00:00:07:20 – 00:00:54:11
Mara Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. I’m one of the hosts. Mara Shorr, I’m a partner in the medical practice management company. Yes, Shorr Solutions. Who’s the other host, you may ask? Easy answer. That would be my father, our founding partner. Jay Shorr. Together, we now have an amazing team and clients across the country. Listen as we chat, converse, strategize and commiserate over life in the aesthetic medical industry.
It’s time for you to listen, learn, and be inspired as we help you kick start your practice. Because who doesn’t want a little more help? Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
00:00:54:13 – 00:02:19:20
Jay Shorr
My name is Jay Shorr and I am one of the partners of Shorr Solutions. And what we’re going to speak about today is how to make your profits soar in today’s economy because it is something that we have never, ever seen before. So how do you make your profits soar? Let’s speak about. Are you doing all that you can to keep your expenses under control or are you running on empty?
Because let me explain how to make profits soar. There are two ways to do it. The first way is increase revenue. And the second way is to decrease expenses. Now, when you increase revenue, naturally your profit becomes what is your total revenue minus all of your expenses to the bottom line, net profit. When you do that, only a certain percentage of your actual revenue becomes profit.
However, when you reduce your expenses, every dollar that you reduce in expense of becomes an actual margin dollar of profit. So there are several ways to do it. Let’s go through the first one. Lowering your credit card processing fees. People really don’t understand what goes in to lowering of credit card processing fees. Naturally, when you process a credit card, there’s several parts to it.
00:02:19:22 – 00:03:46:01
Jay Shorr
First is the merchant discount fee and that is the interchange fee. What the Visa, MasterCard, American Express, discover whatever your credit card of choice is. That’s what they charge. That’s called interchange. And there are so many different fees. You just have to know that when you use a credit card, if it’s a line with a park or promotion, like a hotel or whether or not it’s an airline, those fees as a merchant are usually a little bit higher.
And then on top of that, there are expenses like the merchant processor charges you for compliance for a transaction fee or processing fee, which is that portion on top of the interchange fee, which is what your credit card, actual Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover actually charges you. So it’s best if you get a free evaluation from a merchant processor or people who process your credit card fees.
And don’t get locked into a contract. Many times merchant processors will try to lock you into a one year or two year, three year contract. And what that does is allows them to increase some of the fees along the way if it’s in the contract. And if you find a better rate, it does not allow you to then change to another merchant processor.
00:03:46:03 – 00:05:33:07
Jay Shorr
Because what will happen then is there will be a penalty for switching your merchant processing fees. Let’s speak about group purchasing organizations for a second. It’s commonly known as a GPO. Don’t mix up what a GPO is with a group Buyers Club. Let’s explain the differences. A group Buyers club is like Costco, BJ’s, Sam’s Club. They’re big companies that buy in bulk and allow you to be a member of that organization and then allow you to share into those savings.
Whereas a GPO group purchasing organization is mandated with governmental regulations and allows you to save on everything from medical devices to office supplies to medical supplies, and is usually governed by your supply vendors who will allow you to enroll into those types of. Now, let’s speak about patient financing. Now, most of you know the bigger financing companies like CareCredit, which you have to be board certified to be able to enroll into care credit.
And then there’s LendingTree, and then there’s Alpheon and then there’s other ones. Shorr Solution sponsors one through a 0% interest credit card, which allows you as the medical practice to help the patient finance their dream procedure at 0% interest over 3 to 22 months. Now, remember, financing programs will allow the patient to enroll into a specific type of a program, and then the rate can be anywhere between 6%, 10%, 12%.
00:05:33:09 – 00:07:19:10
Jay Shorr
Sometimes the patient gets free financing. Other times you may have to get involved in paying a portion of that. Let’s speak about utilizing marketing programs offered by your existing vendors, including reimbursements and incentives for what you spend in advertising and marketing, or sometimes for year end or quarter end quotas. There are some companies that allow you to receive money back predicated on your purchases if you advertise their vendor program exclusively.
So ask each and one of your marketing and your vendor programs If they allow co-op dollars that allows you to use some of your spend to help you generate additional revenue by increasing of marketing. So do you really know what it costs you to generate and acquire a new patient in our industry? Well, some of the bigger management organizations like MGMA, they’ve all stated that it costs approximately $400 to acquire a new patient.
Now, if anyone has ever watched the Shark Tank, they’ll always ask, you know, what it costs for a new client acquisition. It’s very important because what you want to know, for example, if you do pay-per-click advertising, it might be $2, $3, $5, $10, $20 depending upon your score. For every time that somebody clicks on your PPC pay per click campaign, whether it’s on Instagram, whether it’s on Facebook, whether it’s on Google, you pay to play.
