00:00:04:08 – 00:00:53:05
Jay Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. I’m your host, Jay Shorr. I’m the CEO and founder of Shorr Solutions, a national and award-winning consulting firm, assisting aesthetic and surgical practices with their operational, administrative and financial success. I have an amazing team of practice management experts and clients across the U.S. and as an industry expert with firsthand experience owning a multi-million-dollar cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery practice. Listen in as I lend you my expertise and best tips to successfully manage and grow your aesthetic practice. I will also be bringing in guests along the way, so get ready to be equipped to operate your aesthetic practice strategically and profitably. Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
00:00:56:00 – 00:02:25:14
Shorr Solutions Team
Happy New Year!
Jay Shorr
from Shorr Solutions. Hello, everybody. Happy New Year and welcome to another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
I’d like to share with you that this is our anniversary podcast. This is our 100th podcast and I’m bringing on our team to celebrate our 100th anniversary of the editions of our podcast. Today we’re going to be speaking about how a consulting team can reduce or eliminate your everyday challenges. So I would like to introduce my team to you.
Ana Suarez is our Director of Client Development. Denise, Dini, Lee, because that’s we call her, Dini is our Director of Operations. Cristian Devoz is our Business Analyst and Client Success Manager. And lastly, my partner and my wife, Pat Shorr. And I’m your founder and CEO, Jay Shorr.
So everybody ask us throughout the year. I’m not sure that I want to hire a consulting team.
I’m not sure if I need a consulting team. What does a consulting team do? And we have all those answers. So today’s episode, how a consulting team can reduce or eliminate your everyday challenges is so apropos.
00:02:26:14– 00:03:16:01
Jay shorr
So the first question I would like to ask and what we hear all the time is, well, what is the role of a practice management consultant and what benefits do they bring to an aesthetic practice?
Well, quite frankly, consultants for practice management can work in every different vertical, but we only work in the vertical of aesthetic, cosmetic, plastic surgery, facial and body, aesthetic plastic gynecology and medspas. So the role that a practice management consultant plays in our industry is helping more of a coach. So Pat, I’d like to ask you the first question in.
When we’re talking about an aesthetic practice management consultant, what do you feel that we bring to an aesthetic practice?
00:03:17:15 – 00:03:50:03
Patricia Shorr
You know, I’ve been going to conferences with Jay for the past 11 years, and I must say the biggest pain point I see and I hear are staff issues. But I think what it is as consultants, when we’re getting out to the practice, sometimes we don’t get that warm and fuzzy welcome because they think that we’re there to eliminate jobs, which is a big misconception.
We’re there to coach and train your team to make them much more effective at what they’re hired to do.
00:03:50:18 – 00:05:04:09
Jay Shorr
Yeah, it’s very interesting because that term consultant usually has a negative connotation in the workplace and in the industry, and I’ve been around for a long time. If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve got the hair to prove it. You know, I’ve been around quite a long time and the average person thinks that consultants come in, cut costs and eliminate staff.
That’s true in big corporate America. But we deal a lot of times with the mom and pop. So what Pat just said is we act as coaches. Now, I don’t know of any professionals. I don’t care. Pick a sport. Any sport. Basketball, LeBron James. Football, Tom Brady. Soccer, Messi. Baseball, A-Rod. I mean, we can go on and on and on.
You know, we’ll talk about hockey. Wayne Gretzky, they all had one thing in common. They’re all superstars, maybe the best in their game. But guess what? Everyone had a coach. So we even have coaches. And most importantly, we act as a coach to your aesthetic practice.
00:05:05:20 – 00:05:29:01
Jay Shorr
So one of the other questions we get is what are the common misconceptions about the role of a consulting team in practice management?
Ana, when you’re dealing with the multitude of client base that you deal with both on a marketing side, on an HR Coaching side. What do you find are some of the misconceptions about your role that you place on the team?
00:05:29:18 – 00:06:13:12
Ana Suarez
That’s a great question, jay. So one of the misconceptions is that they think that as soon as we meet with them, we’re going to be solving everything right away. And we are. But they have to work with us. They have to dedicate the time to go back and take a look at what we have pointed out throughout our conversations with them and come back to us with that information that we need to help them throughout the process.
So we’re going to help you with every problem or issue you may have. It could be human resources, marketing, financial tools, but it wouldn’t happen in just one conversation or one meeting. We need to work together and we need to have the time to be able to get to know your business and help you to solve the issues.
