Dermatology Times Interview: Everything you ever wanted to know about medical spas.

I've done more than a few interviews or round table discussions about the medical spa market. The press like me because I don't just tow the 'everything is cushy' line the technology companies and medical boards have to take so they don't piss anyone off too badly. (I'd have to name the Wall Street Journal as the highest visibility but that was for entrepreneurship and business startups, not medical spas.)

Last week I was contacted by Dermatology Times for an article being written about medical spas. Unfortunately, I was off in Florida consulting and didn't get back to John quite quick enough to make his deadline and so the article will run without the incredible insight of your's truly.

Not to fear. I'm going to take the time to answer all of John's questions right here over the next few days. It'll be interesting to see how my thoughts compare to the plethora of statistics that John's compiling. I'll let you be the judge of the content once the Dermatology Times article comes out.

Here's the email I received from Dermatology Times:

Subject: Derm Times query
Message: Hello Mr. Barson:
I'm a writer with Dermatology Times, a monthly newsmagazine for dermatologists, working on the following article. Can you address any questions about number of medical spas/growth in this field and income earned by medical spas?

DT 8101 SPAS -- an overview story that takes a broad look at the issues surrounding Medical Spas and Skin Care Clinics (the topic of our August special report). There will be separate stories within the Special Report on many of the topics below. So I'm writing a detailed story with lots of stats that provides an introduction to the major issues.
Angles/questions:

Try to get numbers on nonderms running them, and who they are (in general): OBs, dentists, family practitioners, ER docs ?
What does the average spa take in, income-wise, per month? What are the average salaries for derms, family physicians, ob/gyns?

Why are nonspecialists are turning to cosmetic procedures? Explain the cash angle. Same-day payments? What’s the benefit to docs? No late hours, etc.? (And how do product sales fit in? Some physicians promote their own skincare lines)

What are the arguments (both sides) on the issue of patient safety? Ditto quality of care, supervision of personnel.

How confusing is the market to the consumer ? How do they know what they're getting?

What are the issues surrounding medical spa chains?

I'm hoping to wrap up interviews etc. by the end of.... Please let me know if you can help (or suggest other sources).
Many thanks,
John

Whew. That's a lot of stuff to cover. (I wonder what the word length of the article John has to deliver is.) I'll tackle each of these questions as a separate post over the next week or so as I get time. When the Dermatology Times article comes out I'll post a link to it and we'll see where we are. (If you see the Dermatology Times article send me an email.)

Review: Squarespace.com

You can find a list of other reviews I have completed and links to the products and resources I use to run my businesses in the Resources Section of this website.

Review: Squarespace.com - Dynamic web sites

Name: SquareSpace
URL: www.squarespace.com
Purpose: Dynamic web sites, blogs, content management for laymen. 

Let me start by saying that my personal experience to date with Squarespace has been 100% satisfactory. I have never had a complaint the system has always done what I wanted it to do. I’ve been blogging for the last four years and have switched all of my blogs from hosting systems like Wordpress or Blogger, and my static sites (I still have one) to squarespace.com.

Your web site is the most important part of your online presence. How it looks. How it acts. And more importantly, how easy it is to change, are of prime importance in making a decision on what kind of system to use.

What are your options?

 

Static Sites:

By far the most common choice are static sites. Of course it's not really by choice, they were simply the only available choice until recently. If you have a site, it's probably static, meaning that it's not easily updatable and you can't to it yourself unless your pretty technically inclined.

Pros: You already have one.
Cons: Hard to build. Expensive. Search engines hate them. No traffic.
Cost: Expensive to build and host.

Blogging Software:

Extremely uncommon for medical businesses in the current market. Wordpress , Blogger, Typepad... these were the first attempts at making dynamic sites that are easily updatable and they work as far as they go. Their somewhat technical and again you'll have to hire someone if you'd like to customize your site and offer more than a standard template. 

Pros: Relatively easy to set up. Inexpensive or free. Search engines love them if regularly updated.
Cons: Hard to customize. Limited function. Still need some tech savvy to implement.
Cost: Cheap. From little to free depending on configuration.

Dynamic Sites:

Squarespace.com is the next generation of content management systems that go far beyond what's previously been available. Squarespace has built a system that takes absolutely no knowledge of html, css, or other geek speak and it's built from the ground up for ease of use. If you can use Word, you can use squarespace.

