Latest / Beyond the Needle: The Aesthetics Business Podcast / The Consultation Framework Every Aesthetic Clinic Needs with Dr. Kamran Amjed
Transcript
- 0:12SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Needle, the Aesthetics Business Podcast.
- 0:15SPEAKER_00: Each week, I'm here to share real actionable strategies and bring on expert guests to help you level up, attract more patients, and build a standout brand.
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: Let's turn your passion into a thriving business together.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: The operations side never gets easier as a clinic grows.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: Staff schedules, payments, marketing, all of it pulling attention away from the treatment room.
- 0:48SPEAKER_00: That is unless you have Gloss Genius, the intelligent system that does all of that work for you, so you can focus on the work you love and watch your revenue grow.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: Gloss Genius is sponsoring this episode and is giving you an exclusive code.
- 1:02SPEAKER_00: Enter code Needle at glossgenus.com for 50% of your first two months of their MedSpa anaesthetic plans.
- 1:10SPEAKER_00: Available to US businesses only.
- 1:12SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into the episode.
- 1:19SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to Beyond the Needle.
- 1:22SPEAKER_00: Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr.
- 1:24SPEAKER_00: Cameron Amjed, medical doctor, multi-clinic owner and founder of Consultation Catalyst, which is the UK's first CPD-approved consultation training programme for aesthetic practitioners.
- 1:34SPEAKER_00: He's also a Stanford AI and healthcare graduate and speaks regularly at CCR, IMCAS and Aesthetic Medicine Live, among many others.
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: So today we're talking about the consultation side of things, the part most of you were never trained on and are just kind of figuring out as you go along.
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, you can be spending a lot of money on ads, posting every day on Instagram, doing everything right from a marketing perspective, and still not seeing the revenue that you expect.
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the time the problem isn't the marketing at all.
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: It's what's happening once the patient is actually in front of you or your team members.
- 2:05SPEAKER_00: Cameron built a framework around this after experiencing it himself.
- 2:09SPEAKER_00: His own conversion rate was high, but the minute he stepped back away from the clinic, the numbers dropped.
- 2:14SPEAKER_00: And that's when he realized it wasn't about him being good at it, it was about the fact that there was no real structure behind it that anyone else could follow.
- 2:22SPEAKER_00: So we get into all of that today.
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: What a high-performing consultation actually looks like, why inconsistency between clinicians is costing clinics money, and what you need to have in place if you ever want to step back or scale.
- 2:34SPEAKER_00: Before we dive into the conversation, just a quick reminder: if you do enjoy these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on the listening platform of your choice and do leave me a little review as well.
- 2:43SPEAKER_00: I really do appreciate it.
- 2:45SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into it.
- 2:52SPEAKER_00: Hi Cameron, thank you so much for joining me today.
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: It's so lovely to have you on the podcast.
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: Now, for anyone who hasn't come across you before, give us the overview.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: Who are you and tell us a little bit about yourself and your background to your businesses?
- 3:06SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hi Emily.
- 3:07SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me on the podcast.
- 3:08SPEAKER_01: So my name is Dr.
- 3:09SPEAKER_01: Cameron.
- 3:10SPEAKER_01: I'm a medical doctor, been a doctor now for just over a decade.
- 3:14SPEAKER_01: Previously, I was an emergency medicine doctor in the NHS.
- 3:17SPEAKER_01: Left the NHS in 2018 to start my career in advanced aesthetics medicine.
- 3:22SPEAKER_01: I began my career with a level seven diploma.
- 3:24SPEAKER_01: I went on to become a trainer in the aesthetics industry as well.
- 3:28SPEAKER_01: And four years ago, I started my own clinic in Manchester where I'm based, where I learned a lot about what I do now, which is the consultation catalyst training and consultancy program.
- 3:39SPEAKER_01: I've launched a few clinics over the past four years.
- 3:41SPEAKER_01: I've launched four separate clinics in four separate brands in different parts of the country.
- 3:45SPEAKER_01: I've worked as a medical director and CQC registered manager as well.
- 3:49SPEAKER_01: So I've got CQC compliance experience.
- 3:52SPEAKER_01: And about a couple of years ago, I delved into the GLP1 sector as well.
- 3:56SPEAKER_01: So I'm a clinical leader in a couple of national GLP1 companies and done some AI health tech education as well with Stanford.
- 4:05SPEAKER_01: And now what I do essentially is my main primary focus is consultation catalyst, which is my aesthetics industry's first ever CPD-approved sales training program for practitioners led by a fellow clinic-owning CQC experienced practitioner.
- 4:21SPEAKER_01: Consultation Catalyst essentially has two arms.
- 4:23SPEAKER_01: It has a training arm where we train practitioners from front of house all the way to therapists, doctors, et cetera, nurses to effectively and ethically sell the value of their clinical skill set and treatments.
- 4:35SPEAKER_01: And then it has the consultancy arm as well, where we advise, it's more B2B, where we advise companies, tech startups, existing aesthetic companies as well on how to integrate new technologies and grow their businesses.
- 4:48SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 4:49SPEAKER_00: So you've got a lot going on.
- 4:50SPEAKER_00: How did you get into the consultation catalyst side of things?
- 4:53SPEAKER_00: How did that come about?
- 4:55SPEAKER_01: Well, it naturally started when I became a clinic owner.
- 5:00SPEAKER_01: I've been in the industry for a long time.
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: I sort of was just like pretty pretty much most of my colleagues started off just, you know, renting a clinical space and as a one-man band.
- 5:10SPEAKER_01: And then when I opened my own very first clinic in Manchester, uh CTC registered clinic, and hired a team and I had a team working for me, I realized that there was certainly a need for some sort of commercial training.
- 5:23SPEAKER_01: They were really excellent therapists, practitioners, doctors, et cetera, but they didn't have the commercial skills to match their clinical skills.
- 5:33SPEAKER_01: And when I sort of took a deep dive into it, I thought I realized that they've not been trained.
- 5:37SPEAKER_01: They've not been trained.
- 5:39SPEAKER_01: And I was looking for something in the industry to offer them some training, like some sort of sales training in our industry.
- 5:45SPEAKER_01: And there just wasn't any.
- 5:46SPEAKER_01: And if there are a few sort of like consultants in the industry, great people, by the way.
- 5:51SPEAKER_01: But you know, when you ask them how many clinics have you run or how many consultations you've done yourself, the answer is normally zero because they don't have a clinical background.
- 5:59SPEAKER_01: So they have an amazing business background, but not a clinical background.
- 6:02SPEAKER_01: So I just devised one myself.
- 6:04SPEAKER_01: You know, I attract my own metrics, replicated it to my team.
- 6:08SPEAKER_01: The team started improving their conversions and the business started doing better.
- 6:13SPEAKER_01: So then I realized it wasn't just me who had this problem.
- 6:16SPEAKER_01: It was my fellow clinic owners, peers, and colleagues in the industry who also had this issue.
- 6:20SPEAKER_01: So then I developed a CPD-approved course.
- 6:23SPEAKER_01: I just sort of packaged up all of my experience into this training program, got it CPD approved, and here we are.
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 6:30SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you really found a little niche gap that was needing some attention in the industry.
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: And you've said that most clinic owners don't have a marketing problem, but they actually have a consultation problem.
- 6:41SPEAKER_00: What do you kind of mean by that?
- 6:42SPEAKER_00: And what are the biggest mistakes that you see people make in consultations?
- 6:47SPEAKER_01: Well, absolutely that.
- 6:48SPEAKER_01: You know, most clinic owners, they've got uh an amazing marketing campaign.
- 6:52SPEAKER_01: They market themselves really well on social media, and if they don't market themselves, they have a PR team or a marketing agency.
- 6:58SPEAKER_01: There's some phenomenal marketing agencies in our industry that help market them.
- 7:02SPEAKER_01: So that's not really their issue.
- 7:04SPEAKER_01: Getting people through the door for some clinics it is, but most high-end clinics, getting people through the door is not an issue or not their main issue, so to speak.
- 7:12SPEAKER_01: It's once they're through the door, the marketing agency has done their job or the campaign has done its job, and you've got people through the door, you've got physical sort of bums on seats.
- 7:23SPEAKER_01: And then it's what happens after that once they're in the consultation room, and it's either the founder or the team of the founder, you know, the excellent therapists, and they're very clinically good, but they sort of scupper the whole deal because they don't know how to convert a client ethically.
- 7:39SPEAKER_01: And, you know, they often get the typical objections, oh, I'll think about it, or I'm not sure about this.
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: I need to get back to you or discuss it with someone.
- 7:47SPEAKER_01: And then they're they're sort of sort of left there thinking, well, what happened there?
- 7:50SPEAKER_01: You know, we've such a nice clinic, we're so good at what we do, and they are, but they weren't able to communicate how good they are at what they do, and that's what I help come in and train them to do.
- 7:59SPEAKER_00: I I feel like a lot of people experience that issue because, you know, with not being able to communicate that properly in consultations, because it doesn't come necessarily naturally to them.
- 8:08SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've come from an NHS background where they've not really had to like, you know, sell themselves before.
- 8:13SPEAKER_00: What would you say to people who are experiencing that?
- 8:15SPEAKER_00: To like what kind of things can they be doing to make the sales side of things in consultations feel less icky and more natural?
- 8:22SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, you have to practice it, just like any other skill.
- 8:25SPEAKER_01: You know, we we practice our injection skills, we practice our laser, our clinical skills, but no one actually sits and practices their consultation skills.
- 8:33SPEAKER_01: They think, like most doctors in the industry, you know, that we know it all because we've done a medical degree.
- 8:39SPEAKER_01: And yes, you do know it all in the clinical sector, but you don't know it all in the commercial or the communication sector.
- 8:45SPEAKER_01: So I would say, first of all, you have to, you know, unlearn a lot of what you've learned in the NHS.
- 8:50SPEAKER_01: That was probably the hardest part of what I had to do.
- 8:52SPEAKER_01: I had to completely unlearn everything.
- 8:54SPEAKER_01: Yes, the NHS is fantastic and it served me well and my colleagues well, in learning a lot of our foundation of our medical careers.
