It’s not a mistake that some practices are hanging in there and
hoping for the best and others are confidently running a smooth-
running operation.
This episode of “Beauty and the Biz” talks very specifically
about how you can take your own practice from good to great.
FREE Advice Call with Catherine
When I was in business school, a required reading was Good to Great by Jim Collins.
It’s a management book that explains why some companies make the leap from good to great…and others don’t.
The profession spent weeks dissecting that book with us students, but there’s one chapter that is so apropos to our industry that I wanted to share it with you and it’s called…
Flywheels vs. Doom Loops
I’ve condensed it a lot but here is the gist of it:
Good to great transformations often look like dramatic events to those observing from the outside, but are really organic, cumulative processes on the inside that work over the long haul.
Meaning, there was no single defining action, advertising campaign or luck that build a great company.
Instead, the good to great companies followed a predictable pattern of buildup and breakthrough that takes effort to get going, like a heavy flywheel; however, once it’s going, it builds momentum and hits a point of breakthrough that becomes unstoppable and produces dramatic results without added effort.
But most companies follow a different pattern….the doom loop.
Rather than accumulating momentum – they try to skip buildup and jump immediately to breakthrough with one-off tactics that were to give them immediate but short-term results.
But instead, they get disappointing results because they fail to maintain a consistent direction, so they try another short-term tactic to get immediate results and more disappointing results happen for further disappointment and now they are in the doom loop and heading for disaster.
The same thing happens in plastic surgery practices.
The naïve or average practices chase after the short-term gain by throwing time, money and resources at all types of shiny objects promising the world.
Maybe it’s a website company redesigning your website…again or google adwords that needs a budget of many thousands of dollars per month or directories or social media.
They try something for a month or two, don’t like the results so they jump from that to another strategy promising to be the holy grail.
But they never stay long enough to get any traction.
And, same is true for patient selection.
Many practices go after the one-hit wonder patient versus the cosmetic patient who would be worth 10x their initial investment if they would put a plan in place to nurture them, so they literally become the practices’ unpaid sales ambassadors.
So, going back to the Good to great concept,
Here is what The successful practice does to become great:
They map out a cosmetic patient attraction, conversion and retention plan.
They prioritize in terms of budgeting money and manpower towards the most effective long-term strategies, proven to work.
They monitor their results and fine-tune as they go.
They stay the course and do NOT change direction for short-term gains.
They see results that continue to build on themselves.
Said another way, successful practices:
Define who their preferred and most profitable cosmetic patients are;
Then, they determine the best ways to attract those cosmetic patients to them.
They bond, educate and build trust with that patient before meeting them
They perfect the patient’s experience with the practice from the initial call they make to schedule an appointment, to the visit and the consult and the followup
The give the patient a WOW experience before, during, after their procedure
They encourage that patient to return, review, refer and share on their own social platforms so other prospective patients discover you and go through your processes and they, too,
return, review, refer and share on social so more patients do the same and so on and so on.
So now you have a process and blueprint that builds momentum, so you have a steady stream of cosmetic patients on autopilot.
It has never been more important than right now to get your practice running like a well-oiled machine that can weather the storms of competition and COVID and whatever else comes our way.
Please reach out to me if you could use some help with this. I’ve been working with plastic surgeons for 20 years and can save you a bunch of time, money and hassle.
Ok, that’s it for this podcast
Subscribe, review, questions, catherinemaleyMBA
Transcript:
Beauty and the Biz
Ep.61: Good to Great Cosmetic Practices
Catherine Maley, MBA: Hello and welcome to Beauty and the Biz where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery. I’m your host, Catherine Maley, author of Your Aesthetic Practice and consultant to plastic surgeons to get them more patients and more profits. Today’s episode is called Good to Great Cosmetic Practices. So, a long time ago, when I was in business school, we had a required reading called Good to Great by Jim Collins. Even back in gosh, year 2000, maybe 2001, he had already sold 3 million copies of this. So, it’s a super popular management book that explains why some companies make the leap from good to great and then why others don’t. So, the professor spent weeks dissecting that book with the students. And there’s one chapter that is so apropos to our industry that I wanted to share it with you today and it’s called Flywheels versus Doom loops. And I’ve condensed it a lot here. I mean, it took him like what 400 pages to write all this, but it’s too much reading. So, I’m just going to make it very simple, I think.
