Ob-Gyn to Cosmetic Surgeon with Lionel Meadows, MD

Ob-Gyn Cosmetic Surgeon with Lionel Meadows, MD

Catherine Maley, MBA:

Hello everyone. Welcome to Beauty and the Biz where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery and how our guest went from practicing as an Obstetrician-Gynecologist, to also becoming a board-certified cosmetic surgeon. I’m your host, Catherine Maley author of Your Aesthetic Practice – What your patients are saying as well as consultant to plastic surgeons, to get them more patients and more profits. Now today’s special guest is Dr. Lionel Meadows.

Now Dr. Lionel Meadows started his medical career actually in Ob-Gyn. And then after 10 years, he turned more towards cosmetic surgery where he grew his private practice to two locations in Buford and commerce, Georgia. Now, most of his surgeries are performed in his own state-of-the-art AAAHC accredited office-based facility.

Now Dr. Lionel Meadows is also cosmetic surgery, patient safety certified, and that shows his commitment to safety as well as ethical practices. Now he’s an active researcher and educator and speaks at AACS, scientific meetings, and he trains at least one surgeon every year through the AACS fellowship program. Now his wife, Catherine is a nurse and master injector at Meadows Surgical Arts.

And we’re going to talk more about her because she’s very important to this whole scenario. So together, they also founded a nonprofit organization called the surgical hope foundation, and that provides autoplasty surgery to use breast surgery for women and scholarships, to local areas, students entering the medical field.

He also volunteers for trips to Ecuador to provide much needed medical care and to assist in rebuilding after the 2016 earthquakes. Now, his next mission trip is to Africa to assist in running a medical clinic, as well as constructing a school for orphaned girls. Dr. Meadows will also share with us how cash-paying cosmetic patients are at the center of his practice. Dr. Lionel Meadows, Welcome to Beauty and the Biz. It is a pleasure to have you.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Catherine. Thank you so much for having me on tonight. I think we’re pretty much done. I mean, after that summary of what I do and what I’ve been doing, Hey, it’s great. It’s Friday evening. Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to answering some of your questions.

Yes. My perspective is unique in how I wound up in the cosmetic surgery industry. So, let’s go,

Catherine Maley, MBA: Dr. Meadows, please share that. How do you transition from Ob-Gyn to cosmetic surgery with cash-paying cosmetic patients?

Lionel Meadows, MD: Yeah, you know, that’s a, I get that a lot, particularly when I have fellows’ interview with me, they’re like, okay, how’d you wind up doing this?

And you know, my first snap answer is always, I wasn’t really a very good OB GYN. You know, and that really wasn’t it. I was incredibly busy. If you look at the MGMA numbers, I was in the 95th percentile. And actually, you mentioned my wife earlier. She was given a gift certificate. This was years ago to go to Atlanta, the closest city to get laser hair removal.

I didn’t think much of it. I was, you know, busy working. She comes back and she’s like, you need to be offering this to your cash-paying patients. And I was like, I’m busy. I got plenty going on. No, I don’t think so. She’s like, okay, let’s just try out a few lasers, bring them in, look at them. See, so we did, and we narrowed it down to one laser and you know, I was like, is this the, how much longer?

So, she comes to me and she’s like, what’s it going to take? I said, okay, fine. This was Wednesday evening at home. And I’m thinking, okay, If you can find 10 patients that are willing to get laser hair removal on Friday, pay a hundred dollars for not doing it for free pay. A hundred dollars. A hundred dollars was prior to our inflation we’ve had this year was still roll money.

So, Friday afternoon comes around. It’s five o’clock. She walks into my office, she put $1,700 on my desk, not 10 that she had found that we’re willing to pay. And she said, are we done? I said yeah, I guess so. So, it started with laser hair removal and then a little bit about toxin filler training. And you know, and it’s kind of that whole story of, if you eat, you offer the patient one thing, and then they asked you have these other things.

Do you have these other things? And again, that side of the business took off and grew very quickly. I gave them one room; they were quickly into two rooms. They quickly outgrew my GYN space. So, we got them another. Locally. But again, I was busy as a GYN. They were starting kind of down at the med spa pathway and she had patients that wanted to have surgical procedures.

I was not trained in that, but she had experience and it worked for one of the local plastics groups. So, she invited them to come in and do consults which they did, but they got tired of driving after they became cash-paying cosmetic patients. So, she came to me and she was like, okay, what’s the next step? So, I got training with Dr. Pelosi, which you probably know very well-respected and then as you went in and also the, the liposuction world.

So, I started with just liposuction eventually wound-up getting breast surgery training with Dr. Bob Jackson in Indianapolis wound up, taking time off, getting licensed in Deanna and ultimately little by little I grew. And in the morning, I would be seeing GYN patients at lunchtime. I’d be seeing cosmetics that. Many of them being cash-paying cosmetic patients.

Afternoon, back to GYN end of the day back to, so I had a foot in both worlds and was just running myself ragged. I was and what ultimately made the decision for me was I was actually in a cosmetic case one day was not on call and got called to the hospital for an emergency. C-section the guy that was supposed to be there.

Wasn’t available. So thankfully I was kind of able to go and save the day, but I couldn’t live with a foot in both worlds like that. Long-term so I started looking at the American academy of cosmetic surgery fellowships and decided if I’m going to do. Let’s give some legitimacy to my training, not, oh, well you went and you took a weekend course, and now you think, you know everything.

So, I did, I shut down the GYN practice went and spent a year with Dr. English at Little Rock.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Dr. Lionel Meadows, I know him well, and I just will. Many, many years ago we were at a ski meeting and Dr. English gives a great talk on before and after photos and his, he did a beautiful book and he was his book was about patient transformation and he was showing great photos.

So, he would show the photo of the woman without makeup and before surgery. And then afterwards he would show the photo with her inherent makeup. And there was a debate about, that’s not fair, that’s not right. And he said, and he asked me, do you agree? And I totally agree. He said, women don’t walk around as the actor, without makeup.

You know? So, he was showing the real life. This is what they end up looking like. And I was, I just loved him. He is. So, I’m so glad you got to spend your fellowship with him.

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, it’s so funny. He yeah, it was probably a decade ago when I was training with him. And yes, there were still some heat about, oh, well he gets his pictures with makeup afterwards.