- 9:01SPEAKER_01: And we owe a lot to it, but it doesn't translate well into the business sector or the commercial world.
- 9:07SPEAKER_01: So you have to unlearn everything.
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: For example, in the NHS, we're taught, you know, it's quick consultations and you just sort of dive in and make a plan, and you don't really give that, you don't really focus on patient experience because it's all about, especially from my side, in acute medicine and AE medicine, ANE, it's just about saving a life, right?
- 9:24SPEAKER_01: So there's not a really an experience element in that.
- 9:26SPEAKER_01: However, in the highly competitive private sector of advanced aesthetics medicine or GLP uh one medication, weight loss medicine, you have to offer a premium patient experience.
- 9:38SPEAKER_01: So I would say, you know, one, unlearn everything you've learned in the NHS because it's serving you well clinically but not commercially.
- 9:46SPEAKER_01: And two, you really need to train yourselves in the consultation because just like every other skill, you have to practice it.
- 9:53SPEAKER_00: And you have said before, I think that you convert is it 80 to 90 percent of your consultations yourself?
- 10:01SPEAKER_01: 92%, yes.
- 10:02SPEAKER_00: 92%.
- 10:03SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, okay, that's amazing.
- 10:04SPEAKER_00: But when you stepped back, conversion dropped in your clinic, like within your other with your other team members.
- 10:09SPEAKER_00: So what were you doing that your team wasn't and why weren't they just able to replicate it naturally?
- 10:17SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question because I didn't know myself what the difference was between me and them in the beginning as well.
- 10:23SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, you know, surely it's it can't be that much of a gap purely because of a medical degree.
- 10:28SPEAKER_01: You know, like I'm not actually doing anything medical, I'm just having a conversation.
- 10:32SPEAKER_01: And you do not need a medical degree to have a conversation.
- 10:35SPEAKER_01: And that's what we teach in consultation catalysts that you know our training program is suitable for all levels, whether you're a beginner, whether you're a medic, whether you're a non-medic, it's applicable for everyone because everyone has to communicate their value in some way, even front of house and support management team members and marketing team members, they have to communicate.
- 10:54SPEAKER_01: So, to answer your question as to what the difference was, initially I didn't know.
- 10:57SPEAKER_01: And when I sort of, I just I sat there with my team and I said, Okay, well, let me just watch you do a consultation.
- 11:03SPEAKER_01: I'll be in the background and you know, you know, we we asked the patient, do you mind if we're just doing some training?
- 11:08SPEAKER_01: And I would just sit there in the background and I would say, pretend I'm not here, do what you're doing, because I know you're a fantastic therapist, otherwise you wouldn't be part of my team.
- 11:16SPEAKER_01: So they're an amazing therapist, amazing, you know, practitioners.
- 11:20SPEAKER_01: And there was a few things I noticed they were not doing, which is they weren't positioning themselves effectively to make or sell a high value treatment plan.
- 11:31SPEAKER_01: And when I say they weren't positioning themselves, it's because they weren't gathering enough information.
- 11:36SPEAKER_01: And that's when I realized, ah, okay.
- 11:38SPEAKER_01: So it's not that I'm rushing it or they're rushing it.
- 11:40SPEAKER_01: They're spending time, but they're not gathering the correct level of information that they need as a practitioner or a therapist to position themselves to make a high value treatment plan.
- 11:50SPEAKER_01: And that's what often happens.
- 11:52SPEAKER_01: I find people saying, you know, they're really good at what they do, they've been practicing five, 10, sometimes 15 years, and they don't feel comfortable making these high value treatment packages.
- 12:01SPEAKER_01: And it's because they haven't positioned themselves.
- 12:03SPEAKER_01: So what I do is I come in and I explain to them, like, look, if you gather the right amounts of information in the correct manner, you will position yourselves to support your patients and the business.
- 12:13SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about that correct level of information.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
- 12:17SPEAKER_00: What should people be asking?
- 12:19SPEAKER_01: Well, I always say in the training program, medicine is an information gathering game.
- 12:24SPEAKER_01: The person or the doctor or the practitioner with the most information wins.
- 12:27SPEAKER_01: So when I was an AE doctor, the more information I had about my patient, the better positioned I was to win.
- 12:34SPEAKER_01: And the win in that case was saving someone's life, right?
- 12:37SPEAKER_01: So if I just did a verbal examination, verbal consultation, that's one medium of information.
- 12:43SPEAKER_01: Then sure, I can potentially help my patient.
- 12:45SPEAKER_01: However, if I send them for an x-ray, if I send them for blood tests, if I send them for, you know, a physical examination, blood pressure, saturations, et cetera, I have more information.
- 12:54SPEAKER_01: If I check the ambulance report before they came in, that's more information.
- 12:57SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people, I think we all agree, the more information you have about something, the better your position to help that, whether you're a doctor, whether you're in business, the more information you have, Emily, about the businesses that you work with, the better you can serve those businesses.
- 13:11SPEAKER_01: So I essentially just trained my team, and now I train others, to open their eyes and look at the information coming their way.
- 13:17SPEAKER_01: I say, look, there's what the patient's telling you, number one, then you have to look at the patient.
- 13:22SPEAKER_01: There's visual information coming your way, but you're not trained to see it.
- 13:26SPEAKER_01: You're just asleep to it and you're missing valuable information, which again, you know, we can dive into a little bit later.
- 13:32SPEAKER_01: And then there's, you know, doing a skin scan, doing a physical examination.
- 13:35SPEAKER_01: A lot of people, I was very surprised when I learned that a lot of people don't do a physical examination of the skin or the tissue they are treating.
- 13:44SPEAKER_01: And I say, well, in AE, how would you feel if you know you came in with chest pains and the doctor didn't even listen to your heart with a stethoscope?
- 13:51SPEAKER_01: And they just said, Oh, this is what you need.
- 13:53SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just from a verbal conversation.
- 13:55SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't really uh believe in the doctor's diagnosis or treatment plan.
- 13:58SPEAKER_01: The patient wouldn't feel reassured.
- 14:00SPEAKER_01: So it's the same way in aesthetics medicine, why do you expect a customer or a client to feel so sure in your plan if you haven't gathered enough information first?
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: So that's what we train them to do.
- 14:11SPEAKER_01: And to answer it, go back to your original question as to what's the difference between my conversions and the teams, that's that was the gap.
- 14:17SPEAKER_01: I just noticed that, oh, they're not gathering enough information.
- 14:20SPEAKER_01: You don't need to be a medic to gather this information, you just need to be trained to do so.
- 14:25SPEAKER_01: Once I train the team to do so, their conversions started going up.
- 14:28SPEAKER_01: And actually, the clinics that I I run and and co-own with my partners and the clinics that I've trained, none of them fall below 85% conversions average as a team.
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: Now amazing.
- 14:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really good.
- 14:40SPEAKER_00: And that actually leads nicely into my next question, what you were saying about, you know, the diagnosis side of things, because you talk about moving away from just simply asking patients, you know, what they'd like and what they've come in for and what they're looking to improve, and instead leading with that assessment, that diagnosis and a really structured plan that they understand.
- 14:59SPEAKER_00: And I guess, you know, really informing and empowering the patient in front of you with knowledge about what's going on and what's going to help and why.
- 15:06SPEAKER_00: Why would you say that shift is so important?
- 15:09SPEAKER_00: And why do so many clinic clinicians still default to kind of the you know standard approach of just asking people what they want and what they're looking for?
- 15:17SPEAKER_01: It's another great question.
- 15:18SPEAKER_01: There's two parts to that.
- 15:20SPEAKER_01: So why is it important?
- 15:21SPEAKER_01: And then why do clinicians, you know, fall to the standard protocol?
- 15:25SPEAKER_01: Why is it important?
- 15:26SPEAKER_01: Well, it's important clinically and commercially for your business as well.
- 15:29SPEAKER_01: Clinically, it's important because if it's your treatment plan, you need to back yourself, right?
- 15:34SPEAKER_01: You are taking control of it.
- 15:35SPEAKER_01: If things go wrong, the patient isn't going to share 50% of the complications with you.
- 15:41SPEAKER_01: The onus falls entirely on you as a practitioner or a clinical owner.
- 15:44SPEAKER_01: So it's 100% your responsibility.
- 15:47SPEAKER_01: If that's the case, then it's 100% my plan also.
- 15:49SPEAKER_01: Of course, I will make a plan and my team will make a plan that completely complements the client's lifestyle.
- 15:55SPEAKER_01: So it's got to work for the client.
- 15:57SPEAKER_01: But I need to be confident it's going to work on the client, on the patient.
- 16:00SPEAKER_01: And the analogy I use is if you go to a cardiologist with a heart problem, and after the cardiologist has gathered all of his information, he's sent you for an echocardiogram, an x-ray, an ECG, etc., he's listened to your heart, your pulse, he's felt everything.
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: And he's determined after a thorough examination and information gathering that you require three stents.
- 16:21SPEAKER_01: He's going to tell you, listen, you're going to need three stents, right?
- 16:25SPEAKER_01: He doesn't ask you, well, would you like one stent or two stent or three stents?
- 16:29SPEAKER_01: Just like in our industry, you know, I don't do one, two, three areas of Botox, right?
- 16:34SPEAKER_01: We we just we I tell you, right, what's the result you want?
- 16:38SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what you need.
- 16:39SPEAKER_01: So we shift, we train people to shift from the treatment onto the result.
- 16:43SPEAKER_01: If you go back to the cardiology analogy, the result that people want is a healthy heart without chest pain, right?
- 16:49SPEAKER_01: So the cardiologist will tell you you need three stents in order to achieve this.
- 16:52SPEAKER_01: And the same way, uh, me and my team and the people, the hundreds of clinics, clinicians that I've trained, they are now trained to take lead and back themselves.
- 17:00SPEAKER_01: I say, look, you're the expert.
- 17:02SPEAKER_01: You've spent years in medical school, you've spent years in doing your level four to seven.
- 17:07SPEAKER_01: Back yourselves, you're the expert.
- 17:09SPEAKER_01: They've come to you for guidance.
- 17:10SPEAKER_01: And again, they don't position themselves to back themselves.
- 17:13SPEAKER_01: So I say, gather the information and then you will believe in your own plan.