00:06:13:14 – 00:06:16:07
Jay Shorr
So Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?
00:06:16:09 – 00:06:17:05
Ana Suarez
Exactly.
00:06:17:09 – 00:06:32:04
Jay Shorr
I didn’t make that part up. So how do you handle Ana, when you hear a particular client may have issues and opportunities? And we just went through this most recently, but they don’t have the time.
00:06:32:06 – 00:07:15:05
Ana Suarez
So it really puts us in a kind of like a difficult situation because, again, we have the knowledge, we have the experience, we really want to be there for each of our clients. But it takes two to tango. So we need them to go back and get the information that we’re requesting. And even if they need help or if they don’t have the time, we can even help with that.
But we need to have that open communication. It goes both ways. So I feel that I started communicating to us if they’re struggling to get that information for us, that’s totally fine. We can still set up some time to help them or guide them through the process. But once the communication stops or assumptions are made, then our job becomes very difficult.
00:07:15:07 – 00:07:43:06
Jay Shorr
So if you don’t have the data, many times we ask for historical data, so we know where the challenges and opportunities are, right? So if they don’t have the data, A because they didn’t know how to collect the data before or more importantly, they didn’t know what to do with the data, wouldn’t it be fair to say that’s okay. Here’s the information of where we’re going to start to collect the data and will analyze it from here.d
00:07:43:08 – 00:08:05:21
Ana Suarez
Yes, that will be totally fine. And we’ll meet our clients wherever they are. So if they even have some difficulties collecting that data, that’s totally fine with us. Like Pat said, we’re here for them. We’re coaching them, we’re helping them. So it’s just a matter of communicating, letting us know where do we need to meet them? Where can we jump in and help? And then we’ll be more than happy to do that.
00:08:05:22 – 00:08:34:03
Jay Shorr
Perfect. That’s great. Dini, I’m going to go to you next, because you’ve been with us over five and a half years and you’ve dealt with dozens of clients that we work with. And, you know, you formerly were a project manager and you set things up because there’s three things that everybody has to know. First of all, what is it you need done?
We work with you to get that. The second is who’s going to do it? And lastly, when is it going to get done?
00:08:34:19 – 00:08:42:03
Jay Shorr
So what qualities make a consulting team effective in tackling a wide range of challenges that they have each and every day?
00:08:42:15 – 00:11:45:19
Denise Lee
So with our team, the client onboarding call is the most important call. It helps us get started on really finalizing those top three goals that the client has. They might be goals within different areas, such as maybe hiring a new team member, their marketing plan and strategy, and perhaps also they want to go over how they can improve their conversion ratios for their phone call to Consult conversions and as well as from their consults to their treatment and procedures.
We also have some clients that want help with their numbers and understanding. In fact, that usually comes from us bringing it up to them. Jay’s always talking about how he wants to take a look at the P&L for the past three years and we take a look at the num bers about the revenue and expenses and take a look at how we can improve the profit margin.
So once we do the onboarding call, we listen to the client, we are able to really nail down what are the three areas that we want to get started with and hit the ground running. Usually we want to tackle those priorities that the client has. We call it putting out fires, so we’re making sure that we’re meeting those immediate needs that the client has.
A lot of the times as coaches, we have a game plan we want to look at how are you doing with your legal area, your insurance, your malpractice insurance, your contracts. Jay likes to review all your contracts just make sure that everything’s okay. Do we need to help you negotiate your lease or any of your vendor supplies? We want to take a look at your marketing numbers.
How is your website performing? What are your conversions again, for your phone calls to those consultations and the consults to the treatments and procedures. But maybe the client wants to really prioritize something else at that time. So what we like to do is make sure, okay, so these are the main things you want to work on. So we want to get a meeting on the calendar for that.
And if there’s any information that we do need ahead of the call like we previously discussed, we will request that. And so that’s where it’s important to be able to provide that information. So if you want to start tackling, for example, there conversion ratios, maybe that’s one of your items, then we do need to have that spreadsheet ahead of time just to review where you are at.
So have a baseline so that we can then improve or perhaps maybe you want to hire a new team member. So just being able to send over to our team just the information you have thus far, and then we will meet with you and work on that. And then along the way we want to make sure as experts and consultants we are touching on those other areas that we know need to be touched on along the way.