What do you think that whole, that whole group would say now, as we look at every, doctor’s got an Instagram page, they take their absolute Sunday best patient, and then they doll them up in the perfect outfit or the perfect bathing suit? And that’s completely accepted if you’re not doing that, you’re not doing a good job of marketing yourself anymore.

And so, it’s funny how something is poo-pooed in the past and all of a sudden, it’s completely acceptable today.

Catherine Maley, MBA: That’s why you have to stay open-minded you may not agree with it at the moment, but you’ll come around social media. I thought it was the stupidest waste of time in the world. And I have completely, we have to in order to build up cash-paying cosmetic patients.

So anyway, back to you, Dr. Lionel Meadows. So, how long did you juggle between OB GYN and cosmetic before you? Well, you’re still in it, right?

Lionel Meadows, MD: I still, I don’t deliver babies anymore. I’m still do GYN. I lived with a foot in both worlds. We started, you know, the original laser story was around 2004 and it was 2009 when I went to English’s.

So, I really kept a toe in both worlds for that five-year period of time. And I, although I do train fellows every year and they come from five different subspecialties, summer general surgery, summer ENT, summer facial plastics. And GYN, the GYN is duke tend to gravitate to my practice because of the fact that I have done this transition.

So, I tell that story a lot, but you know, even now I feel like my practice is, well, I think anybody’s practice. You have to change. You have to accept the fact that the industry is going to change. Even if it was still in the GYN world, whole, you know, a hundred percent, the days of doing three to six hysterectomies have been replaced by an outpatient procedure.

So same thing for our world. You have to keep up.

Catherine Maley, MBA: So how much of your practice Dr. Meadows, now is medical or cosmetic surgery versus nonsurgical versus.

Lionel Meadows, MD: I am about 95% cosmetic these days. Really the only remaining GYN patients are, are either patients that are established cosmetic patients, or they’ve been GYN patients for years and years and years.

And they’ve been in the practice and I consider, continue to do it as a courtesy for them. Insurance within the practice, I had maintained, it got to be about 2%, a couple of years ago. And Dr. English said, Hey, why aren’t you still, why are you still doing that? Because he didn’t do any insurance years ago.

And even this year ran the numbers and that was down 2.02%. And finally, I told my office manager, okay. Yeah, enough is enough. So, we no longer really wound up doing a lot of insurance cases, but we offer, you know, we still do some of those GYN things for a honestly fair and probably discounted thing because.

I love those patients. They’ve been with me for years and they supported me when I made that initial transformation in my practice because you know, only 30% of those cash-paying patients, one of the following me when I went to the next stage. So yeah, I, yeah, there, plenty of times I just see for free because they, there is that word of mouth that is so good for my practice or okay.

Fond. They’re coming to see me for the GYN issues, but they’re also coming for, to visit our med spa. They’re also coming to get Botox or fillers or some of my other things that do –

Catherine Maley, MBA: ‘Cause, that’s a really big deal for you to start a cosmetic surgery practice. It’s certainly helpful to have this huge database, but everything’s got to be realistic, right Dr. Lionel Meadows?

It’s a different patient who was giving you an insurance card and now you’re transitioning for them to give you a credit card. So, you can’t, you’re lucky. I mean, if you got 30%, that’s brilliant because I’ll bet that was a pretty good list and what a great way to get started, you know, guerrilla style, just go with the patients who already know, like, and trust you and they’ll follow along.

So that’s a great, if you can pull that off, that’s a great way to just jump in and get into this rather than start from scratch.

Lionel Meadows, MD:  Yeah. You know, I guess I have two thoughts there, first of all, you’re right. Regardless of whether, how you feel about GYN is doing cosmetic procedures. You hit the nail on the head.

Those patients trust you already. They like you already. And if they were comfortable with you doing procedure a on them, and that you’re knowledgeable, you know how to do that procedure and managing any potential complications, they’re going to feel good about you taking care of these other things. So yes, you’re absolutely right.

That really does help. The other thing is, if you look at the GYN practice, 99% of those patients are female. If you look at the cosmetic world, we’re still at about 89% female, about 11% of male population in the cosmetic world. So yeah, I agree that really did make the transition easier. The other thing in the end, there’s two different schools of thought on this as I’m training fellows or people ask me, Hey, how, how would you go through this process?

I said, I tell them, don’t quit your day job. Don’t give up that source of income that you have over. Until you’ve kind of established yourself in this other world here. Now, there are a few people out there to take the opposite approach is, oh, well you want people to completely forget that you are gynecologist one time and completely see you as maybe so, but not most people don’t have this huge nest egg that they can take and throw at the practice until it’s.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Dr. Meadows, that would be so stressful. I would say, keep your day job, do the side hustle until you are until you’re real clear that you’re able to cover your overhead and then jump because eventually you do have to jump. If you’re going to compete with the big boys who eat, sleep, and drink this, and you’re just, you know, it’s a hobby, it can’t be a hobby anymore.

It’s just too competitive. So, I just, I know it’s not easy to transition, but I know you did a great job with that. So, let’s talk about how did you end up with two locations? Because I have issues sometimes with the two locations it’s more overhead, it’s more people to manage. It’s more buildings to manage more of everything and unless it’s an economies of scale kind of situation, it can be a real pain in the neck trying to pull it off or do the pros and cons weigh in the favor of sure. Let’s keep.

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, my practice is a great example of what you just said in that. Be careful when you scale, you know, scale is the, is the business buzzword of 2022. I had someone come for an entry-level interview last week and said, oh, I want to scale in your practice. I was like, okay. So, you want to be the receptionist for three different practices.

But what happened with us is I actually had three locations for a period of time. And I had the Buford location, which was a wildly successful and definitely made up for the additional personnel and overhead and other things down there. I had another location that was barely profitable, but the level of headaches that came along with it made it, I mean, I, after a year or two, I closed it.

Not because it wasn’t profitable, but because the headache factor. Did not offset, you know, what it was doing for the practice. So why two locations now, what makes me successful? Commerce is probably about an hour and 10 minutes from downtown Atlanta. You know, the peach tree area where it’s wildly competitive.

The great thing about that location is that in 2008, 2009, when the economy was, you know, recession, depression, struggling being that far out, I didn’t have as much competition. And that made things a little easier store in practice. Buford is about 30 minutes closer to Atlanta. It really is. It’s a suburb of Atlanta and it, there was a vacuum.

