Medical Spa MD: Physician community of skin clinics, laser centers, plastic surgeons, dermatologists and aesthetic doctors practicing nonsurgical cosmetic medicine.
Your Own Internet Business — A Cure for the Risk-Averse Physician Entrepreneur.
The Deal: In this FREE webinar, Dr. Mike Woo-Ming will let let you in on exactly how he gave up his medical practice to triple his income by using the internet to sell information products.
The difference between people who invest in themselves... and people who just whine.Believe me when I say this; there's an endless list of doctors who "say" they want to make more money, improve their website rankings, revise their staff training or improve their customer service... but never actually DO ANYTHING to get there?
Here's a simple litmus test: If you say you want something but haven't done any systematic work to achieve your goal in the last 14 days, you're deluding yourself. Really.
If you want to get something done your choice is actually very simple; (1) start taking action or (2) acknowledge that your goal really isn't that important to you, and give up.
Of course both of these options are perfectly viable choices. There's nothing wrong with making a coherent decision to give up on something that you decide is actually not that important or that the opportunity cost is too high. For example, I used to kill myself to try and answer my phone or return phone calls immediately (or within an hour) — that was my goal. After a while, I was just unable to keep up with that schedule and it became more of a distraction. So I gave up on it. If someone calls me now it will almost certainly go to voice mail and I'll get back when I can. It's a huge weight off of my shoulders and removes a constant distraction. (In fact, my voice mail says to leave a message only 'if it's important". That one change makes everyone who calls me self-censor and has cut my vm messages by 90%. But I digress...)
The point? Give up on whatever you're not going to
Medical Spa MD Members only pricing with code DOC1166Use technology to consult online and set your own consultation rate, without any paperwork! 2nd MD is now a Select Partner of Medical Spa MD and is offering our Members special pricing. Watch the video below to learn more.
Creating an account is free and without obligation. You can set your own schedule, set your own fees, and set yourself at the forefront of medical technology.
(You must be a board certified US specialist to accept this offer.)
Who are the specialists are using 2nd MD right now?
"You don't have to establish a chart. You don't have to establish billing. You can make contact and answer some questions without having to make a formal doctor-patient relationship."
Richard Andrassy, MD
Chairman, Department of Surgery
UTHealth Medical School &
Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center
"2nd MD gives me a chance to practice exactly the way I want to practice."
Stanley Fisher, MD
Board Certified Neurologist
The Medical Fusion Conference is a unique event that allows clinical physicians the opportunity to learn about unique niches where they can apply their clinical knowledge and gain real control of your income and lifestyle. (Isn't that why most docs are in cosmetic medicine in the first place?)
I've been to a lot of aesthetic and cosmetic conferences and trade shows, but this conference is different. I went to it last year and the result was that we launched Freelance MD!
Medical Fusion is purposely small. It allows you to sit down (multiple times) with any or all of the speakers and pick their brains. (If you've been to any of the big conferences you know that a the end of a talk or session there's a pack of people around the speaker for ten minutes and that's about it. Not at Medical Fusion.)
Who is Medical Fusion for?
Any physician who wants more control of their income, career, and lifestyle.
And that's just a part. In short, if you're a physician who want's to take control of your life, this is the conference for you.
Read what other physicians are saying about the Medical Fusion Conference
I'll be speaking on two topics; how to start/add/run and grow a cosmetic practice, and how to use online technologies to make money as a physician.
There will also be speakers on personal finance, investing, product development, and a bunch of other stuff including concierge medicine which a lot of you have expressed interest in. (More about that in another post.)
Register before October 10th and reserve your room at the beautiful Aria Resort for a special discounted room rate of only $179 plus resort fee. These rooms are regularly around $400. (You must book your room at the Aria prior to October 10th to lock in these special rates!)
Take a look at some of these videos that Greg made about Medfusion and then run over and register for the Medical Fusion Conference.
Medical Fusion isn't just another conference where you're sitting around and listening to an endless parade of speakers that lecture from behind a podium. Instead, you'll have every opportunity to talk to any speaker you're interested in learning more from. Our Accelerator Sessions are a perfect chance to make connections and deep-dive into the areas that are of interest to you.
By Greg Bledsoe MD
For 2011, we've once again assembled a stellar faculty comprised of leaders in many diverse niches from around the country, and have included many hot topics that physicians should be exposed to in this ever-changing healthcare environment.