Pros: Easiest to use and setup. Completely functional with advanced features like built in RSS feeds. You can try it for free.
Cons: None, if you don't mind the price tag.
Cost: About what a static site costs: From $7 to $25 a month.

The Bad.

I always like to get the bad news out of the way so here it is... I used to have here that I couldn't think of anything but I've since stumbled across some shortcomings. Here it is:

Squarespace is not open source so they don't have nearly as many members or or growth as Wordpress has. While it means that squarespace provides detailed support (which is excellent I might ad) it also means that they don't have nearly the footprint or developer time that Wordpress does. So, squarespace does not support at least one of the options that I would like to use on my blog. Text Link Ads uses server side scripts. Since squarespace is hosted, they don't allow you to install server side scripts and so I can't use one of methods I'd like to monetize my traffic. Text Link Ads doesn't offer a scripted solution yet so I'm SOL on this one.

I emailed Anthony about this and he responded that if they felt any platform gained enough of a foothold they would start supporting it. I would expect this negative to resolve itself and I certainly can't consider it as anything but a note but I thought I'd include it since I it is something I would like.

How I found Squarespace.

Back in 1999 I started to need web sites. So I learned how to write and code so I could build them the way I wanted.

As usual I conducted extensive due diligence before deciding to use squarespace. (As a guy the definition of horror is finding out later that there was a better choice I could have made.). I read forums and surfed around the web. I talked to my geek coder friends. I quickly came to realize that squarespace different from everything else available. It was clean, it was customizable, and most of all, it just worked perfectly and had everything I could want and nothing I didn't. The fact that they were charging actually made it an easier decision for me since it convinced me that they were going to make money and actually stay in business, making it easier to get help and service rather than have to research and do everything on my own with a 'free' service.

Now I'm inherently nervous about putting all of my eggs in one basket, so I started a new site in order to test squarespace and find out if it was as good as I hoped. 

To be honest I have very little confidence that squarespace would live up to my expectations. I've been more than pleasantly surprised. In fact, every site but one (Surface Medical Spas) has been built or switched to squarespace. Here's the list:

• Simple Curiosity? - Daily posts to tickle your thinking bone.
  
• Medical Spa MD: Information for physicians in retail medicine.
  
• Nimble Theory: My other business blog about technology startups & angel investing.
• Pony tail Club: My daughters blog about her riding academy and horses.
• Kid Agent: My sisters site as a child agent in Hollywood.
• Studio Salon Suites: A business site.
• Fight Club: A networking blog for entrepreneurs. (Since rolled into Nimble Theory)

There are some others that I've helped my friends set up as well but I don't own them.

Why choose Squarespace over a free blog site?

You can get a blog up and running for free as on Wordpress or Blogger. It's a valid solution and I've done just that in the past. (Squarespace also has a 30 day trial period that's free.) There are a number of things to take into account:

1.  I've found the 'free services' to be something of a misnomer since there is either:
   
   • Significant time involved that could better be spent elsewhere so you're, in effect, paying yourself 50cents an hour.
     
   • You end up having to pay someone to do it for you anyway.
2. Starting at $7 a month squarespace is a steal. In most cases if you're really running a site you're going to be responsible for hosting it anyway. (My virtual server for Surface Medical Spas runs about $49 a month.)
   
   
3. Since Squarespace is a paid service, they offer a host of support features and technical support. Since switching all of the blogs I run to Squarespace I've opened up around 35 support tickets. In every case the problem has been resolved and the tech support has been phenomenal with same day turnaround.
   
   
4. Squarespace comes with some really great features standard:
   
   • Search: Where Google's site search works great, Squarespace blows the doors off.
   • FAQ builder: If you've ever tried to build a FAQ (as I first did here: Medspa FAQ) The new FAQ feature stomps any other solution I've seen.
   • Drag & Drop: Moving stuff around on a whim.
   • RSS: No longer any need to configure your RSS feeds. It's already done.
   • SEO: Snap. Everything is valild and optimized so people can find you.
     
   • Build forms and capture information from your visitors. You've truly got to see this in action to believe it.
     
