00:00:04:09 – 00:00:56:00
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.
00:00:56:02 – 00:01:36:18
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Shorr Solutions, the podcast. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr. Today we’re going to have a discussion on getting over the hump tips for taking your static practice from good to great. I’m going to make the assumption that it’s already good, but in our world, good isn’t good enough because there’s always somebody better. And I want you to always think that way, that there’s always going to be somebody better. So that we always have to be thinking about how we can get to great.
00:01:36:20 – 00:03:35:19
So tip number one, you have to understand your current position in the marketplace. Before you can know where you’re going you need to understand where you’ve been. I know that’s one of the oldest expressions in the book, but I still have to use it. So you have to access and assess where your practice currently stands. So are you good? Are you better? Are you great? Are you the best? Well, I always want to strive to be the best. And I never stop. So I’m constantly assessing where our business is or in your case, your practice. You have to analyze your strengths and your weaknesses. Now, it’s not really too hard to do a Swot analysis. So what is a Swot analysis? Strength. Weakness. Opportunities. Threats. S. W. O. T. So you have to analyze those strengths and weaknesses. Now I really don’t like to use the term weakness the term weakness. I don’t have a weakness. I have opportunities and I will strive to have and look where all those opportunities can bring me each and every day. And what do I do? I use data-driven insights to identify my areas of improvement because there’s a thing KPI your key performance indicators. That is one of the best things that we can do because that allows us to know where we are. And if I have a goal and how do I know what my goal is? Because I have a business plan and you should have a business plan for your operational administrative, your financial, marketing, health and guidance. And you set that down so that you know what you have to achieve and what your opportunities are.
00:03:35:21 – 00:07:12:18
But tip number two is develop yourself as a great leader, and you have to lead by example and empower your team. I allow my team to make decisions all the time. Why? Because it can’t strictly depend on you all the time. Now you. In a medical practice, you can’t allow your team to make medical decisions. If they’re not properly licensed to make, those people can give opinions. But be very careful about that because don’t allow people to go ahead and spout out medical, not terms. But what you as a provider or a practitioner or a doctor have to teach to your patient. Praise your staff publicly and correct them privately. Nobody likes to be chastised in public. Some people don’t even like to be praised in public. My team loves to be praised. I love to praise people in public, to allow them to be proud of themself for everything that they’ve done, for all the hard work they’ve put into this and what they’ve accomplished. I like being praised, and you can see by those rewards that I win in the background. Look, I worked very hard for them and I like to be recognized that educate and be a mentor to your staff. Don’t ever be a boss. Be a leader. A leader is somebody that takes their group to the next level. Look, everybody knows who the boss is. I know I’m the boss. I don’t tell my team. I’m the boss. They know it. That is kind of demeaning to me. So educate them and be a mentor to them. Allow yourself to have an open-door policy. Allow people to come to you for advice, and if they do something wrong, it’s an opportunity to bring them to the next level. Set goals and expectations with your team and allow them to be part of something greater than just a job. Now, what do I mean by that? If you’re going to set down some type of a performance indicator or a different policy and a procedure and a protocol without getting the buy-in from your team, how well do you think that your team is going to buy into it? Before I do anything with my team, I’ll give them my suggestion, but I ask for their input all the time. Come to me with your ideas and suggestions and you know, and then we discuss it as a team because they’re more willing and your team will be more than willing to take that torch and run with it like a relay race, if they feel they were part of it, and then compensate your staff handsomely and give them opportunities to grow and progress. Don’t allow your team to constantly feel that they’re working so hard. They’re getting you ahead, and then you’re the one that’s keeping all the money and the profit. Share it with your team. In any business that I’ve ever had, or that I’ve been a supervisor or a manager of. I always believed in paying my staff the most in the area for the job they have. Why? Because nobody, and I mean nobody is going to leave me over $0.50 a dollar an hour. It just doesn’t make sense.
00:07:12:20 – 00:08:16:19
Tip number three. Face the facts. Face the reality of your practice’s challenges and encourage open communication and feedback from your team. You want them. You want them to give you suggestions and seek solutions proactively to address your shortcomings. Nobody’s perfect. I love when somebody brings information to me but have the facts. In a prior podcast, we talked about your facts over my opinion. Although I will respect your opinion. I want the facts. For those of you who are old enough to remember the show of Dragnet, here’s the graphic that you just saw and you’ll see it again. For those of you who remember that Sergeant Joe Friday. “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.” I don’t want all the pasta and the fluff. Just the meat and potatoes. Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.
00:08:16:21 – 00:09:45:01
Yes. We’re going to take a quick break and a slight intermission. I’d like to take a moment to tell you about our conversion cascade online course. With this self-guided and powerful course, you and your team will be able to master acquiring and retaining more patients as a step-by-step sales funnel training. This course is designed to help you and your team attract more patients, convert calls to consults, convert consoles to treatments and procedures, and keep patients coming back for more. Not only will our conversion cascade online courses help to strengthen and develop your team’s phone sales and customer service skills, it will also serve as a valuable onboarding training tool for each and every new team member. Plus, in the course, you’ll receive downloadable marketing checklists, phone scripts, conversion tracking tools, and more. So why not sign up for the course today? It only takes less than 4 hours to complete and you can finish at your own pace and you’ll have lifetime access. And as a special thank you for being our podcast listener, we’re giving you 20% off. Just enter the Discount Code “podcast” to start saving today. Click the link in our show notes to sign up for the Conversion Cascade online course, acquire and retain more patients right now.