Our 2011 faculty list was recently published on Freelance MD, but we've added a few more names so I've decided to list our entire 2011 Medical Fusion Conference faculty once again. Many of these faculty members are authors on Freelance MD so you can read about their backgrounds and perspectives. I'm also listing our agenda below so you can get an idea of what's going to be discussed at this year's event.
The 2011 Medical Fusion Conference is November 11-13, 2011 and space is limited. If you're interested in attending you can register online or call 866-924-7969 .
Our conference topics this year are wide-ranging and cover many niches within and around clinical medicine. Our 2011 agenda is the following:
I wanted to make sure I highlighted our two Accelerator sessions at the end of each day. Our Accelerators are some of our most popular times spent at the Medical Fusion Conference since each faculty and mentor has a table, and participants are allowed to wander from faculty member to faculty member and ask any and all questions of the speakers. No other event allows you this much face-time with nationally known leaders. Our participants raved about our Accelerator sessions in 2010 and we know that our 2011 participants will also enjoy this time.
As you can see from our faculty list and our agenda, Medical Fusion participants will be given exposure to a wide array of interesting topics and significant time with our stellar faculty. There's no event like the Medical Fusion Conference and there's only one Medical Fusion Conference in 2011: November 11-13, at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. It's the most exciting and invigorating medical conference in the country.
Freelance MD is for physicians who are interested in non-traditional or non-clinical medicine as well as information about physician career and lifestyle control. To couch it as being a hit is something of an understatement. Here's the post I just published on Freelance about it's first 30 days.
Freelance MD was launched one month ago today. There have been a few changes.Greg and I launched Freelance MD after meeting at the Medical Fusion Conference in Las Vegas at the beginning of November. We'd already had a number of discussions about the need but I wanted to talk to physicians outside of my usual cosmetic medicine contacts and listen to what they wanted, and gauge their reaction to what we were thinking about. Well, whatever doubts I had about the need for this type of community were quickly assuaged. I could see that the opportunity to provide a very broad, horizontal platform that focused on providing physicians information, products and services was growing and we were in a unique position to address it.
The conference ended on the 7th and on the 17th we launched Freelance MD in it's current iteration. Now, one month later, we've been astounded by it's growth and it's resonance with physicians. I've been involved with a number of online communities but the speed with which Freelance is growing is more than unusual, it's astounding. Here are a couple of notable milestones from our first thirty days;
The numbers above are pretty impressive, but we're not going to be resting on our laurels any time soon. There's too much to do. We'll undoubtedly have some issues as we grow, but we're committed to pushing through these obstacles and making Freelance MD the single best community for action-oriented physicians on the web.
In the very near future we'll be adding memberships, downloads, a non-clinical physicians jobs board and even more authors to the mix.
You've heard it over and over again..."Doctors are terrible business people". I disagree.Firstly, what do people mean when they say "businesspeople"? My definition is someone who runs a business and can sustain it profitably. Most docs I know who run their own practices (admittedly fewer and fewer as more gravitate to employed positions) do an admirable job keeping all the balls in the air, with minimal training, and seem to take home a paycheck every month.
Second, in addition to how successful physicians are as self-employed owners, the term "business person" also applies to physicians as entrepreneurs, leaders, and investors. Again, while lots of us suffered from the recent economic downturn with a hit to our pensions plans and investments, I haven't seen any evidence that docs did any worse than anyone else.
Finallly, there is considerable overlap between business skills and clinical skills-data acquisition and analysis, risk assessment, problem solving, interpersonal skills, accumulating "clinical judgement" i.e. learning from your mistakes, and lots of others. Docs inherently have business heads that overlap with their clinical heads.
People think doctors are lousy business people because practitioners place patient interests above the bottom line. The result is delivering services that don't generate a profit or inefficiencies in practice management. As more and more doctors pursue non-clinical interests, some for a profit, the unintended consequence and the good news will be a recognition of how good physicians actually are at business when that's the first priority. Unfortunately, it's also the bad news if you are looking for someone to manage your diabetes.
Arlen D. Meyers MD MBA is a professor and physician entrepreneur who blogs at Freelance MD.
Submit a guest post and be heard.
We've started a new sister-site of sorts to Medial Spa MD... Freelance MD.