- 17:17SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, clinically, it's really important because you end up getting the results and you avoid underwhelming results, you avoid complications.
- 17:24SPEAKER_01: And again, if you know, if a complication does occur, you're best positioned to manage that complication because you're taking lead on the plan.
- 17:32SPEAKER_01: Commercially, it's very important as well because then you can scale a business.
- 17:36SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to scale a business when you're leaving, you know, the entire treatment plan at the mercy of how your customer feels on the day.
- 17:43SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, well, some people might want three areas, some people might want one session instead of a course of sessions.
- 17:49SPEAKER_01: But when we know that, okay, our plans are sold as a treatment for the results, it's very a lot easier to manage and forecast where the business is going.
- 17:58SPEAKER_01: And then the second part of your question, which is why do I think people fall to the sort of normal default, you know, way of doing consultations where they ask the patient and take their need?
- 18:07SPEAKER_01: I think it's because it's it's that's what they they've been trained to do.
- 18:11SPEAKER_01: It's the status quo.
- 18:12SPEAKER_01: They think it's normal to ask a patient in our industry, well, how many areas do you want to be treated, or how much mill or filler do you want?
- 18:21SPEAKER_01: And I find it absurd, to be honest, because it's quite contradictory if you think about it, because a lot of these amazing practitioners in our industry, they come out and they advertise themselves as doctor-led clinics or, you know, medical aesthetics.
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: And they are, right?
- 18:35SPEAKER_01: They're they're they're insured, they've done their level seven, they're GMC or GDC registered, they're fantastic practitioners.
- 18:42SPEAKER_01: So then I say, Well, why don't you run your business and your treatment plans like the person that you're advertising yourself to be?
- 18:48SPEAKER_01: Because you wouldn't go to a cardiologist and say, hey, I want two heart stents.
- 18:53SPEAKER_01: He would tell you, you know, and the same way you should tell the patient what they want.
- 18:56SPEAKER_01: But the only way you can tell them what truly works is if you've gathered enough information in the first place.
- 19:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so true when you think about it like that.
- 19:03SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people listening will be having that kind of light bulb moment and wondering why they've never thought about it like that before.
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: Because it's true, you wouldn't go to a GP or any type of doctor in any other industry and request a specific treatment.
- 19:15SPEAKER_00: You'd get the diagnosis and be led from there.
- 19:18SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
- 19:18SPEAKER_01: I always I always say, look, the skin is an organ, right?
- 19:21SPEAKER_01: Just like the heart, the liver, the lungs, and we, you know, we've we've covered the analogy already of the cardiologist.
- 19:26SPEAKER_01: But if you're treating an organ and they're they're taking lead on it, you should also take lead on treating this organ that we are treating, which is the skin.
- 19:34SPEAKER_01: It's a very important organ, surface area-wise, it's the largest organ after the muscles.
- 19:38SPEAKER_01: And you know, we should take it seriously.
- 19:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
- 19:41SPEAKER_00: So tell me a little bit about what you would say a properly structured consultation should look like from start to finish, and what are the defined stages and why does each one kind of matter so much?
- 19:52SPEAKER_01: Well, we cover it in a lot of detail in the six-hour training program.
- 19:55SPEAKER_01: So I won't be able to cover it all, but just on a sort of high-level overview, the way we we position it, and there's no there's no specific way, right?
- 20:04SPEAKER_01: The beauty of the way we train people is we can we say do it in your own way with your own personality, with your own touch on it.
- 20:10SPEAKER_01: We don't have to do it my way because you know, everyone's different.
- 20:14SPEAKER_01: Your practice is different, your customer base is different, your style and personality is different, and it should be genuine, you know.
- 20:20SPEAKER_01: But I think a few fundamental things, no matter what order you do it in, should be communicated across to the customer and should be gathered from the customer.
- 20:29SPEAKER_01: So we always start with a really strong introduction.
- 20:31SPEAKER_01: You know, people like to know who they're buying a treatment from, who they're doing business with.
- 20:36SPEAKER_01: For example, like I'd like to know, you know, when we're purchasing something, like I we like to know what company it is, what the brand's about, the ethos of the brand, the background.
- 20:45SPEAKER_01: So always start with a really strong introduction.
- 20:47SPEAKER_01: I always say to everyone like people need to know how good you are, especially if they're trusting you with their face or with their health or some aspect of their health.
- 20:55SPEAKER_01: Start off with an introduction, introduce your brand, introduce your clinic as well, the other services, because a lot of people they they don't know.
- 21:02SPEAKER_01: They come in for one treatment and they have no idea that you offer a lot of other treatments.
- 21:06SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it a lot of people just assume that the patient has checked out the website and they checked out how many awards they won.
- 21:13SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's quite ignorant to think that people know you as well as you know you.
- 21:17SPEAKER_01: They don't.
- 21:18SPEAKER_01: So speak to them as a complete newbie because that's what they are.
- 21:21SPEAKER_01: They're completely new to your brand and your clinic.
- 21:24SPEAKER_01: Then gather the information.
- 21:25SPEAKER_01: And again, we we cover this in detail, but everything, the more information you can gather, the better.
- 21:30SPEAKER_01: We cover things like lifestyle factors, health factors, of course, physical examination.
- 21:35SPEAKER_01: We do a skin scanner, have a scanner in every clinic because that's a an important part of information.
- 21:39SPEAKER_01: Just like in AE, it would be very hard for me to do my job without sending people for CT scans or x-rays.
- 21:45SPEAKER_01: You know, imagine deleting that form uh or area of information gathering.
- 21:50SPEAKER_01: So having a skin scanner in this day and age is paramount, I believe.
- 21:53SPEAKER_01: And then once you've gathered the information, physical examination, everything, then you know, we we teach everyone to relay it back to them.
- 22:00SPEAKER_01: Because the patient needs to know that you've actually listened.
- 22:02SPEAKER_01: And then once we've related it back to them, we then make the plan.
- 22:04SPEAKER_01: And that's where we take lead and we say, right, based on all of this information that we've gathered, this is what you need.
- 22:09SPEAKER_01: I know you need this because I've just spent the last 30 to 45 minutes getting to know you, doing a physical examination of your skin, scanning your skin with our AI scanner.
- 22:18SPEAKER_01: And now I'm confident as a practitioner, whether you're a therapist, dentist, doctor, nurse, that this is what you need and this is what's going to work.
- 22:25SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: And what would your approach be if you got pushback from the patient in terms of the treatment plan and like budget and things like that?
- 22:33SPEAKER_00: How would you kind of redirect them back to it in an effective way?
- 22:37SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we do have a chapter in the training program called Objection Handling.
- 22:42SPEAKER_01: How to and again, you have to be trained to handle objections.
- 22:45SPEAKER_01: Number one is if your consultation is as good and as structured as it should be, your chances of getting objections are very low.
- 22:53SPEAKER_01: So we don't get a lot of objections because we spend the majority of the consultation listening and gathering information.
- 22:59SPEAKER_01: So when I make a treatment plan and I know that this is going to complement your the it's going to complement the patient's lifestyle needs, family commitments, travel commitments, budget commitments, I've already gathered all of that information to make a plan that complements their budget commitments, family commitments, travel commitments, working commitments, social commitments.
- 23:17SPEAKER_01: So because I've done that, the chances are all we very rarely get objections because of that, because we spent so much time listening.
- 23:24SPEAKER_01: However, if there is still an objection, and it may not be any of the things I've just listed, it may be pain.
- 23:30SPEAKER_01: Maybe you say, okay, doctor, this works for all of my budget, my family commitments, travel commitments, etc.
- 23:36SPEAKER_01: But you know, the pain is too much.
- 23:37SPEAKER_01: And then again, we will say, okay, well, then let's explore some alternative options.
- 23:42SPEAKER_01: But you have to have that ready.
- 23:43SPEAKER_01: So again, you know, the best way to avoid objections is to listen so well in the first place and gather enough information to make a plan that's going to complement your patient's lifestyle in the first place.
- 23:54SPEAKER_01: Objections only occur when there's an element of the treatment plan that doesn't complement the patient's needs.
- 24:00SPEAKER_01: And if you focus on the patient's needs so well, you won't, the chances of you getting an objection is very low in the first place.
- 24:07SPEAKER_01: And if you do have an objection, go through the answer, I promise you, is within your consultation notes.
- 24:11SPEAKER_01: You've missed a question.
- 24:12SPEAKER_01: You've probably missed asking them about maybe it's the logistics.
- 24:16SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have a single parent who needs to arrange childcare.
- 24:18SPEAKER_01: And that could be the objection.
- 24:20SPEAKER_01: You know what, doctor, I can't come in every week.
- 24:22SPEAKER_01: Can we find me a treatment that allows me to come in once every month?
- 24:25SPEAKER_01: Sure, let's let's do that.
- 24:26SPEAKER_01: So to find out what the objection is, I would just ask more questions and gather more information on that objection.
- 24:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so true.
- 24:33SPEAKER_00: I think people make it a lot more complicated in their heads than it actually needs to be.
- 24:37SPEAKER_00: Do you have a kind of follow-up process that you recommend if someone goes away, you know, with their treatment plan after the consultation and then they don't necessarily book in, you know, say a few days go past, they haven't got back in contact with the clinic.
- 24:49SPEAKER_00: When, at which point would you say is the right time to kind of step in and follow up with that patient?
- 24:55SPEAKER_01: We have a very robust follow-up protocol that we again teach in and share in the program.
- 25:00SPEAKER_01: I never try to close someone on the day, personally.
- 25:03SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 25:03SPEAKER_01: And I don't expect my team to as well.
- 25:06SPEAKER_01: Personally, when I got the training program CPD approved, the reason the way I measured my 92% success rate was I it's a very vague term conversion, because what's a true conversion?
- 25:18SPEAKER_01: You know, if I see someone today, you know, in the city center and recommend them to come to my clinic and get a treatment, and a year later they came, is that a successful conversion?
- 25:27SPEAKER_01: Technically, yes, but very hard to measure that metric.
- 25:30SPEAKER_01: So when you're measuring metrics, you have to first of all define what the metric of success is and then put a timeline to it.