   • I could go on ad nauseum but here's the Squarespace feature set.

Building a dynamic business site that actually works the way it's supposed to.

If you're building a business site these day's it's easier than every. You no longer need to know HTML or CSS or any geek speak. However, and this is important, building a site that no one goes to is a waste of time. There are literally billions of web pages and your tiny spot on the web had better be easy to find.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of using Squarespace is the ease of use. While I'm writing this on the site, I've got spellcheck and the rest of the editing tools that everyone takes for granted. If my front desk needs to offer a special at a certain location, they just log in and do it... The don't have to call me, get the IT guys involved, or shed a tear. It's so easy that my daughters site at Pony Tail Club is run completely by my wife and daughter who have zero, zilch, nada, snake-eyes, by way of geek training. 

If that isn't the tipping point I don't know what is. 

4 Tips for preparing your patients for price increases.

How to Prepare Your Medspa Patients for Price Changes

When Allergan increased the price of Botox, I was not happy. (Not that Allergan and my Botox rep think I'm happy with them anyway.)

You never want your patients to be surprised by a price increase for something that they're already used to (Botox or Restylane being prime examples.) Pleasantly surprise them all you want with price decreases for packages on hair removal, but when you’re increasing the prices, up-front communication is key to preventing a rebellion at your front desk.

If your business costs are rising, you’ll eventually have to pass that on to the consumer. Here are some tips to make this increase as complaint free as possible.

1: Explain Why

When you put yourself in the position of delivering bad news (increasing your prices) with the reasoning behind it (Allergan or Thermage is screwing you again, etc.) your patients are more likely to accept the increase as inevitable and reasonable. The apparent absence of reason of  will annoy your patient and she will assume you’re just trying to squeeze more money out of your relationship. (Even if you aren't.)

How to: I've used a front desk sign with an explanation. The sign mitigates the heat that the front desk has to suffer from patients who were expecting the price they already know. We're also sure to alert any patient who may be in that position. When we increased our Botox pricing, we made sure for months that every confirmation call included a reference to the new price to avoid any unpleasant front desk scenes. 

2: Provide Advance Notice

Don’t pull a price increase out of thin air. Give your customers an advanced warning that changes are coming. Include the timeline of when changes will happen.

How to: Again with the confirmation calls. If I think I'm aiming for a price increase I'll often use the 'for a limited time' around advertised pricing.

3: Grandfather Your Previous Pricing

A price increase is a great opportunity to give your current (and hopefully loyal) customers a sweet deal. Give your existing patients the opportunity to maintain their current pricing by paying for services in advance.

How to: Say you're increasing your Thermage or Obagi Blue Peel pricing. (Something that might be a recurring treatment.) Offer you patient the option of pre-paying for any number of treatments they'd like at the current pricing. This is especially effective since the patient is now included in the decision making and you're in the position of receiving payment up front for treatments you haven't delivered yet.

4: Open Communication Equals Retention

Once you notify your patients of a price change, some may start shopping your competition. There's nothing you can do about that and those are not the patients you really want anyway. (Someone who comes to your medspa for price will leave you for price just as fast... And there can be only one lowest price.) You should know that increasing your prices will lose you a few potential patients but your revenue per patient or treatment will be higher. If you end up with more revenue it was a good decision.

When you surprise your patients with a price hike, even your loyal patients will start to shop around. Why? They’re mad.

Keep them informed and keep your patients.

Are Medspa Franchises Cheating Patients?

The following comment by Another Ex was left as part of the discussion on Dermacare Laser Clinics:

I as a doctor was pressured to sell elective procedures and product, which goes against the medical ethics that governed my practice for so many years.

The problem with getting a client in the treatment room and deciding that the sold package is inappropriate is that Dermacare (at least not in the corporate clinics) does NOT GIVE REFUNDS. I was performing 80 to 90% of the laser treatments and was not available to double check every recommendation made by the sale consultant before money was collected.

It is tough to sell $3900 worth of product to someone who would be better served by a plastic surgeon than by the 3D package.

A doctor cannot defend himself in a malpractice suit with the excuse that he was doing good business or doing what he was told by the office manager. When a nonmedical professional is in authority over a physician, the physician is still liable for the results of doing what he is told. I agree that good business is not always good medicine and vice versa. There has to be a compromise. No company, employer, or senior partner will take the hit for me in a malpractice suit. Ultimately, each doctor has to be responsible for his reputation and license.

