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:
Hello, my fabulous Bitchachos. Welcome back to another episode of the Scalpel of Truth podcast, where we talk about the business of medical aesthetics that nobody wants to say out loud, and the conversations that can make you a hell of a lot more profitable. And today we’re talking about something that I guarantee is happening in many, many clinics across North America and globally. Today’s episode is titled “Your Team Agrees, So Why Isn’t Shit Getting Done?”

First off, I see you and I hear you. You find yourself thinking, shit, I’ve said this stuff a hundred times. Why isn’t it getting done? What it looks like is this. You’ve got a great team, and I mean a great team. These are beautiful humans, talented practitioners, lovely personalities, people who genuinely care about their patients, and people you enjoy working with. But holy shit, how many times do you have to ask the same thing over and over? How many times do you have to remind someone to talk about skincare during their consultations? How many times do you have to ask your team to contribute to social media? That’s a big one. How many times do you have to remind your front desk that posture, presentation, energy, and engagement matter to your patient experience? How many times do you have to explain that patient follow-up calls are not optional after certain treatments? Or that arriving on time actually means being ready to work? You don’t arrive at nine and then put your lunch away, get your shoes ready, go set up your room. No, no, no, no, no, no. You’re arriving, and when it’s nine, you’re taking patients.

And here’s the really frustrating part. Everybody on your team agrees with you. You have a staff meeting, everybody nods, everybody understands the importance. You’ve got one-on-ones, and you’re getting things like, “Absolutely, I know I need to get better at social media.” Maybe you’re getting a, “Yeah, I need to be more consistent with my product recommendations.” Maybe it sounds like, “You’re right, I need to make more follow-up calls.” Everyone leaves the meeting feeling positive, motivated. They have a new lease on life with all the things on their to-do list that they’re supposed to be doing. And you feel like you finally got somewhere. And then, absolutely fucking nothing. Three weeks later, you’re having the same exact conversation, and you’re starting to wonder whether anyone is actually listening to you.

What happens when nice people don’t follow through? Here’s what makes this situation so difficult. These aren’t necessarily bad people. These aren’t bad folks. In fact, some of them are your absolute rock stars. This might be your exceptional injector. They might be amazing laser technicians or aestheticians, patient coordinators, everybody, okay? Your patients love them. They have wonderful attitudes. They contribute to a beautiful culture. They’re friends with each other. There’s no backbiting, nothing like that. But when it comes time to have those additional responsibilities that move the business forward, they’re inconsistent. And you don’t want to be the asshole who ruins the atmosphere. You don’t want to become the boss who’s constantly nagging. You don’t want every team meeting to feel like a lecture. And you certainly don’t want to end up writing people up that you genuinely care about.

So what do you do? You remind. You encourage. You end up asking nicely, then you remind again, and eventually something happens. You start becoming resentful of the people you actually really like. Not because they’re terrible, but because you’re exhausted from carrying the responsibility of remembering everything for everyone.

And here’s what I want to challenge you with today. What if the problem isn’t that your team doesn’t care? What if the problem is that you’ve created an environment where agreeing to do something has simply become an acceptable substitute for actually doing it? It’s basically that your practice is running half throttle. One of the biggest frustrations I see when consulting with practices isn’t that they’re failing. They’re actually doing pretty well. They’ve got patients. They’re generating some revenue. They’ve got talented staff. They even have beautiful practices. They are operating with their foot halfway down on the gas pedal, though. That’s the issue.

Imagine what would happen if every practitioner consistently made appropriate product recommendations. If every patient who required follow-up actually received it. If every team member contributed to your marketing strategy and posted on social media, or commented, or tagged, or sent it to their stories, or mentioned you. What if your front desk consistently delivered the exceptional experience that your brand happens to promise people? If people arrived prepared. They followed through. They took ownership without needing to be chased down and reminded to death. And we’re not talking about magically doubling revenue overnight here. That’s not the expectation I want to set. We’re talking about eliminating everyday inconsistencies that quietly limit your practice’s potential.

Let’s look at the tipping point. And here’s where things are gonna get a little uncomfortable. You’ve asked somebody to do something fifteen fucking times. You finally reach your breaking point. You issue a formal warning, and suddenly the entire dynamic changes. They’re hurt, defensive, blindsided. They maybe even start looking for another job. And you’re sitting there thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been asking you to do this for six months. But here’s the uncomfortable truth, folks. You may have been communicating your frustration for six months without ever clearly communicating the consequences of continued non-performance. Those are two different conversations.

And this is where leadership starts getting complicated, because the answer isn’t going to be becoming meaner. The answer isn’t to threaten everybody’s jobs. And it certainly isn’t to abandon the wonderful culture you’ve worked so hard to create. The answer is to build a culture where accountability doesn’t feel like a punishment. It can’t feel like punishment. It needs to feel like a level of professionalism.

Folks, this is just the teaser. Behind the velvet rope, my fabulous friends, is exactly where I am unpacking all of this. We’re going deep. We’re talking about the complete roadmap for getting your team from “Yes, I know I should be doing that” to “It’s done, and here are the results.” I’m giving you the actual language to use, the scripts to use in staff meetings, the exact scripts for those uncomfortable one-on-ones. How to approach your strongest employees when they’re brilliant at their role but they’re terrible at following through. How to address the employee who’s always five minutes late. How to coach somebody who refuses to participate in social media without creating that resentment. I’m gonna go over how to get your practitioners consistently recommending the appropriate skincare without turning the consultation into an aggressive sales pitch. And most importantly, how to introduce accountability before you reach the point of a formal disciplinary action or a written warning.

Because I want you to understand something. You can be kind, you can be generous, you can love your team, and you can still have standards that are non-negotiable. Those are not mutually exclusive. So if you’re exhausted from repeating yourself and you feel like you’re becoming a broken record of your own practice, get your fabulous ass behind the velvet rope, because we’re about to stop talking about what needs to happen and start building a system to actually make it happen.

I want you to hit the show notes or head over to scalpeloftruth.com and get yourself signed up for Club Bitchacho, which is the Inner Circle, members-only portion, the consulting and the profit strategies to build and scale to seven figures. High seven figures, we’re talking. These are the blueprints.

And the other thing that’s really exciting I want to remind everybody is, myself and my amazing producer of this podcast, Pete, we have put together PDFs for the last, I think it’s four episodes now. You are going to get a bonus with these episodes. After the 100th episode, we started building in a little bit more value, okay? As if these weren’t already valuable enough. Come on now. So a little bit more value. Make sure you check the show notes if there is a downloadable PDF. And that is going to be only for my Inner Circle Bitchachos.

So if you’re a general listener, this is where I love you and leave you. And for all of my VIPs, you know what time it is. Let’s go!