- 25:36SPEAKER_01: It's how you measure anything.
- 25:37SPEAKER_01: And you can only improve what you measure.
- 25:39SPEAKER_01: So the metric for success in our clinic or when I was developed devising this training program was a successful conversion on the day or within seven days of that consultation.
- 25:49SPEAKER_01: So I allowed a seven-day window.
- 25:51SPEAKER_01: And if anyone converted within that window, that would be to tick a conversion.
- 25:55SPEAKER_01: Some people convert after two weeks, and that's fine, but I just wouldn't measure it.
- 25:58SPEAKER_01: And if we did, probably the conversions would be even higher.
- 26:01SPEAKER_01: But I think a realistic timeline is seven days.
- 26:04SPEAKER_01: It's a nice time for the patient and the client to process the information you've shared with them.
- 26:09SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of information being shared.
- 26:11SPEAKER_01: You've gathered a lot of information and then you've given a lot of information.
- 26:14SPEAKER_01: Not everyone needs to is able to close on the day.
- 26:17SPEAKER_01: We've had clients that spend four or five thousand pounds plus within a 45-minute consultation, no problem.
- 26:23SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 26:24SPEAKER_01: Then we have people that need to think about it for a two or three hundred pound treatment, and that's absolutely fine.
- 26:28SPEAKER_01: I take, I say to the teen, you don't have to, you're never going to get pressured from me as a clinic owner to close on the day, right?
- 26:35SPEAKER_01: However, yes, you do need to follow them up.
- 26:37SPEAKER_01: And if by seven days they still don't want to, we say, thank you very much.
- 26:40SPEAKER_01: When the time is right for you, okay, we'd love to welcome you back.
- 26:44SPEAKER_01: And the patient really enjoys it.
- 26:46SPEAKER_01: The team really enjoys this work because they don't feel pressure from above to close the client on the day.
- 26:51SPEAKER_01: And I've seen because I've trained loads of clinics and I've seen them try to pressure their team and their staff to close on the day.
- 26:57SPEAKER_01: And I never advise it because one, the team feel pressured.
- 27:00SPEAKER_01: And when they feel pressured, it's very difficult for them to hide that pressure.
- 27:05SPEAKER_01: And it does convey to the patient.
- 27:06SPEAKER_01: So it actually ruins the patient experience as well.
- 27:08SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so, so true.
- 27:10SPEAKER_00: And it breaks down the trust, I think, because I think, especially British people, they don't want to be like they don't want to be sold to, they don't want to feel pushed into anything.
- 27:19SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I think that's really, really important.
- 27:22SPEAKER_00: And actually, I think a lot of people are worried that if someone doesn't commit there and then they'll walk away and just forget about you.
- 27:27SPEAKER_00: But so it's someone's taking the time to come in for that consultation, you know, and people don't have time to waste these days.
- 27:33SPEAKER_01: So well, exactly that.
- 27:35SPEAKER_01: And look, we we do we do train front-of-house teams to support with the follow-ups.
- 27:39SPEAKER_01: We don't do it in a pushy way, you know.
- 27:41SPEAKER_01: A lot of companies out there, I mean, I get email marketings from you know, all these like like for example, suit supply, right?
- 27:47SPEAKER_01: Where a lot of guys get their suits.
- 27:49SPEAKER_01: Suit supply email me sort of like every other day, and I kind of look forward to their emails, right?
- 27:53SPEAKER_01: I I like it.
- 27:54SPEAKER_01: But my point is, is how much is too much?
- 27:56SPEAKER_01: A lot of these corporations are doing uh a lot, and they, you know, because they're in the private sector, if you're going to feel bad about following up someone, then you know, it's gonna be very hard for you to run a business.
- 28:06SPEAKER_01: And also, this is why I I spend a lot of time in the consultation.
- 28:11SPEAKER_01: When you follow up someone robustly after a five to 10 minute chat, then that feels pushy.
- 28:16SPEAKER_01: But I've never had anyone in my clinics complain about the follow-ups because we only follow them up three times within seven days, right?
- 28:24SPEAKER_01: And three times within seven days, and it's after a 45 minute to 60 minute sit-down and conversation.
- 28:31SPEAKER_01: So we've already built that rapport.
- 28:32SPEAKER_01: And all we're doing is we're just saying, hey, would you like any further information or the thing that you wanted to think about?
- 28:39SPEAKER_01: Can we support you with you know whatever it was you want to think about, whether it's the price, whether it's downtime?
- 28:44SPEAKER_01: So we just offer more information to help them make an informed decision.
- 28:48SPEAKER_01: And if by the seventh day they say, you know what, I just still want to think about it.
- 28:51SPEAKER_01: I thank you.
- 28:52SPEAKER_01: I've got all the information, and sometimes they need to move some logistical things around, diaries, holiday, they've got you know special occasions that they need to factor in.
- 29:00SPEAKER_01: We just say, fine, we've given you as much information.
- 29:02SPEAKER_01: If you need any more to help you make an informed decision, please contact us.
- 29:06SPEAKER_01: We'll be happy to get back to you.
- 29:07SPEAKER_01: And then, but we've already built that relationship with them.
- 29:10SPEAKER_01: And once we know, when when you do a follow-up after a 60-minute consultation, all of our consultations are 60 minutes, right?
- 29:16SPEAKER_01: No one, no one minds.
- 29:18SPEAKER_01: They only mind if like you don't know them and you keep pestering them a week later and like you don't even know me.
- 29:23SPEAKER_01: You spent five to ten minutes talking to me, and now you're just after, and that's when customers feel like it's a sale and they're being chased for it.
- 29:29SPEAKER_01: But once you've built a 60-minute rapport plus, by the way, sometimes we're having a conversation with the reception team outside, then it doesn't really feel it just feels like, hey, we're just doing a friendly follow-up type thing, and you know, we'll leave it to them.
- 29:41SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, another thing when it comes to sales, you can't sell to everyone, right?
- 29:45SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't want to sell to everyone.
- 29:47SPEAKER_01: You should only want to sell your treatments to a select cohort of clients that genuinely need your treatments.
- 29:53SPEAKER_01: They're saying that, oh, when people say I can sell ice to an Eskimo, one, I think that's highly inefficient because you're selling someone, you're selling something to some someone who doesn't need it, right?
- 30:04SPEAKER_01: Secondly, it's unethical because why would you sell ice to an Eskimo?
- 30:08SPEAKER_01: He has a lot of ice around him, right?
- 30:10SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I don't want to sell to everyone.
- 30:12SPEAKER_01: I only want to sell to people who genuinely need it.
- 30:14SPEAKER_01: And if they don't need it, after seven days of considering, and if you're like, you know what, actually, I don't need this treatment, I'm happy with the way things are.
- 30:20SPEAKER_01: Great.
- 30:20SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't want to sell it to you.
- 30:22SPEAKER_01: We just want to help you because helping you is what's gonna help our business.
- 30:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so true.
- 30:26SPEAKER_00: If they've just gone away and decided that they don't want to have the treatment, you probably wouldn't want to treat them anyway because that's going against your ethics and you know.
- 30:35SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 30:36SPEAKER_01: And also, you're only going to end up with a clinical situation that's gonna lead to undesired results, complaints, complications.
- 30:45SPEAKER_01: And every minute you spend on managing those complications and complaints is a minute you're not spending on a new consultation or someone who does want your treatment and need your treatment, or it's a minute that you're not spending on growing your business for clinic number two.
- 30:57SPEAKER_01: So it's actually highly inefficient to try and sell to people who don't need it.
- 31:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and being quite clear about the fact that they they don't need it and they don't they change their mind.
- 31:05SPEAKER_00: Just done in terms of consultation payment.
- 31:08SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing you recommend that clinics charge for their consultations.
- 31:12SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
- 31:12SPEAKER_01: Especially if you're going to do them properly, like how me and my team do them high-value consultations, 60 minutes, sharing your level of expertise, making a plan that truly works for them.
- 31:23SPEAKER_01: You know it's going to work on them, you know it's going to work for them based on the information you've gathered.
- 31:28SPEAKER_01: We charge£100 at least deposit in in some London clinics that I consult for, they charge even more.
- 31:33SPEAKER_01: And I would say you should.
- 31:35SPEAKER_01: One, it's it filters out people who are time wasters, right?
- 31:38SPEAKER_01: Uh, because again, like I said, you do not want to be, I don't, I don't want to do 20 free consultations.
- 31:44SPEAKER_01: I want to do five high-value consultations of people who genuinely have been vetted and need the support and the value that my clinics can offer.
- 31:52SPEAKER_01: That's what I say to people.
- 31:53SPEAKER_01: I said, Why would you why would you want to do 20 free consultations and just chance it?
- 31:58SPEAKER_01: You know, the we the reason we have such a high conversion rate isn't by mistake, it's because we select the people, the front of house team that we have have been trained to price prime them, vet them, say, look, just to let you know, like, you know, we're really so looking forward to welcoming you.
- 32:14SPEAKER_01: Our hair restoration treatment protocols range anywhere between three and a half to five thousand pounds plus.
- 32:19SPEAKER_01: Now, if someone has heard that big number, has pulled out their credit card to put down a 100-pound deposit, that is a serious client who genuinely needs some support.
- 32:29SPEAKER_01: They've not been scared off by the big number.
- 32:31SPEAKER_01: Even despite hearing that, they've asked a few questions.
- 32:33SPEAKER_01: Front of house has been trained, like how long does a consultation take, and how long are the appointments?
- 32:37SPEAKER_01: And they say, yep, it's all up to the doctor's discretion.
- 32:39SPEAKER_01: Here's our process, here's what we do for you, here's what will be included in your consultation.
- 32:43SPEAKER_01: And if you do move forward with the treatment on the plan, if the doctor seems it deems it's safe and effective for you, the the price is redeemed off the treatment plan.
- 32:51SPEAKER_01: So it works out being free.
- 32:52SPEAKER_01: And if it's not, then at least you're protecting your time and your business's time.
- 32:56SPEAKER_00: Is there any instance where that consultation fee would be refunded?
- 33:00SPEAKER_01: No, no.
- 33:01SPEAKER_01: Only if they don't turn up for it and they've given enough notice.
