Announcer:
Scalpel of Truth is presented for educational and entertainment purposes only. Leisa Krauss is a profit strategist and business consultant. She is not a licensed therapist, HR professional, attorney, or your mom. Strategies discussed are based on her extensive experience in the medical aesthetics industry and are not medical, legal, or financial advice. And with that, here’s your host, Leisa, the Bitch’n’ Beautician and Profit Queen.

Leisa Krauss:
Welcome back to the Scalpel of Truth, the podcast where we talk about the business of medical aesthetics without the fluff or the bullshit. Today’s episode: You Don’t Need to Offer Everything, When Growth Becomes the Problem.

All right, Bitchachos, today I want to talk about something I think a lot of practice owners need permission to hear right now. Ready? You don’t need to offer everything. You don’t need to offer every laser, every injectable, every product line. You don’t need to add a new treatment just because three clinics down the street just did. And you definitely do not need to spend another $150,000 because somebody told you this was the next big thing in aesthetics.

Guys, somewhere along the way, this industry started confusing growth with accumulation. And all of a sudden, it’s a mad rush for more. More devices, more treatments, more rooms, more employees. Now we want more locations. We want more inventory. And then we wonder why practice owners, who appear incredibly successful from Instagram or from the outside, are totally exhausted. They’re overwhelmed, they’re throwing up shards of their pelvis and wondering where the hell all their money went. I talk to folks on the daily that are in this situation.

The focus today: more isn’t always growth. And sometimes more is just more overhead. I have watched this happen literally over and over throughout my 30 years in this industry. A practice starts out real well. They get great momentum, revenue starts growing, the schedule is filling, and instead of asking, “How do we make what we already have more profitable?” they start asking, “Well, what should we add next?” Those two things right there are completely different questions.

I want to address the pressure to keep up. That is plaguing this industry and has been for the past five years. Medical aesthetics has become incredibly competitive. We all know that. You can throw a stone in some cities and hit another MedSpa. So every time you open Instagram, you’re gonna see somebody’s got a new device, somebody’s got a new treatment, a new injectable, new technology, a new launch. They just went to another conference. And it can create this perception that if you’re not constantly adding something, you’re falling behind.

But I want you to remember something. Your patients don’t see the industry the way that you do. I’m gonna say that again. Listen up. Your patients do not see the industry the way that you do. You spend your days sometimes looking at competitors or manufacturers or different conferences, talking to different reps, reading different industry publications. Your patients don’t do that. Most of them are not sitting at home comparing the specifications of six different lasers. They are asking, “Can you solve my problem? Can you make my skin better? Can you help me age the way that I want to age? Gracefully, naturally. Do I trust you? Do I feel comfortable here? Does this clinic show before and afters of the results?” And once they do see you, they’re asking, “Do I want to come back?” Those are completely different conversations.

There is power in being known for something. One of the biggest misconceptions in business is that having more options automatically makes you more competitive. It does not. Sometimes the opposite is actually true. Sometimes the clinic offering everything is actually harder for the patient to understand. So what are you known for? Why should somebody choose you? What do you do exceptionally well? Because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being niche. In fact, being niche can actually become one of your biggest competitive advantages. You don’t necessarily need to become the entire market out there. You can own your piece of it.

So I’d rather see a practice become exceptionally well known for three or four things than mediocre at twenty. I’d rather see you have fewer technologies running consistently than twelve machines sitting in a room collecting dust while you’re making payments on them. This is gonna hit home for some folks, because I feel like there’s a lot of folks out there in this boat. I’d also rather see your team become incredibly amazing at converting and retaining the patients that you already have than constantly scrambling to learn another treatment because you added something new to your menu last minute, thinking it was going to solve all of your problems.

And we have a problem in this industry. We have a shiny object problem. I’ve talked about this on other episodes. And listen, I love this industry with my whole heart. I love the innovation. I love the technology, the new stuff. Walking around conferences, seeing what’s new, talking to people. But innovation and investment: two different things. You can be excited about a new technology out there without owning it. You can think something is very amazing without needing to buy it, without getting caught up in the excitement. Not every opportunity needs to become your opportunity.

Because every new device doesn’t just come with a purchase price. It comes with training, marketing, consumables, maintenance, staff time, room utilization, financing options, patient education. So the pressure to actually generate enough revenue with that device just to justify owning it becomes a lot of pressure. So the question isn’t simply, “Can I afford the payment?” And this is what practices get into. I’m telling you, honestly, I see this weekly. It’s not, “Can I afford the payment?” The question you need to ask yourself is: can my existing patient base, my team, marketing, and operations support this investment properly and profitably?

What do we do when growth becomes really heavy? There’s a whole other side to growth that we don’t really talk about enough in this industry. I’m gonna be blunt here. Sometimes growth just becomes fucking heavy. And there can be this incredible pressure to keep beating last month. Keep beating last year. Add another provider. Add another treatment room. Add another location. Hit another revenue milestone. And eventually you can build a business that looks incredible from the outside but feels terrible to operate. High anxiety, lots of pressure. That is not the goal, folks. That is not the goal.

I talk about profitability constantly because revenue by itself tells me very little. You can have a million-dollar practice and still be broke. You can have a smaller practice with excellent margins, low overhead, a fiercely loyal patient base, and be a much happier owner. So which one’s more successful? That’s something only the owner gets to define. Because your business should ultimately support the life that you want to live.

And here’s something I want you to think about this week. Maybe the next level isn’t actually bigger. What if your next level isn’t actually adding something? Maybe it’s subtracting. What if it’s getting rid of something that’s not performing? Maybe it’s becoming known for fewer things? What if it’s improving utilization on the technology you already own? What if it’s increasing your patient retention? Maybe it’s getting your team better at consultations and converting. Maybe it’s cleaning up your treatment menu, protecting your margins. And what if growth right now doesn’t mean expansion? Maybe growth means becoming better, more efficient, more profitable. Maybe it’s more intentional and recognizable and considerably less exhausted.

You don’t have to keep up with everybody else. What you need to do is understand your own numbers, your own patients, your own positioning, and your own capacity. And you need to make decisions accordingly.

And here’s the funny thing: there are those data-driven decisions I keep talking about. Inner Circle. Bitchachos, if you do not know about Inner Circle, I’m here to tell you, this is where we get into the good shit. Because this is the profit strategies, the business consulting. Because the Inner Circle is where I’m going to show you how I would actually evaluate your practice.

So here’s what I’m going to be talking about behind the velvet rope, when you become a member to get the full, entire episodes of profit strategies and business consulting. Today I’m going into how to determine what your clinic should actually be known for, how to identify treatments and technologies that are taking up space and not making you much money. I’m going to talk about how to evaluate whether you should purchase that new shiny device, how to know when to expand, and when expansion is putting too much financial pressure on you and your business. I’m going to talk about numbers, what I would look for and look at before adding another modality, another location, another provider. And most importantly, how to know when it’s time to scale back instead of scale up. Because sometimes the smartest growth strategy is actually deciding what you’re no longer willing to carry.

This would be an exceptional time, if you are not already a member, to head over to scalpeloftruth.com, or my amazing podcast producer, Pete, has included the link in the show notes, so you can get yourself signed up to be an Inner Circle member so that you get all the juicy consulting, all the profit strategies that are delivered in the full members-only episodes. And for my VIPs who are already members, Bitchachos, you know what time it is. Let’s go!