I heard a rumor that a corporate medical director was left without corporate legal backup when appearing for a malpractice claim.

Double Dermadare You, any comments?

This comment touches on a point I've made repeatedly, that medical spa franchises using a business model designed to remove the physician as far from the patient as possible are inherently dangerous for the doctor as well as the patient.

While I don't recommend a 'money back guarantee', it's common for a 'sales force' to oversell the treatment leaving the patient dissatisfied. Happens all the time. I can see that physicians (and patients) could potentially find themselves in something of a quandry where the businesses main concern is to sell.

Medical Spa Marketing: All your patients are local.

Via Return Customer: The Secret to Local Marketing

Are you more likely to buy from a local company than a national chain?

Businesses that feel like they are local can have a competitive advantage over cookie-cutter generic national or global brands.

Ice cream shop Dairy Queen has branded itself as Texan. Their catchy little jingle on commercials sings “DQ … that’s what I like about Texas!”

They even go so far as to say their white on red logo is a “Texas Stop Sign.”

By the sounds of it, Dairy Queen may very well be a Texas business. However, they didn’t start here. They started in Joliet, Illinois in 1940.

Despite their non-native status, Dairy Queen has created a powerful Texas brand that sticks in customers’ minds.

Obviously, Texas is a huge market and merits the custom marketing campaign. However, the principles here are sound. Targeting your local population by helping them feel you are a part of their community will influence buying behavior.

Your local small businesses recognize the power of their “locally owned and operated” tag lines. Large corporations see the benefits too.

Remember, customers may not be local to you but they are “local” to where they live. How are you targeting your local customers?

The AMA & Retail Medical Clinics

You'll notice below that the precourser is physicians complaining that "retail clinics interfere with the traditional practice of medicine". Sounds like something I've heard before.

Via Kevin MD: It's obvious they are taking a more aggressive stance against the growing threat of retail clinics:

The American Medical Association wants authorities to investigate whether quickie retail-based health clinics run by pharmacy chains pose conflicts of interest that put profits ahead of patient health.

The nation’s largest physicians’ group on Monday adopted a resolution vowing to seek an investigation after several AMA doctors complained that the clinics interfere with the traditional practice of medicine.

The AMA wants state and federal agencies to look into whether pharmacy chain-owned clinics located in the stores urge patients to get their prescriptions filled on site, which the AMA maintains would pose a conflict. It also said that insurance companies should be banned from waiving or lowering co-payments only for patients who get treatment at store-based clinics.

Tough to say how this is going to shake out. It may be better to collaborate, rather than take an adversarial approach.
Update:

Doctor Anonymous with more. He thinks once the inevitable malpractice lawsuits hit these clinics, they will die quickly.

How to run a medical spa staff.

You're staff is running the business. Try to make sure they're running the business as though they owned it themselves.

1. Realize that your clinic or medical spa succeeds via the efforts of the staff.
   Just because you're in charge doesn't mean you deserve all the credit for the work being done. Your staff is responsible for much if not most of the work. When you're working in a clinic as a physician, you're working as a technician. You're working 'in' the business, not 'on' the business. There's a difference.
   
   
2. No one really works for you.
   Perhaps you think that your staff works for you since you pay them. They don't. They, like everyone else, work for themselves. You need to devise a system and business that makes working in your clinc the best individual choice for them. Fail this one and you'll have constant turnover and strive. The mark of a true novice.
   
   
3. Delegate responsibility and then trust your staff.
   Micro-managers are never appreciated. Once you've trained someone to handle a task, allow them to handle it. Different people have different approaches, and their way of doing something may be just as efficient as the way you would do it, so before you step in and force your way on them, give an honest evaluation to their method, and if you find theirs works just as well, even if it's different from yours, let them be. Constantly correcting them undercuts their confidence and does not allow them to exercise their own style and can often be detrimental. An esthetician or technician who's intimidated or criticized for asking for help will stop asking, putting you at risk for unwanted outcomes.
   