Freelance MD is an active community of physicians that gives you greater control of your medical practice, income, and lifestyle, even if you’re clueless about where to begin and you’re already working 80 hour weeks.
Freelance will cover a host of topics that don't really fit that well into Medical Spa MD like nonclinical medical careers, consulting for industry, wealth management and real estate investing for physicians.
Here's what one of the other founders, Greg Bledsoe MD, posted about Freelance MD and why we started it.
Now that our new community is up and running, I'm already being asked, "What is Freelance MD?"
Great question.
Freelance MD is a physician community site that was borne out of necessity. Physicians today are looking for ways to expand their careers and there is a dearth of honest, practical information for them to access.
I should know.
I am an Emergency Medicine physician who has practiced clinical medicine since I graduated from my residency in 2002. My career has had many twists and turns, but five years ago I set out on a personal journey. My quest was to build a career that was enjoyable, flexible, fun, and still covered my financial obligations. The question was, where do I start? How do I design a career like this? Were there others in medicine who were attempting to do the same thing and if so, where could I find these individuals and how could I learn from them?
I spent countless hours on the internet looking for answers. I spoke to colleagues, went to conferences, read books, interviewed friends in other careers, and still came up lacking. After months of searching, what I found was that there was no hub for physicians like me, no real place to begin. I was overwhelmed, not only because of my narrow medical training, but also because I didn't even know what questions I should be asking. I was concerned about purchasing products I did not need, or signing on for services that didn't work. I needed direction and a mentor, but when I looked around I didn't find anything but murkiness.
Over the course of the past five years I have spent literally thousands of hours developing the idea that has resulted in our Medical Fusion Conference and now Freelance MD .
The idea is to provide physicians with cutting edge information on everything they need to broaden their careers and make their lives more manageable. Our hope is that Freelance MD can become a resource for physicians looking for answers on anything from entrepreneurship to clinical practice management to investments to nonclinical careers and everything in between.
In order for us to provide the best information, we had to assemble the best team to speak on the subjects about which physicians were interested in learning. Take a moment and review the bios of our authors. This group is an incredibly talented bunch who are passionate about teaching their skills to interested medical professionals. We've assembled this group from word of mouth recommendations from trusted friends and colleagues, and we're excited about what they'll be teaching all of us on Freelance MD. What's even better is that even more authors are coming on board in the near future to add even more depth to Freelance MD.
In short, if you're a physician like me who is eager to expand their career, or simply a curious person who loves to continue learning, FreelanceMD is the community website for you. Our goal is to provide teaching and mentoring-- physician to physician-- to those who want to continue growing.
So take a moment and check us out. Comment on our posts and recommend us to a friend. Together as physicians, we'll lock arms and begin moving forward together. It's going to be a lot of fun, and we'd really enjoy including you on the journey.
Dr. Scott Shearer of Renaissance Clinique in Sweden was among the first to take me up on a website critique around SEO, content, structure and design.
Since we get a lot of inquires around online marketing and conversion, I'm planning to do these as something of a regular series that breaks down common mistakes and how to implement some simple tactics that will improve your search engine rankings and visibility, and your site's conversions.
If you've got any questions after watching the video, please post a comment and I'll try to answer it there, and address it in future videos. The goal is that these will start out fairly broadly, but get much more specific. After watching just a few you should be much better equiped to make better decisions that could really impact your business.
If you'd like your own site reviewed, please contact us and let us know. Include any specific questions you're looking to have answered and we'll address them.
Ah, almost forgot. I'm thinking of starting either a pocast, or a combination podcast/video series that might include live interviews and interaction in real time. This would be a first for sure. If you're a interested in that be sure to let us know as well. Also, I'm going to include all the links that we discuss in these videos as 'show notes' so that you'll be able to find anything we discuss.
Last week we had a webinar on social media marketing and more than 70 Medical Spa MD Members signed up. I'd expected somewhere from 10-15 so having 70+ surprised me somewhat.
Alex Panagiotopoulos of Freelance MD explains basic Twitter functions for physicians running medical spas, laser clinics, and cosmetic medical practices
We had intended to post the entire webcast but, due to some technology issues, the audio wasn't usable. So, Alex was kind enough to recreate the entire presentation in smaller parts.