- 33:05SPEAKER_01: So we have a 48-hour, and I think in in my Midlands clinic, we have a 72-hour notice period because we're that busy there now.
- 33:12SPEAKER_01: But generally speaking, there's a 48-hour notice period.
- 33:15SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, if they've given 48 hours notice to the team and they've cancelled their consultation, not turned up for it, then absolutely they get a refund.
- 33:22SPEAKER_01: But if they've come, they've taken the uh, you know, we've allocated the time, we've shared our expertise.
- 33:27SPEAKER_01: We've never been asked for a refund after a consultation, even with people who have not gone forward with the plan, like technically non-converters.
- 33:35SPEAKER_01: They've then said, Yeah, you know what?
- 33:37SPEAKER_01: This has been a really insight.
- 33:38SPEAKER_01: I've learned a lot about my own skin health, my own hair health, etc., my own body.
- 33:43SPEAKER_01: This was really insightful.
- 33:44SPEAKER_01: And yes, okay, this isn't the clinic for me because of budget or logistics or whatever it may be, but they've left there with some value.
- 33:51SPEAKER_01: And everyone has said this has been a very thorough consultation, not just by me, but by my team.
- 33:56SPEAKER_01: So the only time refunds have been offered is if people don't turn up.
- 33:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 33:59SPEAKER_01: And that that happens, that's fine.
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: I mean, some people listening, and this is something I hear all the time.
- 34:57SPEAKER_00: You know, people say, I know I should be charging for my consultations, but I'm just scared it's going to put people off.
- 35:02SPEAKER_00: And you know, my my you know, my inquiry rate and my my booking rate from new new patients is going to drop.
- 35:08SPEAKER_00: What would you say to those people who are like currently in that mindset?
- 35:12SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was me as well.
- 35:14SPEAKER_01: That was me in the early days.
- 35:15SPEAKER_01: So I I completely understand and you know uh can can sympathize with that.
- 35:20SPEAKER_01: But I would say, you know, after having, you know, when once you cut your teeth in the industry and you've the, you know, you've run a few clinics and you realize actually it's quality over quantity.
- 35:30SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite sayings is proceed as if success is inevitable.
- 35:34SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 35:34SPEAKER_01: If you drop your consultations, inquiries by, you know, implementing a deposit structure where you're charging for your consultations, naturally, of course, your inquiries are going to drop.
- 35:45SPEAKER_01: My sort of advice would be just be prepared for that and be happy because the people that are dropping are the people that are not your clients.
- 35:51SPEAKER_01: You're trying to sell to people that are not your customers.
- 35:54SPEAKER_01: A lot of clinics, they don't even do demographic research, they don't know who on earth they're selling to.
- 35:58SPEAKER_01: They're just trying to sell at random.
- 36:00SPEAKER_01: We have a very targeted approach.
- 36:02SPEAKER_01: We we don't want to sell to everyone.
- 36:04SPEAKER_01: We want to sell to people that can, one, afford the treatments in our clinic.
- 36:08SPEAKER_01: And when I say afford, I don't mean just financially.
- 36:11SPEAKER_01: I mean they can afford the downtime, they can afford to travel into the clinic, they can afford the whole process.
- 36:17SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's number one.
- 36:18SPEAKER_01: And you know, if the inquiries drop, they drop because and then you should back yourself and definitely be trained.
- 36:24SPEAKER_01: So the ones, the few that do come in, they're your golden ticket clients, and you should be trained to absolutely offer a valuable consultation for them.
- 36:31SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
- 36:33SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's almost you just need to, you know, think about it slightly differently.
- 36:37SPEAKER_00: Yes, the inquiries might drop, but the people that you are getting are more of the right people and less of the time waste is they're less likely to come in, take an hour out of your diary, get loads of free advice, and then not come back again or buy anything.
- 36:49SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 36:49SPEAKER_01: And look, the example I always give is let's look at Spire's Hospital, right?
- 36:54SPEAKER_01: It's a private hospital.
- 36:55SPEAKER_01: They charge a premium for their consultations and their and their sort of bookings, and they should.
- 37:02SPEAKER_01: It's a premium establishment.
- 37:03SPEAKER_01: You're getting a totally different experience to most NHS hospitals.
- 37:06SPEAKER_01: And you know, they know what they're doing when it comes to they know that they don't want to treat every patient.
- 37:12SPEAKER_01: And that's fine.
- 37:12SPEAKER_01: They we're not saying every patient doesn't deserve support and treatment.
- 37:16SPEAKER_01: They're just saying that's great, but we're not an AE.
- 37:19SPEAKER_01: And if you have that issue, please go to the NHS.
- 37:22SPEAKER_01: If you want to pay and see a pay a premium and have a different experience, they're the people that they're targeting.
- 37:27SPEAKER_01: So there are a number of people out there.
- 37:30SPEAKER_01: Everyone deserves, you know, medical aesthetic treatments and you know, skincare treatments and to boost their confidence in it, etc.
- 37:36SPEAKER_01: Fine.
- 37:36SPEAKER_01: But you know, make sure that they belong in your clinic.
- 37:39SPEAKER_01: I've consulted for many groups, laser clinics, therapy clinics.
- 37:43SPEAKER_01: They have a different cohort.
- 37:44SPEAKER_01: They're in a shopping center because their cohort of patients is walk-ins.
- 37:48SPEAKER_01: They want those and they're very accessibly priced.
- 37:50SPEAKER_01: That's great.
- 37:51SPEAKER_01: But if you're running a premium clinic and you you want to charge a consultation, you're going to see a different cohort of patients.
- 37:58SPEAKER_01: And that's why your inquiries are going to drop.
- 38:00SPEAKER_01: But you also will start attracting different cohort of patients, higher value ones.
- 38:04SPEAKER_01: I think you should definitely charge for your price for your time.
- 38:07SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
- 38:07SPEAKER_00: I totally agree.
- 38:08SPEAKER_00: Just going back to the execution of the consultation for a second, you've mentioned transition points within a consultation.
- 38:16SPEAKER_00: What are those?
- 38:17SPEAKER_00: And why do consultations typically break down on them?
- 38:22SPEAKER_00: And how do you train a team to handle them consistently?
- 38:25SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is the framework we teach exactly in the consultation capitalist training program.
- 38:31SPEAKER_01: There are sections.
- 38:32SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've loosely just covered them before, which is your introduction, then there's an information gathering phase, and then there's an information sharing phase.
- 38:39SPEAKER_01: If I had to like really broadly summarize it, I'd say there's three sections where you do an introduction, you gather the information, and then you share the information of a treatment plan.
- 38:48SPEAKER_01: And that's what that's all a consultation essentially is if we look at it in any sector of medicine, right?
- 38:54SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a cardiologist, like I mentioned, a plastic surgeon or an aesthetics medical professional or practitioner.
- 39:00SPEAKER_01: You've got to say who you are, what your practice does, gather enough information to position yourself to support, you know, the patient in front of you, in no matter what kind of patient it is, private, NHS, whatever.
- 39:12SPEAKER_01: And then give enough information so that they can make an informed decision.
- 39:15SPEAKER_01: Like, is this gonna work for me?
- 39:17SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 39:17SPEAKER_01: And that's often what happens.
- 39:18SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes it's the last section where they've got a solid treatment plan and they haven't communicated it effectively and given, and I just say to people, I say, put yourself in the position of your client.
- 39:29SPEAKER_01: Do they, if if you were your client, have you given that client enough information to part ways with four, five, six thousand pounds?
- 39:37SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when someone goes and buys a car, they generally speaking, you know, will test drive the car, they'll gather enough information, they'll look at the fuel consumption, etc.
- 39:47SPEAKER_01: Once they have enough information, they say, okay, you know what, I'm happy to buy this car.
- 39:50SPEAKER_01: Same way in the treatment plan.
- 39:52SPEAKER_01: Give the information.
- 39:52SPEAKER_01: So there might be sort of overall, there's multiple in there that we cover in depth in the training program, but overall, I'd say they're the sections.
- 40:00SPEAKER_01: The transitioning, it's the reason I subsect them is one, it's really important for the practitioner that we train to know which part is when.
- 40:08SPEAKER_01: Because on the information gathering side, you need to be a very good listener.
- 40:11SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of people just interrupting the client.
- 40:13SPEAKER_01: They'll ask a patient a question and then they'll interrupt them mid.
- 40:17SPEAKER_01: And I'll say you're you're in the information gathering stage right now, right?
- 40:20SPEAKER_01: Identify where you are in your consultation and just shut up and listen, right?
- 40:25SPEAKER_01: Because the more you let them speak, the more information you have.
- 40:28SPEAKER_01: Sure, you can help guide them because patients sometimes go off track, but help guide them keeping within your consultation lanes.
- 40:34SPEAKER_01: Then once you've gathered it, it's very important that the patient understands that, right, okay, it's our time to speak now.
- 40:40SPEAKER_01: We're gonna tell you what to do, right?
- 40:42SPEAKER_01: We're gonna tell you what to do confidently, clearly, and concisely because we know over the last 45 to 60 minutes, we've gathered in so much information from you.
- 40:50SPEAKER_01: We know this is gonna work on you.
- 40:52SPEAKER_01: And then the final question really is does it work for you?
- 40:54SPEAKER_01: And often it does because we're making a plan that complements not just their clinical needs, but also their social and family commitments, etc., and and you know, budget commitments.
- 41:03SPEAKER_00: You've done the Stanford AI and healthcare program, so you've clearly got an interest in AI.
- 41:08SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's anything in the terms of AI in the in the AI world that could come in in the future to help streamline the consultation process or make it easier for practitioners to carry them out?
- 41:20SPEAKER_00: Like because I'm I'm guessing, you know, in consultations, practitioners spend a lot of their time making notes.
- 41:25SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you think practitioners could be doing right now, utilising AI to make that process easier?
- 41:30SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's already here, by the way.
- 41:31SPEAKER_01: It's not even in the future.
- 41:33SPEAKER_01: We're already using AI in our consultation.
- 41:35SPEAKER_01: So, as I mentioned about the information gathering part of the consultation, one part is scanning.