   
4. Know your employees to know your strength.
   Watch your staff, get to know them as individuals. The cream always rises to the top, and it's your job to figure out which employees do what is required in their jobs, and which employees do all they can in their jobs. There's a distinction. When I hire I'm very clear about what is expected: Whatevern needs to be done. I don't have time for prima donnas.
   
   
5. Clone yourself - many times.
   Once you've identified the best of the best, teach them your job. That's right. Teach them to be you (as much as possible). Most bad bosses are under the (mistaken) impression that there is something unique that makes them indispensable. The truth is, the best boss trusts his staff and re-creates himself many times over so that in case of emergencies in his absence the Good Boss has excellent help that can be utterly relied upon. Cloning yourself means that you don't need to go to work as much, freeing you to do as you please and knowing your business is earning as much today without you there as it would if you had to go there and slave away. And remember, too, that you're creating another good boss! Give your staff some rope. Some will make bows and some will hang themselves.
   
   
6. Empower your staff to make critical decisions, and don't second-guess them.
   This is a big one. If you've done a good job of training your people to be your proxies, then you must know they are doing their best to act in your (and your company's) best interest. Even if they make a wrong decision, or handle a situation in a way you would not have, don't second guess or berate them. Instead, use it as yet another training opportunity. Hear out their reasons for their action - most of the time, when taken in context, there was a logical basis for what they decided to do. My staff is expected to make all decisons in this order:
   
   • What's in the best interest of the patient.
   • What's in the best intereste of the business.
   • What's in their own best interest.
7. Create a clear chain of command. If you are the owner and have a manager, be sure the rest of the staff understands the chain - they are to take problems to their direct manager first, and only then escalate that problem to you if they are still unsatisfied. When leaving, say, "Joyce, you're in charge." This lets any additional staff know who's the boss in your absence, plus, goofy as it sounds, it makes Joyce square up her shoulders and realize that she now 'has the bridge.'
   
   
8. Help them learn to work out issues without your intervention. Sometimes one or more of your staff may experience friction with others. If they come tattling on one another to you, listen to them carefully. If someone is not fulfilling their responsibilities or is mistreating another employee, you'll need to step in and resolve the conflict yourself. But if you're satisfied it's only an issue of competition or a simple personality clash, urge them to settle it between themselves.
   
   
9. Deal with any problems quickly and directly. Any boss who is terribly busy totally understands this concept: "I don't need all the details. Bottom line it for me." You don't have to be so blunt that you crush people, but being direct and honest is a big timesaver, and frankly, appreciated in the end. When you see a problem, deal with it quickly and don't nag your people about it later - let done be done.
   
   
10. Tell your staff how much you appreciate them - in front of others if possible. (Some authoritarian doctors have a real problem with this one.) Never hesitate to pat your employees on the back, compliment and thank them for their excellent service - if customers are there, letting them know how you value your people can go a long way toward the customers actually having more faith in the services your business provides. When your staff feels valued and appreciated, their job means more to them than simply a paycheck. When your customers know that you, as the owner (or manager) think highly of your staff, they feel confident that they're in good hands, and it leaves you more freedom to leave your customers in the very capable hands of your staff. See how this becomes a "win-win-win"? By lifting up your employee while your customer was watching, ALL of you got something good from it - with zero downside.
    
    
11. Show your appreciation by doing things for them. They go the extra mile for you. You do something nice for them. Buy everyone lunch every other Wednesday. Be sure there's a supply of their favorite sodas in a small fridge for them. If you get extra tickets to something you know they would enjoy, offer them to them as a bonus for work well done. Remember their birthdays, at least enough to wish them a happy day, or buy them a cupcake. (I try to make an occasional Starbucks run.)

Take care of your staff and they'll take care of you.

Via: be a good boss:

Nu Image Medspa Franchise Opportunity: yeah.

Nu Image Medspas: Pay them $58,000 and  "Be Part of  the 10.7 Billion Bollar  Cosmetic Industry"

Via Franchise Works:

The Nu Image franchise business development program allows the investor to easily participate in one of the fastest growing and most lucrative sectors of the healthcare industry. Nu Image is committed to continually setting the highest levels of excellence and innovation for our clients.

Nu Image is committed to guiding and making possible the complete development of each MedSpa facility. We have assembled a world-class team of healthcare, spa and business professionals to provide clients with assistance in developing and operating their own MedSpa franchise.