So we it’s a listening to the client and making sure we’re prioritizing those fires that you have those immediate needs working with you, tackling that within the first and second month and then moving forward, just continuing to check on those areas as coaches that we want to make sure by the end of our contract, and our time together, we’ve we’ve covered everything, even your patient financing. We want to just touch on everything in the practice.
00:11:45:21 – 00:11:50:20
Jay Shorr
Is that all? I’m exhausted already.
00:11:50:22 – 00:11:52:12
Denise Lee
Yeah.
00:11:52:14 – 00:12:44:02
Jay Shorr
You know, it’s like Rome wasn’t built in the day. I said this earlier, and there are so many challenges. Like we said, in tackling a wide range of challenges. What needs to get done? Who’s going to do it? When does it get done? I’ll get back to the rest of the team in a minute. But Dini, I want to focus on you about with the CRM that we use and that we’re now introducing to our client base to be able to get things done.
Real quickly, can you just review that a little bit about the benefits of what needs to be done when who’s going to do it and the benefit of using CRMs Like Monday.com you are and I’m going to quote unquote the master of the Monday.com or CRM. Real quickly explain on how we can help the challenges and how we use that.
00:12:44:04 – 00:15:18:20
Denise Lee
So like Jay said, CRMs are great and if you have a really good one that doubles up as a project management tool like money.com does. There are other project management tools like Asana and Trello. We really like Monday dot com and it’s so important just to keep everyone organized and make sure everything gets done by a certain timeline, a certain deadline.
Everyone knows what needs to be worked on for what projects. Internally, for us, it helps us with making sure that we know what are the projects for each of the clients. It helps us to know statuses we can keep each other up to date on different notes for that task. We want to make sure that we can also be able to keep track of time so that we can appropriately bill our clients and even for our clients practices.
Even recently we had a meeting with one of our clients to really build out their project management software utilizing Monday.com. So building out their different boards or workspaces with the different functions that are needed. For example, our client wanted to have all of the passwords and the log ins for the practice in one place, and I was able to set it up for them.
But I also created columns. It kind of works as an Excel spreadsheet and we were able to add the contract expiration dates. So now that there can be automations, for example, 30 minutes prior to the contract expiring, now the practice manager or the medical director or the owner of the practice, such as our client, is able to be notified and everything is all in one place, or we help to also build out the employee onboarding process.
So we we were able to create the onboarding process for the manager as well as the employees. So for the manager, these are all the items that need to be created before the employee starts the first day, the first week, and then after that and then a process for the employee. What does it look like for their first day, their first week?
Different workspaces essentially, or boards in Monday.com terms, helping them out with the onboarding process and what that looks like and other HR Items as well that we were able to help our client put together. But this way everything is organized within the practice. And if you need to be aware of any deadlines or expiration dates, you’re aware of that or if there are any specific processes such as hiring and onboarding your team or other protocols that are completed in the practice, there is a organized space for the entire team to be able to take a look at how everything is done and completed.
And even with Money.com, you can keep track of your lead management system as well.
00:15:19:01 – 00:15:48:20
Jay Shorr
That’s great. Cristian, let’s go to you for a minute. You’ve been on dozens and dozens of calls with me. And the question I have is how does a consulting team with our diverse expertise and our diversity as a team help clients identify and prioritize their everyday operational challenges? Because they’re not all the same, are they?
00:15:48:22 – 00:17:26:20
Cristian Devoz
You’re right. Everyone is different. And I love that you mentioned diversity because we’re big in diversity in Shorr Solutions. We’re all from different places around the world. So that’s a big part of who we are. We are all living with diversity and inclusion and answering your question. When we work with our clients, we know what they need. We have worked with many clients over the years.
Jay, our CEO and Founder has a lot of experience working firsthand as a practice owner so he knows what needs to be done in a practice from A to Z, and we’re able to help our clients from when they start and they’re looking to open their practice for the first time all the way to improving their protocols and processes.
And then for the later stages of clients that we have who are looking to retire, to exit from the industry, we help them with that exit strategy, looking for buyers and the whole prospectus process and everything. So I guess it all depends on a client basis what they need. The first thing that we always do is we have an onboarding meeting with them, to understand their challenges to understand what are those priorities.
And then once we have that understanding, we can move forward. We start tackling those challenges and we start tackling those specific needs. And then of course, we have our processes and our protocols. So we have a list of things that we go over with the clients to make sure that they are optimizing their practice to the maximum capacity.
So we have everything from protocols to policies and things that they can implement to ensure that they are maximizing their profit, maximizing the efficiency and that they are reducing costs.