- 41:40SPEAKER_01: So I have an AI scanner in all of my clinics.
- 41:43SPEAKER_01: I have I've we've bought three of these Aura scanners.
- 41:45SPEAKER_01: They're amazing.
- 41:46SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not sponsored by them.
- 41:47SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know, have any sort of ties with them in that regard, but I just bought them because they are so useful in gathering information and it uses AI technology to gather the information and make a 3D digital twin.
- 42:00SPEAKER_01: And you can actually show the patient what you're going to look like after the procedure in real time.
- 42:05SPEAKER_01: Like you can scale it and it like changes the shape or the reduces the wrinkles.
- 42:09SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's so essentially it's projecting and making a projection of where the end result is.
- 42:15SPEAKER_01: So we're using AI in the imaging section of the information gathering of a consultation already.
- 42:21SPEAKER_01: Um we're using AI in note-taking.
- 42:24SPEAKER_01: So there's many, many apps, uh, as you know, like I think even Pabu and um Zenoti are implementing AI in in the CRMs that most aesthetic clinics use.
- 42:33SPEAKER_01: But I would say generally, yes, you know, it's streamlining it.
- 42:36SPEAKER_01: It's just very important to keep the human element though.
- 42:41SPEAKER_01: So I I I did write an article on this in I forgot which journal it was now.
- 42:46SPEAKER_01: They're gonna absolutely uh kill me for this.
- 42:49SPEAKER_01: But it was oh no, it was it was the JRAM.
- 42:51SPEAKER_01: So it's Journal of Regenerative Aesthetics Medicine, actually.
- 42:54SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 42:54SPEAKER_01: And I wrote in there the sort of implementation and utilization of AI in in our practice and our field.
- 43:02SPEAKER_01: You should use it as a co-pilot, not an autopilot.
- 43:05SPEAKER_01: So use it as a co-pilot, make sure you're still taking lead in the consultation, but absolutely use it to support you.
- 43:11SPEAKER_01: Just be very mindful that it shouldn't take lead in your decision making.
- 43:15SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't let the AI make your treatment plan for you.
- 43:18SPEAKER_01: That's the part that I would be approaching with extreme caution because some of the technology I'm seeing coming out, it is going to recommend it.
- 43:25SPEAKER_01: Because it's quite easy to do so if you think about it.
- 43:28SPEAKER_01: What is a treatment plan?
- 43:29SPEAKER_01: You gather enough information, you recognize patterns, and then you form a treatment plan based on those patterns.
- 43:34SPEAKER_01: That's what GPs do.
- 43:35SPEAKER_01: It's pattern recognition, right?
- 43:37SPEAKER_01: So AI is phenomenal at pattern recognition.
- 43:40SPEAKER_01: We already know this with radiography and radiology.
- 43:43SPEAKER_01: Radiologists are very, you know, their jobs are at risk at high.
- 43:46SPEAKER_01: My radiology friends are extremely nervous about this because no one recognizes patterns better than AI.
- 43:52SPEAKER_01: And reading a scan essentially is pattern recognition.
- 43:55SPEAKER_01: Same with making a treatment plan.
- 43:56SPEAKER_01: You're recognizing patterns in symptoms in sort of you know clinical presentation, and you're gathering the information, connecting the dots, and then making a treatment plan.
- 44:06SPEAKER_01: But when AI starts to do this, it's just very important to keep a human element because of what we do.
- 44:11SPEAKER_01: It's people's faces, it's people's hair health, skin health, body health.
- 44:15SPEAKER_01: And it's a very intimate, you know, sector of their life.
- 44:19SPEAKER_01: And so it's really important to allow AI to guide you, but not to make the decisions for you.
- 44:25SPEAKER_01: Sure.
- 44:26SPEAKER_00: Have you seen a difference in conversion rate since introducing the aura?
- 44:29SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've heard amazing things about the aura.
- 44:31SPEAKER_00: I've worked with people who have an aura advice, but I'm guessing it's like, you know, it's different to what any other skin scanner has been able to do, you know, up until today.
- 44:40SPEAKER_00: And obviously, like you say, you can literally show patients what the end result is going to look like before they've even had a treatment.
- 44:45SPEAKER_00: Does that have you seen that make a difference in people's decision making when it comes to actually confirming whether they want to go ahead with the treatment plan?
- 44:52SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
- 44:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 44:54SPEAKER_01: I think well, because I always in I always track my metrics.
- 44:57SPEAKER_01: I think we've increased the patient satisfaction and definitely the conversions by I think it was 12% on average across the three clinics.
- 45:05SPEAKER_01: So I've I've bought three of these devices in the last six months, right?
- 45:09SPEAKER_01: Just two two recently on the conference in Malta.
- 45:12SPEAKER_01: So I know the team really well.
- 45:13SPEAKER_01: The team's really great.
- 45:14SPEAKER_01: The device is really great as well.
- 45:16SPEAKER_01: And when people ask me, because I get called as a consultant advisor, like, hey, which devices should we buy?
- 45:22SPEAKER_01: Which scanner should we buy?
- 45:23SPEAKER_01: The reason I always say you must buy a scanner.
- 45:25SPEAKER_01: So I'm, of course, going to recommend the one that works for me in my clinics, which is the Aura, but at least buy a scanner, even if you don't buy that one, because the analogy I use is of a sat nav in a car.
- 45:36SPEAKER_01: So imagine I ask you to drive from Kent to Manchester and use your SATNAV, but your SATNAV is only going to give you verbal instructions the whole way.
- 45:43SPEAKER_01: Guaranteed, you're probably going to get lost.
- 45:45SPEAKER_01: You're probably going to miss a turn or miss an exit on the roundabout.
- 45:48SPEAKER_01: Even I would, right?
- 45:49SPEAKER_01: And if you're like me, you're probably following the image on the screen.
- 45:53SPEAKER_01: You're just following the blue line until you get to your destination.
- 45:56SPEAKER_01: So you need visual cues.
- 45:57SPEAKER_01: The same way, think of it from your patient's point of view.
- 46:00SPEAKER_01: It's a communication training program, right?
- 46:03SPEAKER_01: The consultation capitalist.
- 46:04SPEAKER_01: I say to them, when you're in this third section where you're giving as much information, if you're giving that information verbally, especially with regenerative aesthetics, like uh you may know I sit on the board of the Regenerative Aesthetics Medical Institute.
- 46:16SPEAKER_01: So I know regenerative aesthetics really well.
- 46:18SPEAKER_01: And when you're selling regenerative aesthetics to the clients, this is very slow treatment progress.
- 46:24SPEAKER_01: Polynucleotides, exosomes, you know, sculpture, uh, julane, all of these sort of biostimulators, you do not get the results straight away like fillers, right?
- 46:34SPEAKER_01: It's going to be months.
- 46:35SPEAKER_01: Now, coming back to the analogy of the stat map, if you're if you're asking someone to take a journey from Kent to Manchester only verbally, they're going to get lost.
- 46:42SPEAKER_01: Imagine you're now trying to sell this three to six month treatment journey verbally only.
- 46:49SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're not going to buy into it.
- 46:50SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're going to be a little bit lost.
- 46:52SPEAKER_01: However, if you use the Aura or an imaging device, a scanner, and present like, hey, this is how you're going to look in three months, four months, five months, six months, you're now displaying visually the journey that you're asking the patient in front of you to invest thousands of pounds into.
- 47:08SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that's why I love the Aura scanner device.
- 47:11SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think it's paramount that all clinics have some form of a scanner because it's not just to help you gather information, it's also to communicate the information back to the patient in a way that they will understand, just like you will understand how to get from Kent to Manchester by not just listening to verbal instructions but looking at the screen in your car.
- 47:30SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's so true, so true.
- 47:32SPEAKER_00: And I don't think there's anything more convincing than being able to see the results in front of you and what you're going to achieve, you know.
- 47:38SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
- 47:40SPEAKER_00: On the other side of the AI thing, I have to ask your thoughts on this because I'm hearing a lot of practitioners say at the moment that they're getting patients coming into them, you know, for a consultation and they have given a picture of themselves to an AI tool like ChatGPT and said, What treatments do you think I need to look better or to look less tired or whatever?
- 47:58SPEAKER_00: And then ChatGPT is giving them a list of treatments and the the patient is literally going to the practitioner with his list of treatments and say, This is what I think I need, this is what AI is telling me that I need.
- 48:08SPEAKER_00: What would you like, what would you say to that?
- 48:10SPEAKER_00: What would you say is the best way to deal with that?
- 48:12SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, if someone I've not had that yet, thankfully, but if I was to experience that, I've heard of people that have, but if I was to come across such a situation, this is where the introduction is so important, right?
- 48:24SPEAKER_01: I would definitely say, look, before we begin, this is my background, this is what I do, because you need to state your sort of clinical authority in that situation of why you are better positioned than an AI tool to make that decision.
- 48:37SPEAKER_01: Alan AI is just looking at a photo, one piece of information gathering.
- 48:42SPEAKER_01: What I would say is, hey, look, I'm gonna scan your face with my AI scanner, I'm gonna do a physical examination, I'm gonna feel the tissue.
- 48:48SPEAKER_01: This is something ChatGPT can't do right now.
- 48:51SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna factor in all of the other things.
- 48:52SPEAKER_01: So you've just shared an image.
- 48:54SPEAKER_01: I've asked about your sleep health, your diet, your allergies, your working out routine, et cetera, et cetera, your sun exposure.
- 49:01SPEAKER_01: These are, you know, so what I'm gonna essentially explain to the patient who does such a thing is say, look, that's a phenomenal plan on the limited amount of information you've shared with ChatGPT.
- 49:12SPEAKER_01: My job as your doctor or practitioner is to gather more information, physical examination, et cetera, scanning, visual, you know, inspection as well.
- 49:21SPEAKER_01: And based off of the extra information that I have that ChatGPT doesn't have, right, this is the treatment plan that I recommend.
- 49:27SPEAKER_01: And I think patients would, you know, that's just a logical sense.
- 49:30SPEAKER_01: Patient would say, yeah, actually, you know what?
- 49:32SPEAKER_01: The recommendation that this AI has made for me is based off just an image, right?