Our Medspa Franchise Program is anchored on a framework of strict conformity with State and Federal legal and regulatory compliance requirements. No backdoor policies. No guesswork.

Our alliance with Candela, makers of GentleLase and GentleYag, as well as Lumenis, makers of Quantum and Lightsheer provides our Clients access to the latest in laser and light-based skin care technology.

Our program allows our Clients to offer the four most in-demand and highly profitable services within the medi-clinical spa industry. We make sure our Clients’ MedSpas are designed to maximize profitability without sacrificing efficacy or client care.

Our systems will generate considerable revenue from cosmeceuticals and other pre and post-treatment regimen. Skin care products with proven record for enhancing results were hand-picked for improving satisfaction levels and repeat visits among clients.

We work within established structures in the medical industry to develop a program that is mutually beneficial to medical and business professionals and ultimately, our MedSpa Franchise Clients.

Your initial fee of $58,500 will include the following services Business Development

Site Location / Design / Build out
Staffing & Training
Vendor Relationships
Licensing & Compliance Assistance
Custom Marketing Development

I read that as $58,500 for a book and 'vendor relationships'.

Are there any Nu Image Medspa franchisees out there? 

Retail Medicine: Make an offer your patients can't refuse.

Medical Spa Advertising: Three Attributes of a Great Offer for your Medspa.

When you've decided on your offer, run it through this checklist to make sure it's as effective as can be.

1. 

   Does your offer have a high perceived value? "Perceived" is the key word here. The good news is that an effective offer doesn't have to cost much. It just has to be something of value to your audience. Certainly the 'free consultation' is a common offer and generally very effective. Free facials are another. If you're smart and have been collecting your patients mailing addresses in a database (not just in the chart), a valuable offer could be inclusion in your medspas monthly newsletter on skin care and anti-aging where they can receive 'additional' offers.
   
   
2. Is your offer easy to understand and take action on? Have you gotten a direct mail piece or an e-mail that had an offer that was so involved, so convoluted, that you just said, "Forget it!"? You don't want people to be overwhelmed and forget your offer. Make it simple. Don't add a lot of conditions or steps or restrictions. If you can, stick with one step: Call this number, click here to download this white paper, type in this discount code or register here. Joining Medical Spa MD is an example of ease of use and low barriers. All you need to do is enter your email.
   
   
3. Is your offer relevant to the product, service or event you're promoting? A great offer isn't just good for the person who receives it; it's good for your medspa too. Especially in the case of lead generation, you want your offer to tie into the product you're selling, event you're promoting or service you're providing. That way, it will help advance the sale, or--better yet--inspire your audience to take immediate action. A monthly newsletter or email or "10 tips" lists are both great examples of this. They keep your reader focused on areas of your expertise and continue your 'face time' with potential new patients.
   

LH: Comments on Medspa Franchises & Doctors in Business.

 LH thinks that most doctors suck at business. Is he right?

"I have been reading these as well. Thank God I am not involved with a franchise. I think what you are seeing is that there is more business involved in these franchises than medicine. The focus is completely upon making money for the franchise and they seem to care less about the franchisees.

The franchises think of it as a business and the docs/nurses think of it as medicine. They are not meeting in the middle and the franchises are trying to make it a 100% business model which may work short term but will not work long term. This will do nothing but piss off the medical personnel and they will continue to have high turnover rates and pissed off docs complaining about them on sites like this one.

The other side of the coin is that the docs/nurses want it to be 100% medicine. In medicine, they have the old addage that build it and they will come. We need to understand, that when they are elective procedures with expendable cash, patients have a choice. So business must play more of a role in this situation than in a normal medical practice.

What's LH talking about?

American Laser Clinics & Armed Guards
Dermacare Laser Clinics
Sona Medspas: The medical spa franchise pitch
Sona Medspas: Physician & Medical Oversight 

In a normal medical practice most visits are not based on "wanting" to be seen but upon "needing" to be seen. So in this situation the patients will come to you out of "need". The business side of aesthetic practices must focus on the "wanting" to be seen. You must create the "want" for patients to come to you. This is where the business side steps in.