00:17:26:22 – 00:18:00:22
Jay Shorr
Perfect. Ana, you and I work together in a multitude of ways. You are the marketing person on our team. In addition to client success, working with their strategies and everything like that, what do you find when we’re working with a brand new client and an existing client in all their everyday operational challenges because they’re all so different depending upon the early maturity and latent maturity of a practice. How do you prioritize them?
00:18:01:00 – 00:20:38:20
Ana Suarez
Yes, Jay, you are right. There’s so many things, so many projects, different clients that we work with in like just like you said, they’re all in a different stage within their businesses. So it’s critical to understand kind of like going back to like meeting them where they are, kind of like understanding what are the key problems, kind of like their pain points and then helping them.
And I found that when we help them with the overall strategy and we approach it from like a holistic point of you is the most helpful for our clients because they’re so involved with our day to day activities and operations that sometimes or most of the times they don’t have the time to take a step back and kind of like see the big picture.
So the critical part here is kind of like understanding what they need our help with and then coming up with a plan and organized plan of the priorities and how we’re going to go about solving them for them. So for instance, when it comes to recruiting, many times they want to hire a new position. But, you know, when I sit down and I speak with them, So what are you looking for?
What would you like this person to help you with and help with your business? They don’t have that kind of like overall idea of what they need. So we have to kind of like they the time to sit with a client and make them think through it. And it’s so important because, you know, you could just go out there and post a job, but if you’re not including in that job description exactly what you’re needing and you kind of line the tasks and responsibilities that you want that person to help you with, once you hired them, then you’re setting them up for failure.
So it’s very important, whether it’s like recruiting, even marketing, you know, we can all do social media any time, every time. But if you’re just like putting things out there that they don’t really resonate with your audience, you know, they don’t really speak to your audience, then it won’t be effective. And then essentially what they’re doing is they’re just like wasting time and money.
So what we try to do is meet our clients where they are, find out what are their pain points, and then coming up with a strategy, an overall holistic type of plan, and then kind of like breaking it down for them and holding their hand all throughout the process. That’s kind of like how we tend to tackle those situations and help our clients. And that just gives them clarity and kind of let them see what is important and what is their priority, because there’s only 24 hours a day.
So the point is to make the list, prioritize and come up with a strategy that you can then implement in little steps.
00:20:38:22 – 00:22:05:04
Jay Shorr
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00:22:07:01 – 00:22:59:23
Jay Shorr
So I’m going to divert to Pat for a second because Pat is a retired 46 year career executive with Bloomingdales. Now everybody knows Bloomingdales, Neiman’s, Saks. It’s the top end. You can’t get any higher end couture type of quality merchandise when you’re looking. And that’s what we try to promote couture service. We’re not the big, huge consulting firm.
We are one on one with each one of us. But what I want to share/ask with Pat is the everyday operational challenges in 46 years, having run from the sales floor to the warehouse to high end sales and working and hiring and managing thousands of people in your career, how do you prioritize those everyday operational challenges, Pat?
00:22:59:23 – 00:24:18:05
Patricia Shorr
I’m glad you asked. Jay I have to say it’s all about people skills. When you love people, it doesn’t matter what their pain points are. Once you understand what their focus is and prioritize, you can go in and handle their most difficult team by letting them know you’re there to coach them to bring out the best in them.
And when you touch base with everyone on the team, it’s all about growing the practice to increase revenue. When the practice increase revenue, everyone’s going to get a share of the pie, making sure they’re commissioned their pay increase just more dollars for everyone to go across. And with that said, making sure they understand what your goals are, what your brand is from the answering the phone, the website has to look like what you promote.
It’s beauty, it’s aesthetic and that’s what we’re all about. But it goes right back to your people and that’s why we have excellent coaches on our team to make sure we hold their hands and walk them through from answering the phone all the way to walking that patient out the door post-surgery.
00:24:18:07 – 00:24:54:22
Jay Shorr
So let me catapult onto that, Pat, because in all the conferences and you’ve been to, I don’t know, triple digit number of conferences, we do ten, 12, 15 a year and I’ve been doing this and Pat’s been doing this coming with me for over ten years. So we’ve done 100 to 150 different meetings and there are dozens of consultants out there.
I don’t worry about competition. I never worried about competition. I never worried about it when I owned a practice. I don’t worry about it now in being the leader of a consulting company because we’re all different. We’re not a marketing company, we are a management company.