00:07:19:12 – 00:08:49:09
Jay Shorr
Now our tips to keeping them. So if you divide your total amount that you spend in your marketing and you divide that into your revenue that you generated all by your marketing, you’ll know that that comes like a numerator and denominator. And then you have your quotient simple division that we learned in elementary school. Then you’ll learn when you take your total spend and then you divide your revenue, you’re going to be able to say, what is that number that it costs you to acquire that client?
But the other best way is through your search engine optimization, through your website vendor. So let’s talk about patient reminders. Patient reminders can be done in a numerous amount of ways. You can choose a third party vendor like a solution reach, for example, or you can have it done through your practice management software. And what that does, it will send them about upcoming events.
It’ll talk to them about their patient reminder of when their next appointment is. You can segment that and remind them when their next treatment and their retreatment. And when a patient hasn’t returned to your office, for example, any of the dermal fillers and neuro modulators, which are three month treatments on an average for your neuro modulators and your dermal fillers, an average of about six months, sometimes 12 months.
00:08:49:11 – 00:10:33:17
Jay Shorr
And you go into your patient management base and you look and you say, When was that patient in for the last time? And when you say it’s been in excess of three or six months, send your patient a reminder when you segment your patient base and send them, it’s time to come in for your treatment. So let’s talk about evaluating your call to consult ratio.
Do you track the number of calls that come into your practice and that your practice is getting? separate your new patient prospects from your existing patient base, and then make sure that you’re following up with all of your leads in a drip campaign. Now, what’s a drip campaign, you ask me? Well, when a patient or a patient prospect first calls your practice, a drip campaign can be, When do I recontact that patient?
Is it 24 hours? Is it then three days from now? Is it five days from now? A week from now? That can be whether it is for a non-surgical treatment or even a surgical treatment, because you don’t want to lose that particular call to consult. You’re paying to make that phone ring. So once again, track the number of calls that come into your office.
Separate them by patient prospects and existing patients and make sure that you follow up with them. And in that campaign, I’ll remind you, it’s three days, a week, week after that, a month. It’s never too many times to try to contact the patient. And people said to me, Jay, how do I know when to stop contacting them?
00:10:33:19 – 00:12:09:00
Jay Shorr
My answer was simple. When they say don’t contact me anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, this is it’s like no other time we’ve ever done this before. And before we would be able to have events, before we were able to have people to come to see us. Now it’s being done virtually. There’s several ways. First of all, increase revenue, reduce expense, analyze your patient profit and loss in your business.
All the different types of fixed expenses, variable expenses. And most importantly, let me try and explain about a conversion cascade. What that is, is the patient calls. Then you have to convert that call to a consult. Then you convert that consult to a treatment and that treatment converts to revenue. And then after that, you have to multiply and divide and the amount of revenue that I’ve received divisible into the amount that I’ve spent gives me a ratio.
So that ratio is about 3.5 to 1. And that’s how, you know, it’s called a conversion cascade. I want to leave you with a couple of really important tips. What is important in our business? Safety is by far the most important thing in our business. Safety of our patient and safety of our practitioners and safety of our staff.
00:12:09:02 – 00:12:32:03
Jay Shorr
And then it’s safety and protecting our practitioners licenses. Number three. Have fun. Number four, make money. Thank you for being a part of my presentation today on how to make your profits soar.
00:12:32:05 – 00:15:28:11
Mara Shorr
So acquiring, converting and retaining new loyal patients is easier than you think. It requires you mastering the sales funnel in your aesthetic practice. How is it that easy, you ask? Well, it’s easy because we teach you step by step in our conversion cascade online course, a fun and results driven course that you and your team can finish in less than 5 hours.
Yes, less than 5 hours. Because we know you all are busy. We provide you six training videos that walk you through attracting new patients, converting calls to consults, consults to treatments, and keeping your patients coming back for more. All of this while learning how to talk to your about additional treatments and procedures to achieve their dream results and bonus, Boost your revenue and have them singing your praises to others.
With our course, you also get tangible tools to help you succeed, such as downloadable marketing checklists, phone scripts, conversion tracking spreadsheets and more, all of which are completely customizable and editable for you and your practice and your team. Get started and sign up for our conversion Cascade Online course today. And as a special thank you for being a podcast listener, we’re giving you 10% off.
Yes, 10% off. Just enter the Discount Code PODCAST. Yes, the word podcast to start saving, click the link in our show notes to get started now. Increase revenue and acquire more patients for your practice today.
So that wraps up today’s episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. If we mentioned any quote, links in our show notes, be sure to check them out for the easiest way to discover your best solutions you can find them. Yeah. In our show notes.
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