we have podium, we have Salesforce. Like Cristian mentioned earlier on. There’s multiple options out there and it all depends on whatever your practice needs. So we always recommend doing a demo with the different companies. And just kind of like seeing if that kind of thing meets your needs. The bet is very important to the detail. We find that many of the practices that we work with, they don’t really have a process in place or if they do, is very generic, they don’t have anything specific as far as like making sure that we’re gathering all of the patient information and most importantly, we’re doing the follow ups properly. We have a lot of people telling us, oh yes, you know, we should receive a couple of leads. And so we call them for days after they contacted us and we’re like, did you say four days or four minutes? No, 4 days… So we, you know, we need to contact leads right away, ideally within the hour. You know, you to say pick up the phone and you call them and you try to see what is so they need and you book them right away. But we understand that sometimes this is hard because, you know, our directors of first impressions. They have a different things going on and just responsibilities. So that’s where automation and technology comes in, where the process can be automated. You could just like set it up with like different reminders according to the plan that we would provide for you. And then that would help you to increase your conversions with those lead.
00:39:57:16 – 00:40:33:17
Jay Shorr
Well, Nan I said I wasn’t going to bring you in, but I am going to bring you in with lead management because Ana made a series is joke four hours. Oh, you meant four minutes. All right. You and I are the only former practice owners here, so, Nan, let’s talk about lead management, because I know you had a an amazing patient care coordinator team. They were several of them. How quickly do we need to respond when a lead comes in? I don’t care if it’s phone I don’t care if it’s email. I don’t care if it’s podium lead.
00:40:33:17 – 00:41:25:01
Nan Maddox
What the industry standard is within the first hour. If you can do it sooner than that, then that’s wonderful. Sometimes reality does step in and you’re not able to do that. That’s why it’s important to also have an automated system through a CRM that will immediately send an acknowledgment of that lead to the person that submitted it. Then you have to have human follow up. You cannot just rely on a CRM. And I know a lot of practices kind of fall into that habit. I have a CRM now. I don’t actually have to pick up the phone. That is not true. You still have to pick up the phone. You still have to actually speak with the patient and engage and follow a process to get them on the schedule.
00:41:25:02 – 00:42:12:12
Jay Shorr
Yeah, this is not an advertorial for podium. However, I just want to share that, you know, if you are I know people are going to say I can’t, I’m too busy. I only have one person at the front desk. Hey, my my PCC is on vacation. I can hear every excuse. The dog ate my homework. This isn’t a world of excuses, but, you know, with a company like a podium. And they are others, all right? They have, the AI or virtual PCC and a virtual employee, and they can answer a lot of questions for you. And then, of course, it’ll give you a digitized response. It’ll get put everything in the CRM and then but you must have somebody that’s able to respond to these right now.
00:42:12:14 – 00:42:14:00
Nan Maddox
Yes. Okay.
00:42:14:02 – 00:42:36:19
Jay Shorr
All right. See, I thought I wasn’t going to call on you, but, you know, like us old people or more mature. All right. Now, have to really explain why it’s very, very important. So let’s move on as we conclude this to Cristian and Paige, let’s talk about AI lead generation and the lead conversion through automation.
00:42:36:21 – 00:44:44:07
Cristian Devoz
Something that I was actually watching the other day was very, very interesting to me. And I wanted to share that because I saw this video with these new AI that is coming out where you can have a natural voice, like, it sounds like a real person on the phone calling your patients or calling the clients. And he talks like a real person and it interacts. And it sounds really that you’re talking to someone who is a human being. And when it’s really just an AI assistant and the AI virtual assistant, and it just blows my mind because the world is changing and this is something that practices really need to hop on really fast, because otherwise you’re going to get left behind. You gotta utilize AI tools in your practice. We mentioned automation. We mentioned CRMs, and a lot of CRMs are trying to implement AI into their, you know, the way that they run their daily processes. I was looking at Salesforce the other day and they are also working on AI chat bots. You gotta hop on the trend. You got to learn how to utilize it to minimize, you know, time frames, because a lot of practices are very busy. And if you can automate things and you can have AI features that allow you to automate things, then by all means do it. But then of course, also as we are seeing the earliest stages of these, just keep an eye on it. And a quick example. We were talking to a practice the other day, and they already were using, an automated chat function where the patient was being sent a message. Then the patient responds and they say, you know, a member of our team will be contacting you soon, and then they don’t get a response from the member of the team until 4 or 5 days later. Now, that’s the worst case scenario, but you need to really stay on top of these things because as and I was mentioning when I, when I lead comes in, you wanna respond to it as quickly as possible. And that’s going to really be a differentiator between you and the competition. How quickly can you get back to the patients and how efficiently and with what kind of customer service and with what kind of customer experience?