00:24:55:22 – 00:25:04:03
Jay Shorr
So Pat, what does the process of selecting the right consulting team look like and what really should a client look for in such a team?
00:25:05:06 – 00:25:58:01
Patricia Shorr
You know, as we just heard that Jay was a practice owner, he’s made a lot of mistakes along the way and boy, have those mistakes paid off for him and us as well, because we use those as tools to make sure we save our practitioners not to make the same mistake. Jay comes to Shorr Solutions and uses his expertise in medicine that he has learned and be a part of.
He’s an expert in the field, understanding what the physician needs in their own lingo. He’s been in the surgery room, operating room, and clearly understand what it takes every step of the way from the operational to the administrative to the financial. How to get the business. It is a business, and we have to treat it like the business it is.
00:25:58:10 – 00:29:28:04
Jay Shorr
All right. So that leads me into if any of you ever hear me lecture and I know many of you that listen to these podcasts, I see you all around the world and you tell me, oh yeah, like that new commercial on TV that I hear “there’s a podcast for that.” “Oh yeah, there’s a podcast for that too.”
But let’s get something straight. So what is medicine? Medicine’s a science. It’s a way to heal the sick and injured in our business, a way to keep our patients looking young and beautiful. It is one of the most respected professions today because of the educational level that all of you have to go through. For the physicians, it’s a four year university.
Then it’s the medical school, an internship up, a residency, a fellowship. And now what do you want to do with your life? And that’s where we come in. All right. But never lose sight of the fact that medicine is a business. And as Pat said, we have to treat it like the business that it is, because what are our four priorities?
Number one, safety. Safety of our patient and safety of our staff equally, number one importance. Number two, protection of our practitioners licenses. Number three, have fun. And people say, you haven’t even talked about making money yet. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s number four. Make money. Because if you don’t practice number one, two and three, you will not make money.
Patients are going to leave you, staff is going to leave you and you’ll be an island all under yourself. This is not the movie Field of Dreams. “Build it and they shall come.” It takes a collaborative team effort and what you really should look for is not necessarily a consultant, but a consultant that is also a coach that has experience and the niche in your specific field.
When somebody calls you and they want to do business with you, I don’t care if you tell me, Well, I’ve done business with Microsoft and ExxonMobil and X, formerly known as Twitter. Now I say that as a joke. I don’t care that you’ve done business with these big boys and girls. I want to know, tell me what you’ve done in the aesthetic cosmetic surgery and medspa world, because that’s the world we’re in.
And if you don’t know my business, I don’t want to have to teach you my business. I want a consultant that’s going to teach you this. Now, what did Steve Jobs say? “I don’t hire people to tell them what to do. I hire people for them to tell me what to do” and I live and die by that same theory.
I have my team come to me. We have weekly or biweekly regroup meetings about each one of our clients, each one of our staff. We have a team of people that hires interns to help work. And what do I want to know most? Facts. Sergeant Friday from Dragnet years ago said, Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts. I respect your opinion.
It’s not going to sell me. I need the facts because the facts tell the whole story just like a picture tells a thousand words.
00:29:17:19 – 00:29:27:00
Jay Shorr
So, Dini, can you share examples of how Shorr Solutions as a consulting company, how we collaborate to tackle client issues?
00:29:28:06 – 00:31:45:12
Denise Lee
Yes. So we love to work together. We actually have different specializations on the team. And with Jay, he is the master and the expert when it comes to legal and financial of the practice. Jay also sits with HR and that’s where Ana comes in as well with HR so does Pat and Ana also specializes in helping with the marketing strategy and the marketing plans.
Cristian assists with the financials as well and the legal side of the practice. Some of the HR and the marketing. He assists in a lot of different areas and different team members on the team. And I help with the project management that helping our team stay on timeline, making sure that all the tasks are getting done for the client. I help with our conversion cascade online course, our toolkit, our patient financing program, and by the way, our tool kit is just a fun library of 300 plus protocols, consent forms, HR policies, conversion tracking tools. We have all of it in there. And so the way we work together is we, when we’re meeting with the client, we make sure we truly understand what needs to be done for them, what are their goals, and then we will collaborate together as a team depending on what area it is that the project is going to be for.
If it’s something with legal, we make sure to tag in Jay, If it’s the marketing plan, we make sure that the client is meeting with Ana and the marketing strategy. If it’s a P&L review in the finances, then we have Jay and Cristian on there, if it’s HR then we have Pat and Ana help and helping with those strategies when it comes to HR.