All of these enterprises are going to fail, if the business people do not understand that this is still medicine and if the medical people do not understand that this is a business. These franchises that are failing is because of their lack of understanding the difference between medicine and business. They are trying to take medicine completely out of the equation.

I have watched some of what Jeff is doing and feel he is at least moving in the right direction with Surface (although I do not have inside knowledge of his contracts with physicians/nurses). Surface seems to understand that the physicians must play a key role in both the medical and business side of the MediSpa.

We as medical personnel must understand that most of us suck at business. This is why most physicians are no longer in private practices and work for some large health system like Keiser or others. So we as physicians must learn the business side or our aesthetic businesses will disappear."

I'll thank LH for his nice comment on Surface. We do build our clinics around physicians. there are a number of reasons for this but I'll list three here:

• One: It's a competitive advantage. Every potential patient want's to be seen and treated by a physician rather than a 'technician'. 
  
• Two: It means that we're always in complete compliance with any state or federal regs. It won't matter at all if the laws change or scope of practice varies. Surface is built around physicians.
• Three: It allows us to offer complete but focused services. "Low hanging fruit" is a favorite term I hear from franchisors. It's a code word that means 'no barriers to competition'. Anyone can get the low hanging fruit and abbreviating your offering puts you in a position of competing with everyone else. You become the 'K-mart' of medicine. Not a good place to be. Physicians allow us to get all the fruit.
  I like fruit.
  

Physicians: How much do you charge for Botox?

If you offer Botox as part of your medical practice, take a second and take this poll.

Michael Moores Sicko Review

The NY Times review of Michael Moores Sicko:

 

Having spent part of my childhood in England (where my sister the Hollywood Agent was born) I have to love this 'French quote' from the review:

“What’s your biggest expense after the house and the car?” he asks an upper-middle-class French couple. “Ze feesh,” replies the wife. “Also vegetables.”

Candela just doesn't work.

I hate when someone sends me something that doesn't work.

 
I'm on just about everyones email list. Palomar, Candela, and the rest are constantly sending me emails for webinars, training and such. I rarely find the time to log in and even more rarely learn anything of interest. However, it only takes one little tidbit to make it worthwhile. Unfortunately the tidbits are few and far between.

Candela just sent me another invitation. It doesn't work.

Now maybe I'm in an odd situation. After all I'm a little tech savvy. I use gmail. I use Firefox. It may be that the unique configuration prevents Candelas emails from launching correctly on my system and is fine on everyone else's.

But I don't care. It doesn't work for me... so it just doesn't work.

Candelas soliciting my participation and time. It's their responsibility to make sure that the powers turned on before I get there. My experience with and opinion of Candela just dropped a notch. How could I trust a technology company to provide me with service when their sales and marketing (you can bet the most important part in Candelas opinion) can't send me an email link that works. I grow immediately concerned that customer support may function just as poorly.

Hmmm.. Now their entire site won't load. Maybe it is me.

(There's a parable here i think.) 

Medspa MD Classified Ads: Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Medical Spa MD Classified Board now has it's own RSS feed.

There are a number of new listing over on the classified board.

If you're RSS savvy, you can now subscribe to the classified feed and get all the new listings delivered to your aggregator as soon as they're posted. I'm aware of a number of sellers that have been contacted.

I'd also suggest that if you actually want to sell what you're listing, you take a little time with photos and a good description.  

What can you sell? Just about anything that has to do with cosmetic medical equipment or retail medicine. It just has to be specific. Spamming the board with listings for other sites just pisses me off.  (You know who you are.)

Want to advertise your site? Here's the Medspa MD ad page.

 Current listings include: Exam tables, Whisper Erbium laser, Dermawave ultrasonic, Naturalight IPL, Cynosure Laser, Canfield booth, Dimond Tome microderm, and others medical spa stuff.

The Dermacare Thread: 221 comments & going strong.

Wow. That Dermacare Laser & Skin Care Clinics discussion thread's heating up again with fingerpointing comments that are growing increasingly raucous.

 
Here's an email I received from someone who looks as though they have ties to Dermacare Corporate. 