There were not a lot of cosmetic surgeon, plastic surgeon types in that area and Gwinnett county, which is where it’s located, had 800,000 people living in that county. And it was essentially in spite of it being a big area, it was underserved. So that’s what made it, you know, wildly successful for us. And what’s allowed us to continue.

That’s been our area of growth, you know, it’s going from being just an esthetician down there to Vinnie, grew to nurse practitioner. And actually, now we’re up to two nurse practitioners plus I’ve got a doc that’s coming on down on line down there this summer. So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of how.

Be careful when you start thinking about scaling, make sure you’re not just adding to your headache, but it’s going to be, you know, a, a return for that. 

Catherine Maley, MBA: To the scenario because you have two locations, but one surgical suite is the goal to bring people to your surgical suite. Like everyone else is doing the non-surgical and they’re leading new cash-paying cosmetic patients to you in one location.

Or are you running around to both locations, Dr. Lionel Meadows?

Lionel Meadows, MD: No, I am. I go, I, to be for a half a day, a week, the rest of the time I’m in the commerce location, the question always gets to ask, well, why not build a second or down there? I’ll say, okay, well now you’ve got two facilities to maintain triple HC certification with, you know, so every time that rolls around you have additional training, additional expense.

So, it’s going to be very unlikely that I wind up adding a second surgical facility. But it’s tough, you know, because right now I, I do, I operate five days a week. I’ve got to create or space for this new surgeon that’s coming online this summer. But my first and foremost thing to do is not going to be, to put a second one down there.

Catherine Maley, MBA: It’s just the hassle factor just keeps multiplying when you do, unless you can make sense of it. Now, Lionel Meadows, MD. What I’ve watched a lot of surgeons do is because a lot of patients think that they have to go to a city for surgery for like their best work. I don’t know where they get that, but it’s very common for that.

Your best bet is to say, but you know, there’s a great because you’re outside the city, you can at least get them to your surgical center. But I think you have to go with price on that one because it’s not convenient for them. So, I mean, how do you make it palatable for them to. Do the distance, you know, when they didn’t have to.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Thankfully Atlanta traffic helps me a time because they can come out to me and be there in 30 minutes guaranteed versus, yeah, exactly. I mean, I remember when I was in college at Emory, it was a seven-mile drive from me to work in at Rich’s at Lennox. And sometimes that was a 40, 45-minute drive to go seven miles.

So, it hasn’t been that toughest sell as long as the post-op care and the pre-op here can be done in the Buford location. They don’t mind coming out to, to commerce for the surgery or maybe even that first post-op visit. But yeah, afterwards, as a matter of fact, they usually get, if it’s a, if it’s a flat case, you know, breast lift, breast reduction, facelift, tummy tuck, usually we’ll put them in a hyperbaric chamber the first day prophylactically, even if everything looks great, we’ll still put them in the chamber.

And those Buford cash-paying cosmetic patients that would have to drive up the next day to get. They would do it because they felt like it was better for them, but still it was a little bit of struggling. You know, it’s hard enough to get a family member or a friend to drive you the day of surgery, but now you’re asking them to do it two days in a row.

So, we’ve added a second chamber down in the Buford location. That’s not an issue anymore.

Catherine Maley, MBA: So yeah, hyperbaric chambers.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Yeah, those aren’t cheap. They’re not cheap. But on the other hand, you know, when I first started doing this, I had done a, a done a facelift on my mother-in-law. Again, this was 10 years ago.

Just finished it in English, this place where he does, you know, 80, 85 facelifts a year. So, we do our face and she has a tiny little dusky area on one side of the flap. And I’m looking around to see where a chamber is. Cause in little rock, you know, it’s right down the road. So, there was Athens or Atlanta.

Well, so we sent her to Athens and then they were closed on the weekend. So now we’re having this Carter all the way to Atlanta. So, of course she did great and healed. Great. But all of a sudden, I’m looking at, okay, what are my options? Because if I do enough of this long enough, I might have that patient that really, really needs a chamber.

And that’s why we made the investment. And the nice thing is it’s held up well, in spite of the fact that we use it a lot, but it’s held up well. And the return on investment on that one is very much been, been worth it.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Oh, nice Dr. Meadows. I had a facelift before and I did like four treatments of the hyperbaric chamber.

And at the time I didn’t know what this was all about, whatever. Cause I need it. I hit a stop date. I needed to be up and running in a very finite amount of time. I was, I think it worked beautifully. I was exactly where I needed to be on that day. And I got it because it just felt good. I felt like I was doing something and I didn’t know anything about it, but it felt emotionally.

I liked it a lot. And I think physically, it helped a lot as well, but it’s also, I’m always thinking marketing, what a great differentiator for you to offer that service. I know nobody else is offering that and it just shows like, and I would make a big deal out of that. You know what, you’re a package or something and you know, all surgeries get this somehow market that because it’s.

So, let’s just talk about staff for a second, because let me just quickly run you by. He’s got two fellows, a nurse midwife, two nurse practitioners, a nurse anesthetist, six nurses, ultrasound, technologist, nurse injector, scrub tech, two MAs licensed statistician office manager, marketing specialist, six receptionists, and two interns.

I happened to be his son and daughter who are absolutely adorable. So that is all a lot of people to manage and motivate. So, I would love to hear your tips on hiring, firing, keeping people doing what they’re supposed to be doing. What, what are your steps?

Lionel Meadows, MD: Well, I think the first thing I need to do as far as there’s two interns, the son and daughter, if they misbehave, okay.

They got to go first. So, the first ones off the ship. No, you know, it’s funny as I was looking over notes for this meeting, you know, what’s what, what is the most challenging thing about any business, but particularly this one, it’s the staffing. And like most, you know, I guess first of all, you have to recognize the fact that not every employee is going to be motivated the same way you might have that one patient or that one employee that really is interested in being on an incentive type program and how many cash-paying cosmetic patients can I see to, to, to, to get that carrot.

Whereas, you know, I think about some of my other, other employees that I have family time, if my child has a soccer game on Wednesday afternoon at two o’clock, I want to know that Dr. Meadows is going to figure out a way for me to be able to get to that. And if. I am short, a dollar or two in my paycheck.