Or even coaching the practice manager or the practice administrator on being able to do their roles well in the practice and having guidance in that area as well. So we collaborate well together. We’re a strong team. We like to know the general areas of the practice when it comes to the legal, the financial, administration, the marketing and the operations.
We also have our niches too within the team. And so that’s really great. And that’s why a team is so important because we need one another, We collaborate well together and we make sure that the client is set up for success.
00:31:45:14 – 00:33:37:22
Jay Shorr
Yeah. Now let me really quickly explain Pat’s role as well. Pat recently joined the team after her illustrious 46 years with Bloomingdale because there wasn’t any time for her to join our team while she had a 40, 50, 60 hour work week as an executive. All right. But here’s the thing. That is our VP of sales, as well as my partner.
And it’s important because while I’m lecturing and I’m on the podium and people are asking me questions. Pat has the ability to go over and share what we do as consultants, collect all the information. And then upon the conclusion of those conferences comes back, will enter all of the information and that data into our own CRM. And then either every week or every two weeks when we have that team meeting, we discuss existing clients, their operational challenges and successes and the new client base now is very interesting.
I don’t know what it was, but between November and December we brought on six new clients. Two of them will start January that we met in the conferences at the Multi Aesthetic Professionals Meeting in Las Vegas. That we met at the different MAC meeting in San Diego, the Facial Plastics Meeting, The Aesthetic Show, the Vegas Cosmetic Surgery Show a whole litany of different ones.
But that is basically Pat’s responsibility to find out the needs, the wants, the desires of those clients. We also regroup with existing clients at these meetings. And then Pat will meet with them to find out what are your challenges right now to bring back to the team to help. So that’s really, really important because what challenges do clients commonly seek consulting services for, Pat? When you’re speaking with them, what do you hear most?
00:33:38:16 – 00:34:39:16
Patricia Shorr
I think, Jay, their biggest pain point is staffing issues. they haven’t handled that correctly in the past by documenting some of the issues. You can retrain. a lot of the practice, just don’t seem to have the time to coach their team and that’s where things fall by the wayside. But we come in with a very structured format to help them streamline their practice from the minute the staff walks in the door to when they leave.
And everyone is assigned special projects, so they follow through seamlessly. From answering the phones to how they greet the client when the client walks in for the procedure, make sure they take all the information that is necessary to upsell that prospect when they get in, make sure that they evaluate and ask all the right question to that potential patient to make sure that when they get for consult, that they are a candidate for surgery.
00:34:39:19 – 00:35:00:09
Jay Shorr
So what that’s really referring to is being able to get that particular client base and pre qualifying them. Because what I have found out that clients have very, very poor closing ratios and they don’t know why. And the reason that they don’t know why is they haven’t properly been coached. Now if it’s a numbers game like many practices are, you’ve got hundreds of consults.
So if you’re close, 50% of them, you’ve got a lot. All right. 50% is a very poor closing ratio. But if you don’t have that and you only have five or six and you’re only closing 50% of those, that’s not good. That’s poor. So the challenges that commonly people seek the consultation services for, like Pat said, staff, that’s probably Ana and I, our number one priority of good positive benefits and deficiencies.
00:35:27:09 – 00:36:17:21
Patricia Shorr
But I would like to add to that there is one that stands out in my mind of a physician that owns a practice and came to us because they weren’t making profit and they were very disheartened and came to us to assist them in closing their practice. Now Jay, deep dive into their P&L to see a lot of things jumped out at him and what it is that they were doing wrong.
And there was a whole boatload of things they were doing wrong. He coached them and assisted them in correcting those things, starting from staff to everything they do, operational, how do they follow up with their patients? And lo and behold, three years later, three years, they have more than double their profit. And now expanding into a new location, they I think they’ll move into their new location in January.
00:36:17:21 – 00:36:20:14
Jay Shorr
Yeah, they blew it out of the seams and now it’s too small.
00:36:20:14 – 00:37:29:05
Patricia Shorr
And, you know, that is just one example of what we do and takes so much pride in. And there are many more stories like that. Some come to us who want to retire but don’t know how to do it. We will team them up with another physician who will learn the business or learn the patients and transition once those patients get comfortable.