00:44:44:10 – 00:45:10:22
Jay Shorr
All right. So Paige, let me ask you a question with I was very interesting because you have to pick the right AI can’t share how many times I call somewhere and they ask me a question and I answer it, and I get a totally different response than what I asked. Or and you can tell that it’s AI because it doesn’t really answer.
00:45:11:00 – 00:45:20:18
Jay Shorr
And then I just, you know, I get so frustrated and I yell, representative, representative. All right. What can you say about the new AI and the automations?
00:45:20:18 – 00:46:48:09
Paige Hamilton
Yeah, I think the trend here is that you need to utilize AI, but definitely, as you mentioned, picking the right one is very important. AI learns as you teach it. So if you’re going to utilize AI, you need to make sure you’re as clear as possible with the expectations you have for it. If you for anything you do, the better. The more specific you get, the better that the response is going to be. I use it for marketing. You have to be able to embrace AI because as Cristian said, if you don’t, you’re going to be left in the past. So for example, whenever I would go to use it, let’s say I wanted to create copy for our website. So you can’t just say, hey, write me a website copy for X, Y, and Z. You have to give it more information. You have to let it know this is my practice name, because it’s going to be able to pull information from the internet. So you would say, this is my practice name, this is my name, this is my credentials. This is what our services this is you’re basically giving it so much information that it’s not trying to assume anything. You can tell it about your brand voice, what you’re expecting it to say. What do you want it to be more professional? Do you want it to be funny? Do you want it to be have lots of how long do you want it? So just the more you teach it, the better your outcome is going to be. And that’s in relation to like anything with AI.
00:46:48:12 – 00:47:18:03
Jay Shorr
Yeah. In conclusion, you know, interestingly, there are so many of these AI platforms out there and I want to go back to podium because that’s the one I’m most familiar with. If you want to train Avery, you know, there is a system that you teach Avery before you launch it. Everything about your business, all the procedures that you do, even maybe the hours that you’re operating, you train the virtual assistant or the AI, you know, to answer it for those questions that you think are the most common.
00:47:18:03 – 00:48:48:19
Jay Shorr
And then you keep retraining. It’s like us. You can teach us in kindergarten, in first grade, through high school, but you got to continually teach. You may add new services. You may add a different department because there are medical practices that didn’t have med spas and there are med spas that didn’t have certain procedures. And then they add it. Well, Avery isn’t going to know if you don’t teach Avery. All right. So I don’t want this to be an advertisement for podium. It just that’s the one I know the best. And there are other ones out there. But be that as it may, I say. All right, so, you know, we conclude understanding and enhancing your esthetic practice. There is so much between marketing and HR and skincare products and legal and financial. And I mean, this could go on and on and on. We could do a four hour and that wouldn’t even be enough. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast with my team. La familia: Ana Suarez, one of our business partners, a director of Client development, Cristian Devoz another partner and senior client success manager, Nan Maddox. She is a client success manager, and Paige Hamilton, who is our advertising and marketing coordinator. I’m your host, Jay Shorr. Good luck. God bless.
00:48:48:21 – 00:49:29:00
Jay Shorr
Don’t go anywhere just yet. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure to subscribe so you never miss the latest insights! New episodes are released every two weeks. For more valuable information and resources to elevate your practice, sign up for our E-Newsletter. You’ll get the latest industry updates, expert tips and exclusive strategy straight to your inbox. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media @ShorrSolutions. If you’re ready to take your practice to the next level, schedule a free consult with our team today. Thank you for joining us on Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