That’s okay. So, flexibility is more important to others. So that’s been, I think the thing that most of the time has made me successful in terms of keeping and managing the employees that I have is recognizing the fact that they’re not, you can’t put together a one size fits all package. So that’s helped.

I’m certainly not here to tell you that I made it through last year without some of the same employee turnover that everybody else did. I had some employees (longstanding employees) that between the money they could make with COVID in the hospitals. I mean, taking an RN, who’s usually making in our area 30 to $40 an hour and she gets paid a hundred dollars an hour.

That’s really hard to compete with. The other thing that happened is people can have got used to being at home and living on a little bit less. So, you know, some of that employee turnover I went through last year, I mean, one of those nurses, she’s still at home on the farm with the family and good for her.

I mean, I really miss those times outgoing, running with my daughter in the morning. So, you know, we, we went through some of that. Thankfully I was blessed by having some longstanding relationships with nurses that were in the hospital that were glad to kind of come out of that high stress COVID setting and be in more of a private practice setting.

And matter of fact, I still have a nurse that she kind of bounces back and forth between the two she’ll work weekends in the hospital and worked during the week. For me, flexibility again, is important to her because she’s got a child that rides a competitive motocross. So, she needs to be able to be off certain days.

So maybe that answers your question. That’s just kind of me sort of freewheeling as two. What it’s been like for me managing, you know, the, the 26 or so employees that I have.

Catherine Maley, MBA: I just know that that’s such a big job and I hope you’re not doing it all on your own, Dr. Lionel Meadows. And I do a lot of consulting now with.

Leadership, you know, how does this, how does a solo practitioner float this big boat with all these people and still be the surgeon and be the leader and the visionary and the manager. And I hope you’re not being the manager. Like, I think you’re pretty good about delegating. And do you, I know you have an office manager.

I would say one of the big issues would be the doctors still can’t let go of control often and they want to micromanage or the hoard, the other opposite. They just want to go hide in the LR and never be seen from again and hope everyone works it out, works out. Okay. But I just think if you could be the leader and the visionary, so they get where, you know, this is where we’re going, and then you have that buffer between you and the staff.

So, you get to stay the good guy. And if there are planetary issues, I would rather have an HR person handle that for you or the office manager, because you just can’t get, I don’t think how you get involved in. You know, lives and beliefs and feelings and wants and needs.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Have you tech, have you hacked my phone because that’s almost verbatim.

One of the texts between me and my office manager. Again, I was off this week, but I’m at the, I’m at the golf course with my son, huge rain downforce. So, we’re under a tree in Florida trying to stay dry. And my office manager is texting me about something and yeah, that, that was exactly it. I sent her a text and I was like, Hey, look, you guys make a good decision.

I can’t micromanage anything. I can’t micromanage with this size again, back to our word scale that we’ve grown to just can’t you. You’ve got to have quality people in front of you and Buford has grown to the point that yes, there is a practice manager. Deanna, you probably met her at the, at the Vegas conference that handles those types of things, the employee, again, the emotional things that can happen within the practice, but we’re to the point that Buford has grown to the point it needs its own person as well.

Now, sometimes those people do wear more than one hat. You know, we’re not a hospital where you have a head of engineering and a head of this. Sometimes they have to wear more than one hat, but the person that can’t wear all of those hats and still be an excellent surgeon is doctor.

Catherine Maley, MBA: So just out of curiosity, Dr. Lionel Meadows, I love that you’re trying to accommodate the staff’s needs for someone flex time.

Some want more money. I have never found how do you make that work? Because one thing we do in leadership is we say we work together as a team. We also celebrate together as a team. And so, I have been hitting the bell about, have fun in the practice and everyone’s got to have fun. Now everyone’s got to enjoy their life and, you know, working towards the why and all of that.

And I get that, but if I’m money motivated, but my, the girl next to me just wants, you know, Fridays off. How do you, how does that work out? Okay. So, I’m happy. She’s happy. Everyone’s happy. Or does it get.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Well, it’s going to complicate, there’s always jealousy. When you got that many employees, even the one that’s this, you know, money motivated.

It’s like, well, why does she have Wednesday off?

We have, first of all, more of a profit-sharing deal within the practice, which means that if we’re all successful or the practice is successful, then we see it in our paycheck, you know, once a month as an additional bonus. So, there is that meaning that we’re all in this together. And then there are individual providers within the practice, the injectors, the aestheticians that have their own that have their own incentive packages.

And even now, you know, as we look at what’s going on with social media and what’s driving consults, everybody’s kind of got their own. And it’s the hardest part is HR has to kind of keep an eye on this, the receptionist or bonus based on the number of new consults that they actually get off of the phone and show up in the office for, for an office visit.

So, you know, there’s that situation, then there’s the injectors, then there’s the ass petitions plus globally. There’s, you know, what’s the practice doing throughout the year. There are a couple other things that I do. You know, black Friday the day after Thanksgiving is not necessarily a paid holiday, but if we make our October numbers.

Then guess what? Everybody not only gets Thanksgiving day, but they also get black Friday, which is pretty cool. If you’re out shopping or hanging out with your family and oh, by the way, I’m still getting paid. Hey, this is cool. So, we do that. The other thing is you; you saw me in Vegas with what did that have nine or I, yeah.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Thank you for your foresight on doing that. It seems like it’s a really big, it’s a huge expense to ship all those people out there. They read the meeting, he had all his staff, a big majority of the staff there. They were lovely. They were engaged. I get I’ll bet you get a lot out of that for months to come with in terms of loyalty productivity them feeling like part of the.

Lionel Meadows, MD: There’s two things that usually happen with that. First of all, it’s cool for them to come out there, go to these lectures and, and to hear your lecture, even though it’s been awhile, since you were in my practice, you know, helping us out needs to happen again soon. But the cool thing is they go out there and they’re like, Hey, wait a minute.

First of all, I know that lady I’ve seen her videos next. Hey, we’re already doing that. So, there’s a little bit of affirmation of, Hey, the guy I worked for kind of does. What he’s talking about and what’s going on. And then we also use it as kind of a strategic planning session so that we can come back from Vegas with a list of things that we actually want to accomplish in the practice.