So, here’s the gist of it. Good to Great transformations often look like dramatic events to those observing from the outside. But they’re really organic cumulative processes on the inside that work over the long haul, meaning there was no single defining action or advertising campaign or luck that built a great company. Instead, the good two great companies followed a predictable pattern of buildup and breakthrough that takes effort to get going like a heavy flywheel. However, once it’s going, it builds momentum and hits a point of breakthrough that becomes unstoppable, and produces dramatic results without added effort. But most companies follow a different pattern, the doom loop, so rather than accumulating momentum, they try to skip build up and they jump immediately to breakthrough with one off tactics that were to give them those immediate but short-term results. But instead, they get disappointing results because they fail to maintain a consistent direction. So, they try another short-term tactic to get immediate results. And more disappointing results happen for further disappointment. And now they’re in the doom loop and heading for disaster. I have watched the same thing happen in plastic surgery practices, the naive or maybe average practices, they chase after the short-term gain by throwing time, money and resources at all types of shiny objects promising the world. Maybe it’s a website company redesigning your website again or Google AdWords that needs a budget of many, many 1000s of dollars per month, or directories or social media and it goes on and on.
So, they try something for a month or two. They don’t like the results, so they jump from that to another strategy, promising to be the holy grail. But they never stay long enough to get any traction. And the same thing is true for patient selection. Now many practices go after the one hit wonder kind of patient versus the cosmetic patient who would be worth 10 times their initial investment. If they would put a plan in place to nurture them. So, they literally become the practices unpaid sales ambassadors. So, going back to Good to Great concept. Here’s what the successful practice does to become great. They map out a cosmetic patient attraction, conversion and retention plan. They prioritize in terms of budgeting, money and manpower towards the most effective long-term strategies proven to work. They monitor their results and fine tune as they go. They stayed the course and do not change direction for short term gains. They see results that continue to build on themselves. So set another way, successful practices define who their preferred and most profitable cosmetic patients are. Then they determine the best ways to attract those cosmetic patients to them. They then bond, educate and build trust with that patient before meeting them. They perfect the patient’s experience with the practice all the way from the initial call they make to schedule an appointment to the visit as well as the consult and even the follow up. They give the patient a while patient experience before, during, and after their procedure. They encourage that patient to return, review, refer and share on their own social platforms. So other prospective patients discover the practice and they go through your processes. So, they too return, review, refer and share you on social, so more patients do the same, and so on, and so on, and so on. So now you have a process and a blueprint that builds momentum. So, you have a steady stream of cosmetic patients on autopilot. It has never been more important than right now to get your practice running like a well-oiled machine that can weather the storms of competition and COVID and whatever else comes our way. Please reach out to me if you could use some help with this. I’ve been working with plastic surgeons for 20 years, and I can save you a bunch of time, money and hassle. Okay, so that’s it for this podcast. I know this was short but it’s really important. And I sure hope you heard that message. And by the way, if this was helpful to you, I’d love for you to subscribe to Beauty and the Biz, of course gives me a great review if you feel so inclined. And if you’ve got any questions or comments or seriously, if you need some help with this, it’s not something you just naturally know. You know, honestly, while you were in medical school, I was in Business School, you can’t know everything. And that’s why everybody helps each other like. You’re a specialist so I go to you for plastic surgery. I’m a specialist for business and marketing and that’s why you come to me, isn’t that logical? Anyway, if you’ve got some questions, go ahead and ask me. You can go to my website, catherinemaley.com. And then of course we can also talk on Instagram. You can DM me at Catherine Maley, MBA. I hope this was helpful and I’ll talk to you soon.
