The Top 5 Money Makers in Your Practice

By Catherine Maley, MBA

There are 5 and only 5 essential moneymaking operations that occur in ANY successful plastic surgery practice. In other words, these are your top 5 money makers in your practice.

If you miss any of these 5 key elements, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table— often several HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars.

However, the reality is that most practices focus on ONE area only (instead of all five) and that is hurting them and they don’t realize it.

If YOU focus your time and energy on these five areas, you will make more money than ANY of your competitors, and with less effort.

Here are the 5 key areas to focus on to win:

Lead generation (making the phone ring)
Converting callers into appointments
Converting appointments into procedures
Encouraging these patients to come back so they experience (and pay for) more of your procedures and treatments
Building an army of raving fans who refer you to their friends.

Think about it. Don’t a majority of your surgeries come from word of mouth referrals and from existing patients coming back for more?

So, the biggest problem holding you back is your narrow focus on “getting more leads.” You might be throwing a ton of money at SEO, Google AdWords, social advertising and directories OR you’re spending a ton of time creating content for your Instagram and Facebook followers.

Yes, it’s exciting to get lots of leads and comments but here’s the kicker…Leads are only one part of it.

These leads need to be converted because if you can’t monetize these leads, then you’re throwing money down the drain.

However, if you KNOW how to monetize the leads through the other 4 key elements mentioned above, then you can run circles around your competitors and even CRUSH them.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say your competitor is spending $1,000 per month on PPC. For this amount he gets 10 people to call. Most of the PPC leads are “price shoppers,” so let’s say he converts 4 out of 10 into an appointment. Only two of them show up, and only ONE of them is getting a procedure for $800. Your competitor doesn’t follow up with the leads, so they are lost. This means he makes $800 from the 10 leads, and he spent $1,000. Does that sound familiar?
Let’s say YOU are spending the same $1,000 per month on PPC. You also get 10 people to call. However, your staff has a proven sales script that gets you SIX appointments (instead of 4 like your competitor). All of these SIX are excited to see you, so all of them are showing up for a consultation. You close 3 of the 6, and you’re offering the SAME procedure for $800. You make $2,400 on the initial call. However, you have a proven system in place, and over the next few weeks you systematically follow up with the remaining 7 leads that did NOT book a procedure. Through systematic follow up you’re getting 1 more patient out of the remaining 7, bringing your total revenue to $3,200. You upsell your 3 new patients on skin care or more Botox, and you earn an additional $500. In addition, you get 2 more reviews from them, and 1 out of the 3 new patients refers a friend. The friend does the same procedure for $800, so your total revenue is now $4,500 for the $1,000 you spent on PPC.

Let’s compare: Your competitor made $800 on a $1,000 investment, and you made $4,500 on a $1,000 investment.

So what do you think your competitor is doing next? Probably “testing” PPC for a few more months, getting increasingly frustrated that he’s losing money and then moving on to another marketing strategy that sounds interesting.

And what will YOU do? Since you’re make $4.50 on each $1 that you spend on PPC, you will spend as much money as possible, constantly tracking your results to ensure that you’re getting the same return on your investment and within a few months you will DOMINATE your zip code while your competitors are still fiddling around with the next shiny object strategy that comes their way.

Do you see how focusing on a plan that includes all 5 money-making operations makes all the difference in your revenues?

Before you write off a certain marketing strategy, look carefully at your results to determine where the breakdown is since there’s a chance it’s not what you think.

Ask yourself: How quickly do we respond to these leads? Can our receptionist convert our callers to appointments? Is our coordinator equipped to convert our consultations to paid procedures? Do we have a plan in place to encourage our patients to return, refer and review?

If not, what is that costing us?

Attracting new cosmetic patients online has become a big expensive challenge for surgeons like yourself so it’s time to fight back by having your operations in tip-top shape as diagramed above so you can capitalize on the top 5 money makers in your practice.

Catherine Maley, MBA is a cosmetic practice consultant, speaker, trainer, blogger and podcaster. Her popular book, “Your Aesthetic Practice/What Your Patients Are Saying” is read and studied by plastic surgeons and their staff all over the world. She and her team specialize in growing plastic surgery practices using creative patient attraction, conversion, follow up and retention strategies as well as staff training to turn team members into converting rock stars.

Visit Catherine for Free resources at www.CatherineMaley.com or Instagram @catherinemaleymba.

Click below to read “Today’s Cosmetic Practice Growth Funnel ” in its original format in Aesthetic Society News, Fall 2019, volume 23, number 4