We'll be posting a number of 'how to' videos as they're available around social media marketing with easy step by step instructions, from how to set up your Twitter account, to advanced techniques on Facebook to attract followers and promote your medical spa.
This video is the first in this series, Social Media Marketing for Medical Spas: Part 1, Alex goes over setting up a Twitter account correctly.
Setting up a Twitter account for your medical spa, laser clinic or plastic surgery practice. of course you'll want to follow Freelance MD and Medical Spa MD on Twitter.
Plastic surgeons, dermatologists, laser clinics, medical spas, skin clinics and laser centers will all benefit from learning about the newest social media marketing tactics and strategies. Social media is growing and your cosmetic medical practice can benefit from it's growth with Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, SEO and do it yourself search engine marketing.
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Social media has been a hot topic in the business world, but many medical practices are still far behind in their implementation of it, if they're attempting it at all.
One lame excuse is that Facebook is just for kids and college students. Think again: the latest statistics showed that the most explosively growing demographic on Facebook is women 55 and over(http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/), and 45% of Facebook is aged 26 and over.
Many practices are not yet fluent in Twitter, citing the 130 character limit on posts and a userbase smaller than Facebook's. However, Twitter and Google recently announced a deal to index and list Twitter posts in search results. Can you say backlinks?
Want to learn more? MedicalspaMD is pleased to announce our first free webinar in an instructional series on social media and SEO, on Thursday, February 25, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Presented by Alex Panagiotopoulos of Freelance MD, the webinar will serve as an introduction to the sites Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, covering how to set up accounts and a blog that can eventually increase profits and local awareness of your practice.
The webinar is designed for doctors, practice administrators, and support staff who are either starting from square one or want to see how they can do things differently.
There will be a question and answer session at the conclusion, and it will be recorded for future viewing.
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| Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/189033608 |
Social media is a major reason why traditional forms of media are collapsing across the country.
Major newspapers and tv stations are cutting staffs in half or closing up altogether, in the face of declining audiences and sagging ad revenues. Social media gives people the chance to create their own virtual newspaper, completely comprised of what they're interested in. If a topic is boring or irrelevant, it's gone. Social media groups and pages make this possible, because no matter what the topic, there's a social media group dedicated to it.
A 45 year old mom in Sacramento, for example, might not be interested in sports, but she likes California politics, wine, the TV show Lost, the actor Antonio Banderas, and beauty. On Facebook, she can be a Fan of "California Senate Democrats", Red Red Wine - Sacramento, Lost, and Antonio Banderas. On Twitter, she can follow @CAPoliticsRSS,@thegrandwinebar, @Lost_initiative, @oficialantonio, etc. When it comes to beauty in Sacramento, she can follow her hair salon, favorite spa, plastic surgeon, etc. Every day when she logs in, she'll see what's going on in the state senate, hear about last night's Lost episode, read about Antonio Banderas' upcoming movie, and see all of the specials, before/after pictures, and upcoming events at her favorite local beauty providers.
These are all examples of direct social media exposure. Someone knows who you are, they become your fan/follower, and whatever you post will be seen by them. We've already covered how to start and sustain this attention in previous blog posts. Once you're established with existing customers and patients, the next step is to get random local consumers who are interested in you to find you.
One extremely cost-effective method is to buy pay-per-click Facebook advertising for your fan page. These 160-character ads with a small JPEG and link to your Fan Page will run down the right side of certain certain people's web browsers while they are on Facebook.
The beauty of PPC Facebook advertising is that it can be extremely targeted, and you only pay for the local people who click on the ad and check out your Facebook page. If you have a promotable event coming up, such as a giveaway day or a live procedure that you are performing on Facebook, they are highly recommended.
For example, you can specify that you only want the ad to be seen by women between the ages of 18 and 64, within ten miles of Sacramento, who list an interest in any of the following: beauty, shopping, tanning, travel, jewelry and spa days, the TV shows Nip/Tuck, Real Housewives, Glee, and Jersey Shore. You can add as many keywords as you like, and remember that due to the public nature of Facebook profiles, few people are going to brazenly volunteer to the world that PLASTIC SURGERY, BREAST AUGMENTATION, AND INJECTABLE FILLERS are their interests. But they will say they like beauty, or the tv show Nip/Tuck.