And the timeframe is here, a smooth transition where there’s no hiccups along the way. Selling a practice. That’s another thing we have now gotten into in working with both buyers and sellers and is very successful at that. So there is a boatload of things that we do offer from the time the practitioner leaves and is ready to open his business to the time that they’re retired and ready to close their practice.
So I urge you, if you haven’t already done so, to get on our website and schedule a free 30 minute consult with our CEO, Jay Shorr. You will not regret that time spent.
00:37:29:07 – 00:37:55:07
Jay Shorr
Okay, so in conclusion, as experts in overcoming the multiple challenges that each one of us has spoken about, I want each one of you to speak about one piece of advice that you have for each of us, and each of the people listening for running a successful aesthetic practice. One piece of advice. Let’s start with Dini.
00:37:55:09 – 00:38:24:14
Denise Lee
Gosh, there’s so many. Okay, I’m going to choose one. The first thing that came to mind was as Director of First Impressions. We always talk about it all the time. The Director of First Impressions is the gatekeeper of your practice and they will make or break your practice. They either have more patients coming in to see you or they will deter those patients away.
So I would say it’s important to make sure you’re training that team member with their phone skills and their sales skills.
00:38:24:15 – 00:38:27:06
Jay Shorr
Perfect. Great. Thank you, Cristian.
00:38:27:08 – 00:39:08:22
Cristian Devoz
The first thing that comes to mind is the importance of analyzing regularly their P&Ls, making sure that they are tracking their numbers, that they know if it is looking like a parabola or if it is looking like an steady growth. We want to make sure that we understand those numbers and that we can always look at where can we reduce expenses.
As Jay always says, each dollar that you make, you may only be making about $0.35, maybe $0.30 per dollar, but every dollar of expense that you reduce is a pure margin dollar. So the more you analyze your P&L and the more you learn to look at those numbers and figure out ways to reduce your expenses, the more profitable you will be as a practice.
00:39:09:00 – 00:39:12:12
Jay Shorr
Wonderful. Thank you, Ana. One piece of advice.
00:39:12:13 – 00:39:36:03
Ana Suarez
Yes, there’s a lot. But I would definitely say concentrate on your team, on your staff because they are the key. You know, once you spend that time training them and listening to what they need from you to perform their job, they’re going to help you get to where you need to go, to where you want to go. So always dedicating that time to your team and training them and developing them so they can help you reach your business goals.
00:39:36:05 – 00:39:37:12
Jay Shorr
Right. Pat.
00:39:37:14 – 00:40:09:11
Patricia Shorr
100% what Ana just said, it’s all about your team and your team can make you or break you. They are a reflection of who you are. So spending that quality time to coach them, coach them up every day and you’ve got to make sure you touch base with them when you see them do something great. So if you have to talk to them about something that they’re not doing well, they will accept it knowing that you always give them good feedback. But it’s all about your people. They are a reflection of who you are.
00:40:09:13 – 00:41:36:04
Jay Shorr
All right. So in conclusion, I’m going to wrap it all up and I’m going to say ensure that you’ve got clear, concise and consistent policies, procedures and protocols to live by. And lastly, whether you are a brand new startup practice, you are an intra operative practice running for years and just can’t get over that hump. Or even whether or not you’re wanting to have an exit strategy and succession plan in 1 to 2 years.
Always have a plan. Ensure that you’ve got a properly effective and effectuated business plan which describes operational, administrative, financial and marketing trends. The failure to plan is a plan to fail. You can review it, review it again and review it again. And that’s what we as a team help you with from start to finish. Thank you everybody for joining us for another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast, our 100th episode.
Be sure to tune in for future episodes of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast for a great education. We are not a sales company. All right. We’re here to help you, your team, to ensure great profitability. Good luck everybody. Happy New Year and God bless.
00:41:37:21 – 00:43:10:08
So that wraps up today’s episode of Shorr Solutions: The podcast. If we mentioned any website links, you can find them in our show notes to work directly with me and our award-winning team of consultants to increase efficiency, increase revenue and decrease costs in your aesthetic practice, schedule a free consult with us today.
We will help you establish and refine your aesthetic practice’s protocols for maximum efficiency and productivity, decrease your expenses and increase your profitability with an expert financial analysis of your business. Attract more patients, convert calls to consults, convert consults to treatments and keep patients coming back for more. With our sales training, coaching and complimentary access to our conversion cascade online course.
Recruit, hire and train new team members and manage any staff turnover with our human resource expertise plus more, head over to our show notes and click on the link to schedule a free 30-minute consult with us today.
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