- 49:37SPEAKER_01: Whereas the AI, the treatment plan that Dr.
- 49:39SPEAKER_01: Cameron and his team have recommended for me is based on five metrics of information gathering.
- 49:44SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
- 49:45SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's scary that that's happening, but if you deal with it exactly like you've said, the patient would leave the consultation and completely have forgotten that they ever had that conversation with ChatGPT.
- 49:55SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just about positioning yourself, backing yourself and taking lead on the plan.
- 50:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 50:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
- 50:02SPEAKER_00: Now, I have to ask you about your experience growing, you know, you've got multiple clinics now, and you're not obviously present in the clinics all of the time.
- 50:09SPEAKER_00: You're you're doing lots of other things as we've established.
- 50:12SPEAKER_00: How did you, and this is something I love to ask clinic owners once they've reached this point, because a lot of people say to me, I've had a lot of conversations with practitioners who have come on as guests.
- 50:23SPEAKER_00: I think the number one problem that clinic owners have is being able to step away from their clinic without it going quiet.
- 50:29SPEAKER_00: How have you managed to create that for yourself in your own clinics?
- 50:32SPEAKER_01: Systems.
- 50:33SPEAKER_01: Systems all day long.
- 50:34SPEAKER_01: We have a system for absolutely everything.
- 50:36SPEAKER_01: I was one of the practitioners where I was trapped in my business and it's not a pleasant, you know, experience.
- 50:43SPEAKER_01: It's not good, it's not good for you, and it's not also not good for your business because if you're in the business, you can't work on the business to grow it.
- 50:50SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it did take a lot of hard work and you know lessons learnt to get to this stage.
- 50:57SPEAKER_01: You know, now as I mentioned, I've launched four clinics, I'm still part of three of them.
- 51:01SPEAKER_01: One's a GLP1 clinic and two aesthetic aesthetic clinics, one in Manchester, one in in Leicestershire.
- 51:06SPEAKER_01: And you have to have systems in place.
- 51:08SPEAKER_01: So you can only improve what you measure.
- 51:10SPEAKER_01: So you have to track things.
- 51:11SPEAKER_01: You have to have clear communication platforms with your teams if you're not going to be there.
- 51:16SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, you have to get used to the fact that a business is only a business if it can run without you.
- 51:21SPEAKER_01: A lot of the clinics that I train, I mean, just this year alone, we're half we're just past halfway through the year.
- 51:27SPEAKER_01: I've had the privilege of training just under 200 practitioners, right?
- 51:32SPEAKER_01: Through consultation capitalists, multiple clinic owners.
- 51:35SPEAKER_01: We're training a big group next week, you know, who owns four sites, very successful.
- 51:39SPEAKER_01: And, you know, one thing I've learned is is they they do not they can't fathom the fact that the business can and one should run without them.
- 51:49SPEAKER_01: I said, if a business is dependent on you, it's not a business, it's just a second glorified job, right?
- 51:54SPEAKER_01: So a business is only a business if it can run without you.
- 51:57SPEAKER_01: And then you need to work backwards from there.
- 51:59SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, what can I do to make it run without me?
- 52:02SPEAKER_01: You know, how can I empower my team?
- 52:04SPEAKER_01: What systems can I do?
- 52:05SPEAKER_01: So we have loads of things that we, and this is what we teach in this in the final section of the consultation catalyst training program, is how to utilize the systems.
- 52:14SPEAKER_01: We spend all morning training on how to sell and the value and do the consultation, and then we put systems in place to empower them.
- 52:20SPEAKER_01: And you have to have, you know, if you've got a front of house team, I appreciate like some people they're practicing themselves.
- 52:26SPEAKER_01: But once you do get to that stage, you need to make sure that the front of house and the back of house are working in conjunction together.
- 52:32SPEAKER_01: You've got to have the systems in place to allow them to do so.
- 52:35SPEAKER_01: So we use clear communication tools.
- 52:37SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you can use like Monday.com, Trello.com, things like this.
- 52:41SPEAKER_01: You've got to have metrics that you're measuring, you've got to have team targets.
- 52:45SPEAKER_01: A lot, it still baffles me how people do not have targets.
- 52:49SPEAKER_01: And I say, well, you know, how does your team know where you're even aiming?
- 52:53SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to have a we have morning meetings every morning with all of our teams, and you can have that virtually.
- 52:58SPEAKER_01: Then we have check-in points throughout the afternoon.
- 53:01SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we teach this in in the training programs called the batch communication method.
- 53:06SPEAKER_01: It saves a lot of clinic owners a lot of time, and they they they just say, wow, we really, really love this stuff.
- 53:11SPEAKER_01: So that's all I would say is just systems.
- 53:14SPEAKER_01: Put systems in place.
- 53:15SPEAKER_01: We'll teach the systems in the program.
- 53:17SPEAKER_01: Not all of the systems work for all clinics, but what we what we have found, the feedback we've received is that people say, you know what, you've taught us maybe 10 different systems, and four of them work for me right now at this stage of my career.
- 53:29SPEAKER_01: And it's good to know about the other six so that once I am at that stage and I've got multi-clinics, I can I can be aware of those ones.
- 53:35SPEAKER_01: So it's just good to have an idea of these.
- 53:38SPEAKER_00: What's the one system that you would say every it works for almost every clinic owner or or you know, clinic that will help them?
- 53:45SPEAKER_00: You know, if they've got no systems in place right now, maybe they started off, it was just them injecting, then they've grown, you know, they brought other people in the team, they've not really implemented any systems before.
- 53:54SPEAKER_00: What's the one system that you think most people can benefit from?
- 53:57SPEAKER_01: If I have to give away one, which doesn't require any investment, doesn't require any purchase of any platform, you can do today immediately.
- 54:08SPEAKER_01: I would just say the batch communication method is something that I've devised.
- 54:12SPEAKER_01: And all I say is just batch your inquiries together.
- 54:15SPEAKER_01: So as a clinic owner, you're gonna get pinged all day long.
- 54:18SPEAKER_01: Problem, problem, problem from patients, from staff, from new starters, etc.
- 54:24SPEAKER_01: You cannot help that.
- 54:25SPEAKER_01: It's your job as a clinic owner to deal with those.
- 54:27SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 54:28SPEAKER_01: But what you can control is at what rate they come in.
- 54:31SPEAKER_01: So what I've trained my team to do, and it works really well for them and for me, they appreciate it as well.
- 54:37SPEAKER_01: They say, you know what, we love working like this, Dr.
- 54:39SPEAKER_01: Cameron, because we can put our inquiries into sort of one batch, present it to you in the afternoon.
- 54:46SPEAKER_01: We know we have access to you in the afternoon at one o'clock, because no matter where I am in the world, around one o'clock I'm probably going to be having lunch.
- 54:54SPEAKER_01: So an easy one, just a sort of uh quick win, I would say, for your followers is try and batch your problems.
- 55:00SPEAKER_01: You know, I do this with my emails, you know, like you get inundated with emails, and I just think, well, if it's an email, there's it's not that urgent.
- 55:07SPEAKER_01: You know, if it was urgent, they'd call me, right?
- 55:09SPEAKER_01: So I have set times in the day where I don't look at my emails and you know, unless if it's a time-sensitive matter, they would have rang me.
- 55:16SPEAKER_01: So I just think I'll check my emails in the morning and I'll check them once in the afternoon and then maybe once in the evening.
- 55:21SPEAKER_01: Three batches, you know?
- 55:23SPEAKER_01: And then in between, I'm enjoying life or I'm woke working on the business or living, you know, you're living, spending time with the family, which is which is important because as a founder, you you've got to live a little bit as well.
- 55:35SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you're not going to be lasting very long, you're gonna get burnt out, you're gonna, you're going to, you know, not last very long.
- 55:42SPEAKER_01: It's it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, you know.
- 55:44SPEAKER_01: And even when you look at these founders that are 10, 20 years plus, is because they have systems in place, they they realize that actually, you know what, things can be dealt with in three to four hours' time.
- 55:54SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think the batch communication method is something that everyone really loves and enjoys.
- 55:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that one.
- 56:00SPEAKER_00: And the email I totally agree with.
- 56:01SPEAKER_00: I think it's so easy to get, I mean, especially if you've got notifications turned on and you're just ping, ping, ping, and you get distracted from other things that you're doing, and then it takes longer to complete those tasks because you're getting distracted all the time.
- 56:11SPEAKER_00: So I do exactly the same thing.
- 56:12SPEAKER_00: I'll look at my emails first thing in the morning, last thing in the afternoon, and sometimes I'm not even going to reply on the same day if it's really not that urgent.
- 56:19SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think that's one thing that most people can do and get away with, especially if you've got an admin team of some sort that are dealing with the inquiries, which are obviously the most important thing to kind of respond to in a timely matter.
- 56:31SPEAKER_00: Now, I also want to ask you about the regenerative side of things, because obviously you're hugely passionate about that and GLP ones and things like that as well.
- 56:38SPEAKER_00: Where do you see that side of things going in the industry?
- 56:41SPEAKER_00: And if someone's interested in bringing in kind of GLP ones into their own offering, where can they start?
- 56:48SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good question.
- 56:49SPEAKER_01: So the, you know, they're two separate subsects but very interlinked.
- 56:52SPEAKER_01: So regenerative aesthetics, as I mentioned, I'm pleased to have joined the board of the Regenerative Aesthetics Medical Institute as of this year.
- 57:00SPEAKER_01: And they've got a great board, they're doing great things, you know, especially with their conference coming up in November, the Ramsey conference.
- 57:08SPEAKER_01: So it's a great sector that's growing and it's forever growing, you know, like we've seen polynucleotides, exosomes, um, there's now regenerative topical solutions coming out, and it's only growing more and more.
- 57:21SPEAKER_01: The challenge that people are facing, are going to face is how do you communicate this and convince people in an era of instant, you know, they want things instantly.
- 57:29SPEAKER_01: How do you communicate that?
- 57:30SPEAKER_01: Look, slow is safe, safe is good, and it this is going to take time.
- 57:34SPEAKER_01: Uh again, you know, that's where where we come in.
- 57:36SPEAKER_01: This is this is why I work so closely with Thermo Focus, because they they are leading the way when it comes to regenerative aesthetics.