According to Facebook, this ad will be seen by 14,200 people, and there will only be a charge of about 60 cents every time someone clicks on it to go to your page. The odds are pretty good that if someone lives within ten miles of your practice, likes the keywords above, and clicks on an ad that says a local med-spa is doing a live cosmetic surgery procedure on Facebook or is giving away beauty products, that they'll want in on the action. You can set a minimum budget of $10 a day. If you are investing money in advertising, you have to promise yourself that you will keep the Facebook page updated with good content, or else it's a waste of money.
Be creative! Valentine's day is coming up. If you have some sort of spa day or gift set special that you'd like husbands to get for their wives, put up a detailed post with pictures and video on your fan page, and then create an ad that targets local men over 30 who mention having a wife in their profiles.
Just like with traditional media, there's paid PR (advertising), and earned PR. You have to convince third parties to cover you. Our next social media post will cover this!
Medical Spa MD Members get a Podium patient review marketing account and save $1,257
Protect your reputation. Get new patients. Medical Spa MD Members receive a special, full service Podium account that includes: no setup fee (save $300), a 10% discount forever (save $330/year) and on-demand patient review marketing training for your entire staff ($597 value). This offer is not available anywhere else.
Marketing your clinic via social media is a bit different from what many medical spas are used to.. but as more plastic surgeons, dermatologists and medspas add Facebook and Twitter that's going to change.
Taking out a half-page ad in the local paper, buying radio time, or getting a PR placement showing off your latest procedure, are all one-way forms of communication. It goes out, and people will either take action, become aware of you, or do nothing.
Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, are a two-way form of communication that requires people to opt in. Besides some nominal SEO benefits, they are only as effective as the number of local Fans and Followers you have who are interested in what you do. You are still sending out messages at your discretion, but people can choose to receive it, and even send instant feedback.
If you’re paying someone in your office to log into Facebook every day, post your latest Botox special, and there are only 10 people receiving that message, you are wasting time and money. No one is receiving the message and, no offense, people will not “opt in” to hear about your Botox specials every day. If people wanted to see advertisements constantly, TiVo wouldn’t exist.
The key to social media marketing for your medspa is finding a way to break through the protective barriers that people have. TGI Fridays certainly did.
TGI Fridays is a restaurant chain that in September, started a big social media push. They created a fictional character named Woody, gave him a Facebook fan page, and started an ad campaign: everyone who becomes Woody’s fan on Facebook will get a free burger on October 1st.
They did some advertising, got some press, and most of all, it was an event that gave people reason to tell their friends about it. The oft-used buzzword “viral” applies here… word of the promotion spread like a virus. With social media, it takes about three mouse clicks to tell all of one’s friends about something you found.
Woody garnered about a million fans, and on October 1st, TGI Fridays dutifully gave out the free burgers.
Today, in January, 2010, Woody still has 945,000 fans. Whenever TGI Fridays wants to market to a large number of people who already have a positive impression of them, and have demonstrated that they enjoy eating hamburgers, they have instant exposure. For example, on November 17, TGI Fridays got massive exposure for a new happy hour promotion.
We’re marketing cosmetic products and treatments, and not hamburgers, but it still applies. Using a giveaway model on the local level can make yourself the talk of the town, and get hundreds of people to “opt in.” If you are giving away beauty products and treatments, local people will sign in if they are interested in that sort of thing. After the giveaway, you can market to them however you please.
It clearly doesn’t cost TGI Fridays a lot of money to give away a hamburger; and when people got their hamburgers, they also probably got fries, a drink, and some dessert. A giveaway winner in your office can potentially get other products and services.
What could your medical spa be giving away?
Medical Spa MD Members get a Podium patient review marketing account and save $1,257
Protect your reputation. Get new patients. Medical Spa MD Members receive a special, full service Podium account that includes: no setup fee (save $300), a 10% discount forever (save $330/year) and on-demand patient review marketing training for your entire staff ($597 value). This offer is not available anywhere else.
Physicians, plastic surgeons, and dermatologists practicing nonsurgical cosmetic medicine in medical spas, laser clinics and aesthetic practices.
A community of dermatologists, plastic surgeons, laser clinics, & skin clinics world wide.
Medical Spa MD is a community of physicians and clinicians practicing nonsurgical cosmetic medicine in laser clinics, medspas, dermatologist and plastic surgeon clinics worldwide.
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