Now, the scary thing, I was looking over my list before, before this week off, and we’ve taken care of 90% of that list, but again, that can’t just be Dr. Meadows. The nice thing is we come back and I’ve, you know, one of the nurses that was out there you know, brand, you probably remember she was wearing like this purple sequin leopard pantsuit the first day you know, brand comes back and she brings the award nursing stuff back and it’s making my, or better.

Deanna comes back, she’s making practice management and personnel better. So yeah, the answer is, yes, it costs money to go out there. But my experience has been it’s well worth it to the point that. To the point that, you know, first of all, why didn’t we take that many, we had to make our number for the end of the year to be able to do that.

But it’s to the point that I’m probably going to take most of the rest of the crowd to one of the, I think it’s the aesthetic show that comes up in July, same idea. I’ve been wanting to go to that conference for years. It was worthwhile. So again, we’ve kind of got that carrot out there for them that if we perform well, the first half of the year, then people are going to get to go do it.

So as long as it’s worthwhile and as long as it’s, we’re coming back and we’re making the practice better, not just purely the dollars and cents and what goes in Dr. Metro’s bank account. But, you know, thankfully I’m blessed to the point that the practice has grown in it and it is successful. And what motivates me at this point is more, a matter of pride.

How well are we doing what we say and what we advertise that we’re doing? So, yeah, there’s the, the business and the practice management side of it, but also, you know, a certain amount of pride in.

Catherine Maley, MBA: No for sure, Lionel Meadows, MD. Now we can’t get past business without talking about your wife, because she is amazing. She’s an injector, a master injector.

How involved is she in the practice and how difficult I’m going to do a session one day on husbands and wives working together? I think that’s a different topic, but just give me like, how’s that going? Cause you’ve been doing it forever.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Yeah. You know, it’s funny. It it’s going well and you’re right.

It would be a great one to do a session on because you know, there’s some people that, that, you know, have this perception of oh yeah. It’s the crazy doctor’s wife. Yeah. I mean the, the, you know, she gets in and she’s our injector that we throw that problem patient at that she’s been to two or three other practices.

She’s had this horrible outcome and her Botox is just a mess and going everywhere. Catherine is the one that gets that patient and has two. Take care of the emotional side of what’s going on with that patient. They’re scared, they’re frightened, they’re mad, they’re frustrated. And then it has to take it and turn it around.

So that’s really her role in the practice. She’s always been the one that sort of set the brand and the standard for the practice, but her role these days is really, it’s kind of more of a subspecialist of taking those cash-paying cosmetic patients that, that are challenging or had that out from somewhere else and, and making them feel, making them feel good.

So now where is she this week? She is in the Dominican. You talked about the Ecuador trip that we’ve done in the past there in mission trip in the Dominican, she’s been part of a health clinic down there. She’s actually kind of been in charge of the pharmacy. And so, she’s been a Dominican comes back on Sunday.

I’m looking forward to it mostly because it has been, you heard my story at the beginning about the laser. It’s a team effort for us. We were talking briefly about Joe Nam too, and his wife, and she’s been there from the beginning. She she’s friends with not only Joe, but also his wife. She’s a great bridge for our practice from me.

Who’s kind of the doctor surgeon. No engineering, nerdy type that at times, admittedly can be a little boring. She’s very much that bridge to the rest. So, miss is looking forward to her being back home on Sunday. Alright.

Catherine Maley, MBA: I love her, Dr. Meadows. I think she’s such a big asset and a big part of the success of your practice.

I think you’re so right. She sets the standard. You can feel when you’re talking to her, you know, you’re going to get the best service possible, takes it so seriously. So, I love her. So just to wrap up the business, just give us one big business mistake that you’ll wish you hadn’t made, but you’ll learn a lot from it.

Or others could learn from it without going through the same experience you did.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Wow. First of all, my office is very much an open door. Literally my office is open and sits right across the hallway from the practice management side of things. So, I, I don’t necessarily mind sharing my mistakes because man, I don’t want to see those guys or anybody else go through it. You know, I mean the first thing that comes to mind is it is a device and that has to do with just a matter of with devices and manufacturers and salespeople they’ll promise you this.

And this particular company was like, oh, we’re going to do direct to consumer marketing direct to consumer marketing. That’s how people, and it was at that point, it was a very, everybody didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t an, a name brand thing. And well, after it had been sold and purchased two or three times after that, the direct-to-consumer marketing finally started happening.

My frustration with it was. I had to spend so much of my marketing dollars to educate the public. And this was prior to social media where you could do, you know, one post and one story, and now people know about it. So, I had to spend so much of my marketing dollars to sell that particular product, to educate people about where it, it wasn’t it wasn’t anything that was cost-effective for me.

So that’s one. The other thing, if you’re going to operate, if you’re a surgeon don’t operate on smokers, your urine, test them prior to their surgery, even day of surgery, and don’t be afraid to, to step away. You know, they, thankfully I’m blessed. I don’t have a lot of complications, but some of the more difficult ones have been in smokers in the early.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Always, and I’m always surprised at the meetings when the doctor says, you know what they said, they quit smoking, you know, two weeks before surgery. And I thought, no, I’m from Chicago. I grew up like with cigarettes and beer. And I thought, I haven’t touched that in, you know, 40, 50 years. But when you’re a smoker, you’re a smoker, you know, it’s not like a hobby you’re in or you’re out.

Usually, I’m just so surprised. Like why take the risk? I’ve seen way too many.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Yeah. And the thing about it is the risk is on both parts, the surgeons and the cash-paying cosmetic patients, and the patients tend to negate that because they want to get their surgery done. But yeah, here’s where we are now. I mean, simply a urine continent test is under a dollar.

We test them on a day off and if it’s positive, but you know, I go in and you’ll hear all kinds of stories and you know, for me, I was like, Hey, look, you know, I’m sorry. I know it’s probably just secondhand smoke from your job as a bartender and that type of thing, I get it. But you know, it’s in your system and we don’t want you to have that horrible complication and be out of work a lot longer than you want to.

So again, it’s kind of whatever story they want to sell me. That’s fine. I don’t want to argue that point or even find out at the end of the day, if the nicotine test is positive, thankfully, you know, and I think even if you’re even for a young, early surgeon, that’s like, man, I really need this case. Yeah.

But you don’t need the headache that goes along with it. Don’t just, just don’t do it. So, you’re you know, and the nice thing is so many of us have to deal with reviews and Yelp and that type of thing. What are they going to go home and trash you online for? You know, Dr. Meadows did something really safe today.