- 57:42SPEAKER_01: You know, they bought sort of polyucotides into the country and they're they're working on some really, really exciting things as well.
- 57:48SPEAKER_01: They've got their new products, Aurora Vita.
- 57:50SPEAKER_01: But they they saw this gap and they said, like, look, you know, we've got a phenomenal portfolio of products, but the problem we're gonna have is how do we convince our practitioners to communicate to the end user that this is gonna take some time.
- 58:03SPEAKER_01: These things work, but they're gonna take some time to work.
- 58:06SPEAKER_01: So the sector is going well as long as you're aware of these challenges, and again, you can, you know, as long as you're trained in these, whether it's through me or through anyone else, but you should just receive some sort of training to help you communicate this.
- 58:17SPEAKER_01: But the sector's going great.
- 58:18SPEAKER_01: And the GLP1 sector is another one.
- 58:21SPEAKER_01: You know, so I've been in it since 2024.
- 58:24SPEAKER_01: I was consulting for a company, then they offered me a clinical lead position, and now we've just opened a uh a weight loss clinic in uh the Midlands as well.
- 58:32SPEAKER_01: And that's here to stay.
- 58:34SPEAKER_01: It's beyond just weight loss and aesthetics now.
- 58:37SPEAKER_01: It's it's now, you know, they've got this new one coming out called Retitutride.
- 58:42SPEAKER_01: They're finding that it improves your lipid profile, you know, your liver enzymes are getting better.
- 58:47SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and then I work quite closely with Boba Nordisk as well.
- 58:51SPEAKER_01: And when you look at Wigovi, it's even been improved for, or approved, sorry, it's been approved for cardiovascular risk reduction.
- 58:59SPEAKER_01: So it's the GLP1 sector, in my opinion, is gonna go far beyond simply weight management.
- 59:06SPEAKER_01: I think it's going to be about health optimization, about longevity.
- 59:11SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's a really exciting space to be in.
- 59:13SPEAKER_01: To answer your question as to how can aesthetic clinics get involved in it, it's a conversation I was having with some of my business partners, actually.
- 59:21SPEAKER_01: And you'll be surprised where a lot of aesthetic practitioners think that to be involved in this sex sector, they need to be doing everything from A to Z where they're getting the consults in and providing the GLP1 pen.
- 59:36SPEAKER_01: And I say to them, you don't need to be that heavily involved to benefit from the GLP1 sector.
- 59:41SPEAKER_01: Also, a lot of people don't want to be.
- 59:43SPEAKER_01: So there's three ways, in my opinion, that you can benefit from the GRP1 boom as an aesthetics doctor, right?
- 59:50SPEAKER_01: Number one, you can do it directly where you're you're you're fully immersed in it, you're doing it A to Z, where you're getting the client in, you're doing their weight loss consultation, you're providing them with the weight loss pen, and then you're supporting them on their entire weight loss journey.
- 1:00:04SPEAKER_01: You're holding their hand, you're checking in with them every month, and then do a three-month and six-month follow-up and then putting them on a maintenance dose.
- 1:00:11SPEAKER_01: Take it from me.
- 1:00:12SPEAKER_01: That's quite tedious and quite lengthy, and it takes one a lot of investment, a lot of use systems, protocols, insurance, um, you know, team structure training.
- 1:00:22SPEAKER_01: So it could distract you from your existing successful aesthetics business.
- 1:00:26SPEAKER_01: It's an entire different business.
- 1:00:28SPEAKER_01: Do not think it if you're going to do that way, that it's just gonna be an add-on.
- 1:00:31SPEAKER_01: You have to have a whole separate team for that.
- 1:00:33SPEAKER_01: And that's why, you know, we've opened a separate clinic.
- 1:00:36SPEAKER_01: It's just Weight Loss Clinic in Nottingham.
- 1:00:38SPEAKER_01: But so that's one way.
- 1:00:39SPEAKER_01: The second way you can benefit from the GLP1 boom is just being linked to it.
- 1:00:44SPEAKER_01: So you can get people in for a consultation and say, hey, we've partnered with a third-party pharmacy service where we're not gonna provide you with the pen or even follow your journey, but we're gonna begin your journey.
- 1:00:56SPEAKER_01: Now, what that does is it gets people through the door.
- 1:00:58SPEAKER_01: It gets people through the door.
- 1:01:00SPEAKER_01: And if you've been, you know, on consultation catalyst, you're now trains to upsell.
- 1:01:04SPEAKER_01: So you get people through the door who came in for weight loss, but they're like, ah, actually, while I'm here, I'd love to hear about this radio frequency treatment that's gonna tighten my skin as I lose this weight.
- 1:01:14SPEAKER_01: So now all of a sudden, you've caught a patient that was never gonna come to your clinic.
- 1:01:18SPEAKER_01: They were only after a weight loss treatment.
- 1:01:20SPEAKER_01: But because thanks to your amazing consultation, because you've been trained, you've now communicated to this patient that as you lose weight, you will get saggy skin, you will lose elasticity.
- 1:01:30SPEAKER_01: You might want to consider some sculpture alongside it, you might want to consider some gulane, you might want to consider polynucrotides, um, you, your, your hair might be thinning, all of this stuff.
- 1:01:40SPEAKER_01: So that way you've not you're not actually providing the weight loss service, but your aesthetic business is benefiting from the GLP1 sector by being connected with it, but you you give you offset the supply chain and the sort of follow-ups to a third-party pharmacy, right?
- 1:01:54SPEAKER_01: So I actually recommend this for anyone who wants to really dive into it but doesn't want the headache of supplying it because it is, it's a real it's not easy.
- 1:02:03SPEAKER_01: You have to get GPHC licenses, you have to make sure your pens are cold, changed, delivered, etc.
- 1:02:08SPEAKER_01: So it's a heavy, heavy uh protocol.
- 1:02:10SPEAKER_01: So and then the third way is where you're not even doing any of that.
- 1:02:14SPEAKER_01: You're just very loosely connected to it, you're just on the peripheries almost, where you're saying we don't offer weight loss medication, we don't even offer the consultation, we don't want to.
- 1:02:24SPEAKER_01: But we're good at what we do, which is skin tightening and skin rejuvenation.
- 1:02:28SPEAKER_01: And if you've had treatments, please come in after you've lost your weight or while you're losing your weight from someone else.
- 1:02:33SPEAKER_01: And we're happy to support your weight loss journey from an aesthetic point of view.
- 1:02:37SPEAKER_01: So they're the three ways that I think people in the aesthetics industry can benefit from the GLP1 boom, being directly involved, half involved, and not involved at all, and just supporting the sort of weight loss, the symptoms of weight loss.
- 1:02:49SPEAKER_00: I love that.
- 1:02:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think a lot of people don't really think about it like that.
- 1:02:53SPEAKER_00: But like you say, even if they're not supplying the weight loss injections themselves, there's going to be a lot of people out there that have lost a lot of volume, especially if they've lost a lot of weight after a certain age, and have significant skin laxity, and you've got the treatments there in your clinic to help with that.
- 1:03:07SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, definitely something to play into.
- 1:03:09SPEAKER_00: Love that.
- 1:03:10SPEAKER_00: Really, really helpful advice.
- 1:03:11SPEAKER_00: As we wind down the episode, one of the last things that I wanted to ask you was if somebody has listened to this and they're, you know, they've now all got all of this amazing information and tips going through their mind, and they want to do something today to start improving their consultation conversions and the way that they handle their consultations.
- 1:03:29SPEAKER_00: What are the top three things that they can do to help start seeing an improvement?
- 1:03:33SPEAKER_01: Number one is introduce yourself.
- 1:03:35SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people don't introduce themselves properly.
- 1:03:37SPEAKER_01: Practice your introductions, make your introduction to a level where if you were a patient, would you believe in yourself?
- 1:03:44SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 1:03:44SPEAKER_01: Introduce your practice as well.
- 1:03:46SPEAKER_01: Number two, I would say have a framework that you and your team can follow.
- 1:03:50SPEAKER_01: Again, we we teach this in consultation catalyst, but even if you don't come to us, just practice something yourself.
- 1:03:55SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself, what information do I need to effectively support my patient?
- 1:04:00SPEAKER_01: And what information would my team need?
- 1:04:02SPEAKER_01: Write that down and make sure you and your team follow it.
- 1:04:05SPEAKER_01: And then thirdly, I would say don't try and convert people on the day.
- 1:04:09SPEAKER_01: Give them time, not just be aware that not everyone has the same spending cycle.
- 1:04:13SPEAKER_01: Okay, some people need seven minutes to make a decision, some people need seven to 14 days to make a decision, and that's absolutely fine.
- 1:04:20SPEAKER_01: You know, be aware of that.
- 1:04:22SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 1:04:22SPEAKER_00: Such great advice.
- 1:04:23SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on.
- 1:04:24SPEAKER_00: This has been such a helpful episode.
- 1:04:26SPEAKER_00: Now, for anyone who wants to learn more about you or consultation catalyst, where can they find you?
- 1:04:30SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we've actually just renewed you've renewed our website, by the way.
- 1:04:33SPEAKER_01: So you can check out our website, you know, www.consultationcatalyst.co.uk.
- 1:04:38SPEAKER_01: I'm sure Emily will, you know, put the links there.
- 1:04:40SPEAKER_01: We're on Instagram as well at consultation.catalyst.
- 1:04:44SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm on LinkedIn as well, and I'll share all the all the links and appropriate sort of communication methods with Emily.
- 1:04:50SPEAKER_01: I'm sure she'll kindly share them.
- 1:04:52SPEAKER_01: But yeah, happy to get in touch.
- 1:04:54SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 1:04:54SPEAKER_00: And I'll put all of the links in the show notes below.
- 1:04:56SPEAKER_00: So yeah, if you want to go and learn more about Cameron Old Consultation Catalyst, just head over there.
- 1:05:01SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much for coming on.
- 1:05:02SPEAKER_00: This has been an amazing episode.
- 1:05:03SPEAKER_00: It's been so so helpful.
- 1:05:04SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me, Emily.
- 1:05:06SPEAKER_01: Thank you.