"I understand that people enjoy debating over the business model of the Dermacare franchise and even may have some valid points about the franchisor.  It is wrong and inappropriate for you to post untrue and malicious comments regarding people’s personal lives.  The employees that work for Dermacare take there job seriously and this is there livelihood.  Just because a bitter employee was fired, it doesn’t give them the right to put lies out there for everyone to read.  I would you appreciate you removing the comment from SOLD MY SOUL, which includes an employees name that is a hard working employee.  Isn’t this suppose to be a Medical Blog and not some tabloid?  FYI Double Dermacare Dare you and Sold My Soul are the same person."

I replied with the following:

Hello ____
Just so you know, I don't post the comments, people leave them there themselves. I will post your disclaimer you're welcome to comment as well if you have an opposing view. I'll also take a look and see if there's something that violates my terms. If there is, I'll modify or remove it. You'll understand that you're picking out a particular thread that has obviously created a stir with over 200 comments.

So first, I didn't post any "post untrue and malicious comments regarding people’s personal lives." The comments are generally open. (I did remove a specific name from that comment .)

I also looked in to the comment that SOLD MY SOUL and Double DermaDare You are the same person by looking at the IP address that the comments came from. The comments came from different computers with different IP addresses.

Med Spa vs Laser Clinic: Analyzing your medical spa competiton.

Get to know the laser clinic and med spa competition.

Contrary to what some may say, growing your clinic or medical spa isn't a single event.

Successful clinics and medspas look for 'incremental wins' that compound over time. The key to winning market share is to differentiate your company by providing products, services or solutions that your best prospects will find more desirable than what's offered by your competitors.

Experienced marketers know it's easier to fill an existing need than to create one. Someone who is already using the type of product or service you offer is a great prospect because he or she has a clearly defined need and is looking for a solution.

The job of convincing qualified prospects to buy from you instead of your competitors' is where the real work begins. One of the first steps is knowing what the other clinics, day spas, medical spas, and others who might be competing are up to in your market.

1. Do some detective work. Ok, this is a little spy like, but don't think all of your competitors aren't doing it to you and it's just good business sense. Start by gathering your competitors' marketing tools and advertising materials. Read their web site, print and broadcast advertising, and articles in which they've been featured. Request their brochures, price lists and any collateral materials. You may also be able to do some mystery shopping, which will allow you to experience what these medical spas are offering and how their positioning themselves. You'll want to send your staff rather than visiting yourself if you want to avoid embarrassing situations. (Surface has had more than 45 plastic surgeons, dermatologists and other physicians attend our seminars over the last five years in this type of sneaky capacity. They're not hard to spot and often they're 'outed' by women in the audience. They're the guys (mostly) who are sitting in the back scribbling furiously while their estheticians sit up front and ask telling questions like, "Now types of sutures do you use?".)

2. Evaluate your "slant" competitors. Chances are, you have a lot more competitors than you think. In addition to real competitors, evaluate the marketing tools and materials of any businesses your prospects perceive as offering a similar set of products or services. It's very common for day spas to attempt to compete with medical practices by offering a few medical services from a NP or PA. Microderm is often touted as some sort of medical type treatment. OBGYN's, FP's, pretty much whoever is in the market or wanting to get in. Know who's saying what about you.

3. Focus on the message. Once you've gathered the materials, the next step is to analyze what's being communicated and how. Identify the key promises made by your broad field of competitors. And don't be surprised if you see a lot of "me too" marketing. There's so much out there that's mediocre or worse, you may find the majority of your competitors have similar messaging, with only a few front-runners showing anything approaching real positioning. (This probably refers to you but we'll work on that.)

After assessing the most effective messaging, look at the actual tools and materials themselves. What formats seem to work best overall? At this point, your competitive analysis will reveal whether your company is lacking any standard tools that prospects expect everyone in your industry to offer.

4. Find a unique spin. So now comes the 'look in the mirror' moment. You've gathered all the materials and have learned the key message points of your real and perceived competitors. It all boils down to this: How does your clinic meet its patients' needs in a way that is both unique and compelling?

To find the answer, consider not only the products or services you sell, but also how you operate, including any company-specific characteristics, such as a higher level of customer service or uniquely specific positioning. If you can't find a selling point based on your current service offering that will help you stand out from your competitors, use what you've learned in this competitive analysis to retool what you sell and how you sell it.

If you can't see any difference between yourself and your competitors, why should you think any patient would choose you?