He protected me from a bad outcome. There’s not really like, can go and say, that’s going to, that’s going to drag you down. Or your practice down for making a decision based on cash-paying cosmetic patients. For sure.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Let’s switch gears and talk about marketing, Dr. Meadows. You had talked about Buford and commerce at one time, they worked very competitive or you had a pretty good grasp of that community.

How has it now, how has it changed in so many years that you started?

Lionel Meadows, MD: Well, Buford kind of had a head start because it’s closer to Atlanta and had 800,000 people in it. There just wasn’t enough of me to go around, to be down there that much, but still it’s grown to the point that, you know, it, it alone without a doctor down there does half of what commerce does.

That’s got a doctor and an Orr and all those types of things. Commerce itself has grown because of the fact that, you know, they just dropped a big battery. In the area that’s making batteries for all of these electric vehicles, commerce is growing by leaps and bounds. And so, you know, that’s again, it’s the big city kind of making its way out closer and closer to us in terms of competition.

Because of the internet, because of social media, you, even though my competition might be in Athens 22 miles away or in the Buford location, same thing, probably 12 to 15 miles away. Social media allows those people to market and reach out into my areas. So again, you mentioned the idea of, okay, fine.

Differentiate, differentiate yourself with the hyperbaric chamber. What do you do? That’s different. And I think you a hundred percent have to do that. You have to differentiate yourself. And for me, it’s about, I guess, quality. And reliability, knowing that I’m going to go to Meadows and know he might not be perfect, but his complication rate is going to be really, really low.

So just like you were saying earlier, you had a facial procedure done. You didn’t want to have that downtime. Who can I go to? That’s going to get me a nice result, but also get me turned around so that I can get back to work. So, you know, again, great results, very, very low complication rate. You know, that’s kind of what we’re about in our practice.

Catherine Maley, MBA: So, for you, Dr. Meadows, you’re talking about marketing, like you’re talking about social media, has that been the main marketing channel or are you still like, what, what do you do now? That’s working because Facebook advertising has all that has taken a real hit because of the privacy laws. And I don’t know anybody who’s trying to do that right now.

They’ve taken away your ability to target specific. Audiences that you used to be able to target. So, it’s become more like this crapshoot, like TV advertising, where you just pay a fortune, throw it all out there and then hope to God. It gets in front of people who actually are interested in cosmetic rejuvenation.

So have your marketing channels changed or

Lionel Meadows, MD: what’s working for you? Well, I mean, you and I have done this long enough to where there were the days of marketing in the yellow pages and the glossy magazines that were on the coffee table and those types of things, that’s all gone. None of us do that anymore, but yes, Facebook has changed.

I look at it this way because yeah, you’re right. You used to be able to boost your ads and boost your post on Facebook and you were able to be very selective in terms of where they went and that stuff, we still do some boosting, but in general, it’s kind of more of a layered effect back to the idea that it used to be with marketing.

But I also look at it and I hate to generalize, but it’s true. I recognize the fact that my Instagram population is one, probably a little bit younger than my Facebook group. A lot of times, like, you know, my son’s a great example, you know, he’s 20, 20 years old and he has a Facebook account only because there are certain people, older people, teachers that want to communicate with him through that venue.

So, I guess as we’re thinking through, okay, how are we going to mark it? Where are we going with this? If you’re looking at social media, then I, if it’s a breast augmentation ad, it’s probably more likely to go to Instagram. However, this last weekend, I mean, I had an appeal, a post that went wild on both Facebook and Instagram.

So., I look at it that way, older population, younger population, but it’s not quite again. It’s kind of, I hate to say it. That’s a little bit more of a shotgun approach. I tell you what if I look on, look at what’s working for me and it’s rough and it’s a little bit crude, but it’s one of those places that it’s always there is that when I go in for that console, first question is usually developing a rapport.

Hey, where are you from? What do you do for work? You know, just to get a little bit of information about them and to start a conversation. Third question is always how’d you hear about us because even though they might have used that super special phone number that they got through, whatever other marketing thing, we’re trying to track our return on investment.

Usually, they’ve also talked to their friends and there’s that word-of-mouth thing. So again, If you think they came in through Instagram? Yeah. It was Instagram plus their friend or somebody else that they talked about. So, for me, yeah, I it’s, again, it’s kind of a checking the pulse type of thing as far as what’s going on with my marketing, but always, Hey, how’d you hear about us?

How’d you wind up here? Because I mean like a lot of good practices. I have cash-paying cosmetic patients that come from a good way away. So, I really want to know, you know, how in the world did that military officer from Japan wind up in my practice. So, you know, you’re always curious, first of all, but also you want to know, Hey, what’s working.

Catherine Maley, MBA: I want to add to that, Dr. Meadows, because when I consultant practices, I say to them, be careful with the referral source. It’s not a straight shot. Like it used to be when they’re calling on the phone and you have a really good trained receptionist saying, oh, by the way, how’s you. The caller will just throw out, I don’t know, internet, they’ll say Google or something.

And then when they come in the practice and they start to get to know people, the answer changes. And then they say, well, actually, actually I was talking to a girlfriend and she told me about you. And she wanted me to check out your Instagram. So, then they go to your Instagram and then they get to your webpage.

So, it’s not that straight a to B anymore. It’s much more of an ABCD. So, I would just caution everybody to be careful with that answer because it can, it’s subject to change as they say.

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, it’s interesting. I’m guilty as charged. I mean, this last weekend, when, when my son and I went down to enjoy the weather in Florida, checking in, going through the check boxes there, Hey, how’d you hear about hotel?

Well, it was the fourth or fifth question and I was like, Hey, I just want to check in. So, you know, I just clicked internet, but the reality is I had done a lot of research before I decided this is definitely where we’re going to stay. So. Yeah. What, what you said, and I said is, it’s not a direct a to B anymore.

It’s guaranteed to be okay. B I think it’s where I want to get, but let me talk to a few people that have been down this road.

Catherine Maley, MBA: I know you have a social media manager on staff. Do you, do you believe everyone has to have that in today’s world? Like somebody who is responsible for your social media profile, you may still be involved.

Are you you’re, you’re heavily involved in your social media on how are you working that out? How much of your time is spent, or how much are you able to delegate to that other person?