00:09:45:03 – 00:12:11:13
Tip number four build a strong team. Collaborate for the win. Don’t compete with your own team. That’s the worst thing that you can do because when you compete with your own team, they’ll win because you have to fire them all. They won’t feel like they’re part of a team. So I love the collaboration. So I recruit and I retain the top talent. My business and I keep going back to my business. Our business, because that’s a perfect example. I’ve hired strong interns along the way. And then the intern became an assistant, and then they became a manager, and then they became a director and managers. And I always have interns, and they always stay with me, because who better to invest all your time with than an intern who then comes to love and grow with you and becomes a full supporting team member? Foster a supportive work environment that values professional develop and growth. Don’t be afraid to pay for people to have training. Don’t be afraid to pay for people to come to a conference. Yes, it will cost you money, but it’s an investment. I promise you it will pay you off every week. Our team and I get together and we have training sessions once, twice a year. We’ll have a full team meeting out of town, and we’ll go to a conference room or a hotel. And for two days we’ll have educational content about how to make our team stronger. And you have to empower your employees to take ownership of their roles and contribute to your success. Because if you don’t empower them, they’re only always going to be coming to you for the answer. Now, look, once you empower your staff to make a decision. Take ownership of it and live with it. Even if they didn’t make the best decision. You will learn from it. But don’t ever make your team feel that they’re not important enough to make a certain decision, because it will help you tackle the more important things until such time as the team will tackle those more important things because your team will be nothing more than a reflection of you and train and coach your team often.
00:12:11:15 – 00:13:43:15
Tip number five find what you’re an expert at and focus on that niche. Analyze your competition and identify what makes you stand out for them. In this graphic right here, you’ll see Where’s Waldo? All right. That you can see who stands out in that crowd in your business. Why do you stand out? You want to take your business from good to great. If you’re just like everybody else, then you would be good. But you have to have something that makes you different than everybody else. Whether it’s the newest toy on the block, the newest machine, the newest type of a procedure that you’re doing, focus on what your practice can excel in and line all the efforts towards it. Because if you just put a little bit of effort into it, you’re only going to get a little bit of effort back, and your team won’t even feel that it’s important to you. Because what is important to my boss has always been most important to me early in my career. Stay consistent with who and what you want your position to be in the industry. I want our position to be a leading executive practice management consulting company. I’m not a marketing company. We’re a management company and that’s how we have positioned ourselves in this industry, and that’s how I want to maintain it.
00:13:43:17 – 00:15:09:04
Tip number six consistently deliver exceptional service and results to build your client loyalty. The key word here exceptional. You cannot be just one of the rest. And if you allow your team to understand that nothing less than exceptional service will do, then that’s all they’re going to know. Exceptional service will become the norm. Example. One of my pet peeves is when somebody says to me, no problem. I see no problem. For example, I say thank you. They say no problem. In my mind I’m saying I don’t have a problem. So what are you saying? No problem. It is. Thank you. It is my pleasure. And the very beginning. People look at you. Kind of corny, but after a while, when you share with them, I said, let’s role-play this and listen how this sounds. No problem. Or my pleasure. And then when they start repeating my pleasure, it becomes the norm. And that provides exceptional service. Now people don’t mean anything negatively by the no problem. But doesn’t my pleasure sound a whole lot better? Like I’m not an interference of somebody’s time?
00:15:09:06 – 00:15:53:18
Tip number seven have policies, procedures and protocols that are clear, concise, and consistent. Nothing to the imagination. Policies, procedures and protocols are one of the most important things that you can have in your business, whether it is for treatments or admin work. You want to make sure that everybody sings from the same prayer book, hymn book, whatever your fancy is in that book that everybody is singing from that same book. So you have the proper policies, procedures and protocols that are clear, concise and consistent
00:15:53:18 – 00:17:17:08
Tip number eight. You have to adopt technology at any stage. I’m very fortunate because I have a young team, but throughout my entire professional career, I had young people teach me technology so that when I got to be old and gray and then bald. For those of you who are watching, for those of you who are listening, say, wait a minute, what do you mean, old and gray? I only know Jay to be bald. So adopt technology. Embrace the technological advancements to streamline your operations and enhance patient experience. Whether it is proper EMR, whether it’s proper social media, your KPIs, your key performance indicators, all the data that’s driven, do something with it and invest in an automated AI tools. When I first came out artificial intelligence, I’m going, boy, what a lazy way for people to go about things. I have adopted AI because it really takes everything and puts it all together. But watch out for AI guys because it’s not 100% perfect. But I use it and you should do to help minimize your labor costs and boost your net profit as well. AI is one of the best things that you can have to help you in running your businesses going forward.
00:17:17:10 – 00:18:27:01
Tip number nine seek assistance from consultants who had firsthand experiences owning multi-million dollar aesthetic practice. I have owned a multi-million dollar practice in the past. As you can see, here is my team. We even have a team mascot that is my Zarah, our team golden-doodle mascot. So here we are with our team. You know, in the upper left we have Patricia. She is our vice president of operations and myself. And then we have to my right, we have Ana Suarez, and she is our director of client development. In the lower left we have Denise Lee and she has a director of operations. We have Cristian Devoz, Client Success Manager. We have Paige Hamilton, who is coming out of her internship and will work with us as a business analyst and the most important member of our team. That is my professional support team because she never lets me down. Is Zarah.
0:18:27:03 – 00:20:27:02
So with that, understand those are the top tips in bringing your practice from good to great. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking another part of your day listening or watching to spend it with me as we show you how to bring your practice good to great. Good luck. God bless and I look forward to seeing you in episode 106.
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. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to spread the word and share this episode with your friends, colleagues and the rest of your team. Remember to also follow us on social media @ShorrSolutions and sign up for our e-newsletter. You’ll learn about our latest tips, blog posts, services, videos, webinars and more. Links to our social media channels, and to sign up for our e-newsletter are in our show notes. So see you next time and remember to leave us a review and subscribe or more valuable content.