Lionel Meadows, MD: The daily post. I usually see in the morning when I get up in the morning, but in terms of always being involved now, on the other hand, if I go in a room for post-op visit and I have a phenomenal outcome, or I see a patient that’s known to me that she’s posting her great picture, she’s so proud of what’s going on.

Then at that point, I’ll go to my marketing, my social media person and say, Hey, look, you need to reach out to Sally. She loves her results. She looks phenomenal. Reach out to her, see if she’s willing to, you know, be an influencer for us. My involvement is more of a kind of keeping an eye on it, but you know, again, this is kind of where Katherine comes in because I said earlier, she’s the brand.

She sets the standard for the practice. And if for some reason, the social media is venturing outside of what we represent, what we’re about. Yeah, that’s usually a text that’s going to go direct to social media. It’s going to bypass me and it just happens. So, the first question you ask is, do you have to have a social media person in this day and age?

And the answer, my answer is a hundred percent. Yes, you really do. It’s a, it’s a in our 24 7 world that we have these days and, you know, yes, you really do. You got to have that person. And I, and literally I’m to the point now I have a view for person and I have a commerce person. Now the commerce person is kind of more the, the overseer for the entire practice, but I got one for both because, you know, in Buford they might have a great lip filler result or same thing.

There might be a great post-op result that came in down there that I didn’t personally lay my eyes on, but they’re catching it. And they’re going to somebody that’s boots on the ground there and said, Hey, look, I’m talking to this girl. Let’s get pictures. So, my answer is yes.

Catherine Maley, MBA: I know when I talked to Dr. Joe and I on two, if you go to his website, he has thousands of photos and they’re really good. And a lot of practices say to me, oh, my cash-paying cosmetic patients won’t agree to that. And I said, well then how, how is he able to do it? I’ll tell you what the secret is when the patient, it’s the timing. When the patient is gushing and happy, he is involved because he actually does the photos himself because he knows how important they are in case the photos himself.

And then literally says, Hey, do you mind if I use these in our marketing? And then he says like a thorough say, no, a thorough say, okay, but not my eyes or something like that. And then the other third says, sure, absolutely. That’s how you do it anyway.

Lionel Meadows, MD: Yeah. I agree with you. It’s kind of like that gushing moment now that you know, every now and then I’m taking notes as we’re kind of going through these things, because I know there’s these old pearls and things that come from Catherine.

And one of them is the fact that that Joe takes those photos himself because photos in the practice are one of those things that they kind of ebb and flow. You’ll have a training session; you’ll get everybody up to snuff. And then either everybody that the quality falls off a little bit, or you have a little bit of turnover and all of a sudden, you’ve got to try and pictures again.

And even though we’ve got a, literally a book that says right beside the computer, you know, these are the way we want these pictures to look. If you’re taking them yourself and you can’t, there’s no way you can take every picture in the practice yourself. But yeah, if you’ve got that patient that, you know, Hey, this is somebody that I I’m hoping that they’re willing to let us use some pictures.

Yeah. If, if they see that you care enough about that quality, that you’re willing to stand up for yourself and do it. Yeah. And I also agree with the thirds that you say you will, you’ll have maybe a third that say that not really wants to use my pictures, but again, it’s kind of back to where we started here in our, our, our Instagram and Facebook world, you know, there are fewer and fewer of those cash-paying cosmetic patients that are saying no, I don’t want you to see my, I don’t really want you to use my pictures.

Right. Yeah. Easily half are going to say, oh yeah, we’ll pull the tattoo out or something like that. And then there are others that, you know, all four. Hey, yeah. I’ll be happy to do a glamour photo shoot for you, but yeah, that’s, that’s the timing.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Then that’s so true now that everyone’s into social media that really took away a lot of that.

Oh, I would never, this is all very private. Nothing seems to be private anymore. People seem to be very transparent about every little thing going on in their lives. So, it has to have gotten easier, but I would say I would just be strategic if you, the surgeon is involved, I would just selectively pick those photos that you’re just getting a great result experience, great transformational photos and use those, you know, use your time.

To take that one, you know, you don’t need to take all the photos, but I would be strategic about it. So, let’s talk about your philanthropic efforts because you are very much about giving back. And I did a talk on this recently about good to great. And why are these, why are the top practices so good and so successful?

And every one of them had a philanthropic pro bono angle to their practice. And I know for a fact from that book, you know, Simon, Simeon, or sumac or whatever, you know, it’s all about the Y I know your staff is watching that you’re not money hungry, capitalists, you know, like you’re showing that you care about the community and, and your fellow man, and you give back your time to not just money you’re giving time.

Can you talk about your efforts and what, how that impacts you as well as your staff and your cash-paying cosmetic patients?

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, it started, it started first of all, with wanting to do some surgery when we could. And at the end, the practice was much, much smaller. And we did this right after we started it right after we came on a fellowship.

So back then we gave away a whopping one scholarship for $1,000. But you know, this year, and I like this time of year, because literally on Monday, when I get back, we’ll start splitting up the scholarship applications to go through those and start looking at, okay, who’s going to be our scholarship winners.

This year is probably going to be closer to 20, $25,000 that we’ll give away just in scholarships. So, this is a fun time of year again, back to I can’t micromanage this. I mean, we’re looking at five different high schools. I think it’s five. It might be six this year that are going to have kids getting scholarships.

And that means we’ve got applications from those five or six different schools. Those had to get split up. They got split up about three years ago. And again, the staff enjoys doing that. They enjoy sitting down and it takes them a little bit of time. But, you know, again, I I’ve yet to have a staff member say, you know, Hey, no, I’m not, I’m not going to because we still it’s a little old school, but we still haven’t written an essay.

Because a lot of these kids are scraped. A lot of these kids have really good grades. There’s got to be some differentiator. And a lot of times it is the essay. In terms of otherwise, you know, the staff has gotten involved on both ends of it. We take, yes, I have I have cash-paying cosmetic patients that are willing, been willing to donate.

I have staff members that have been willing to donate. And for us, it started with, you asked about GYN, every single dollar that comes into the practice. These days, that’s from a hormone related GYN issue. Just go straight into the surgical home. Yeah, so they see us doing it and they, you know, I remember it was in Buford a few weeks ago.

It was a gentleman that had lost a massive amount of weight. And he wanted to have a procedure, John. And at the end of the day, the money was going to come up a little short and you know, my or schedule coordinator, she’s like, Hey, look, what do you think about, I know we usually do otoplasty but what do you think about doing this procedure for this guy?

So, it’s fun, you know, if you ask it’s one of the things I enjoy about the practice and again yeah, I, I’m proud of the fact that we’re busy and we’re successful and we grew, you know, 15, 18, 20 1% over the last couple of years. But, you know, I mean, again, it’s the feeling, not only that you get from that patient, but also from the staff as well, when they see something like this going on.

So yeah, it’s a, it’s one of the fun sides of what we do.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Good for you. And are you going to go to Africa?

Lionel Meadows, MD: Africa was last. When was that? Africa was a year or so ago and things were still too tight to be able to do that from the COVID standpoint. More importantly, it was not so much getting there, but it was going to be coming back.

So, it was a little tight.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Yeah, it’s on my list, but I not like the top priority right now. I’d rather have things settled down a lot, but wouldn’t. I love travel. It’s just so interesting. So, mind opening. So, tell me how did you learn to do what you’re doing? Because you have a beautiful family, a beautiful practice, great team that love loves you.

You can see it when I saw all of you in Vegas, they respect you and you have kids that are just lovely. How are you doing that? You’re pulling that together. Are you reading, studying role modeling? What, what what’s going on?

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, it’s funny, it’s funny. You asked that question because you know, my phone’s got an old enough to where it’s at least interested in what’s going on in the practice.

And we were having a conversation January 1st, usually, you know, beginning of the year, Hey, what do I want to accomplish with the practice? And we were making a drive across Atlanta. So, we were talking about this and, and he asked that very question about halfway through the drive. He’s like, how’d you learn about this?

I said, unfortunately, They don’t teach you this in medical school. They don’t teach you this in residency. If you’re lucky you might pick it up and fellowship. And I think it has to do with first of all, being willing to shut up and listen. I mean, they’re smart people like you, you’re in, you’re in practices like mine all the time that you see that are successful and not successful.

So again, kind of shut up and listen to the people that have knowledge that are willing to share. I think also kind of having a mentor type of system out there. You know, Dr. English and I are very different people, but on the other hand, as I look at his practice is successful. You know, he, you know, he gives back to the communities well, well-respected by his staff.

So yeah, it is very much a matter of learning from others around me. Also making mistakes from time to time and being willing to acknowledge the fact that man, I made a mistake. I sure don’t want to do that one again. So, I wish I could tell you, Hey, I definitely read this one book and it taught me everything that I needed to know about running a medical cosmetic practice.

But I think that. You know, for me, it’s been a matter of going to, I mean, Hey, I, this is not a sales pitch for you and what you do. But the reality is when we years ago, back in the old days of CD disc, you know, we wound up going down the Katherine Maley pathway. It made a huge difference, not so much in the closure rate for surgery, but getting those cash-paying cosmetic patients in the door and willing to come and have a conversation with us.

Our closure rates always been, you know, been pretty good, but yeah, I mean, don’t be a, for me I’m not the first adopter, but on the other hand, I’m not afraid to invest in my employees. If that means investing via Catherine Maley or investing in going to a trip to Vegas, I’m okay with that. I, again, I’ve got a nurse right now.

That’s wanting to work on getting her a RN certification. It’s going to cost me a little bit of money to help her out with that, but she feels good about what the practice is doing. It makes us better. I added a Spanish speaking receptionist several years ago, but wanting to get her, her translation certification, I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but as I see the difference in having her in the room translating and some of my other Spanish speaking people, guess what we’ve reached out to the other two and got them working on their certification as well.

So yeah, you know, for me spending the money, investing in my employees, if you ask about, Hey, you know, what mistakes have you been made? Have you made, usually investing in the employees has been a win for me?

Catherine Maley, MBA: I completely agree. I’m investing in people who can make you money and make your life easier. Just really is common sense.

You just have to get past that part about you’re losing money. You’re not losing money, your productivity and all the other good things. You have to switch that mindset about that. So, to wrap it up, give us one thing that we don’t know about you. That would be pretty interesting to know.

Lionel Meadows, MD: You know, it’s interesting as I was kind of turning the lights on, getting everything set up, your guitar is pushed underneath over there.

I was going to set it up on the stand. Dr. Meadows likes bluegrass, as you, as you think about the aesthetic and all of that type of thing, you don’t exactly think of bluegrass and picking and drumming, but yeah, I absolutely love bluegrass. I do play guitar and you know, typically Saturday nights, not far from where we live there’s a little bluegrass jam every Saturday night.

That is my idea of a good.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Did you want to go grab it and give us a few, a little sampling, Lionel Meadows, MD?

Lionel Meadows, MD: Oh, no way. And I play it not playing tonight. No, I know. You’ve got my, you got me hungry at this point. You’ve had me working. So, I’m thinking a pizza and winding down for the evening.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Yeah, that sounds great, Lionel Meadows, MD. And it’s only Friday.

You only play on Saturday, so we’re getting early. All right. No problem. So, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you just to tap in or have any more questions for you, how would they

Lionel Meadows, MD: reach you? You know, I have no problem with them reaching out to me directly via email. Honestly, you know, every email that goes to the website comes directly to me right now.

I usually turn around and filter those to where they need to go. But here [email protected]. Send me an email. I do not mind. You’re going to get a certain amount of honesty. Again, you’re going to get the, I don’t mind saying, man, don’t do that. It’s a bad idea. I did it one time. So, I don’t really, you know, I don’t mind telling others about my mistakes and encouraging them to, Hey, here’s the reason why I don’t think you should do that.

So anyway, Catherine, thank you. I’ve enjoyed this. Again, I look forward to having you in the practice again sometime soon. Absolutely.

Catherine Maley, MBA: Thank you so much for your time, Lionel Meadows, MD. And that’s going to wrap it up for us at Beauty and the Biz. So, if you enjoy it that, would you please head over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review or subscribe to beauty and the business.

And if you’ve got any questions for me or some feedback, you can go ahead and leave them at my website, which is www.CatherineMaley.com or you can certainly DM me on Instagram @CatherineMaleyMBA. Thanks so much. And we’ll talk again soon.