The Acara team has worked with over 100 spas, medical spas and aesthetic medical practices over the years. Many of them are currently experiencing great success even in this economy.
What creates success? How can you insure success at your businesses? Below are the top 10 Best Practices that drive success as identified by the Acara team. The first 5 are in order of importance and then the last 5 are all equally important.
- Location
- Capital
- Passion & Drive
- Experience
- Sales & Marketing Program
- Concept
- Differentiation
- Quality
- Staying on Trend
- Fair Business Practices
Location
This is the number one most important decision you will make as a Business Owner. Once you have selected your location and built it, there is no opportunity to change your mind. There are so many critical factors to insuring a successful location that include: proximity to your market, accessibility to your location by your customers, visibility to increase marketability and the competitiveness of your market. And once you are up and running it is essential to understand how all of these factors impact your business year over year. Especially since the competitive landscape is in constant flux. Successful aesthetic medical businesses understand how their position in the market impacts their top line.
Capital
This is the second most important reason why an Aesthetic Medical business succeeds and the number one reason why they fail. It is critical to have sufficient capital (money) to support your business as it makes its way to profitability. This includes fully funding your marketing program, having a fully staffed operation and of course paying all overhead expenses. Successful Aesthetic Medical businesses are not bootstrapping their openings and first 6 months of operations. In addition, successful Aesthetic Medical businesses make ongoing investment decision to grow and expand their company over time.
Passion and Drive
Opening an Aesthetic Medical business is hard work; you must have a passion for the business and a drive to succeed. Startup businesses take long hours of intense work to make them successful. Without passion or drive those long hours will be grueling but with it they can be memorable.
Experience
Medical Spas and Aesthetic Medical Practices are complicated businesses combining the practice of medicine with a sophisticated service business. You, your management team or consultants need to bring to the table the experience and knowledge to successfully execute your business plan and then consistently operate day-to-day. Once you have a location and the capital, you need to then have the people that will bring it to life with the experience to do so. Successful locations understand how to keep the balance. If you are an owner with clinical experience you must hire great management talent. If you are an owner with management experience you must hire amazing clinicians.
Sales & Marketing Program
Successful locations don’t open their doors and automatically have clients walk in wanting to buy. Successful Aesthetic Medical businesses have savvy sales and marketing programs that are implemented consistently. The marketing program should be generating the leads and the sales program should be capturing the leads converting them to consultations and then to clients.
Concept
This may seem simple but successful Medical Spas and Aesthetic Medical Practices understand the importance to have a Concept that is clear and concise. Oftentimes described in your mission your concept should identify the type of service program you offer, who buys your services and at what quality level. Locations that have identifiable Concepts are able to position themselves within the marketplace more clearly and thus be more competitive.
Differentiation
Unless you’re the First to Market, it is critical that you differentiate yourself from your competition. If there are 5 Medical Spas in your area, why will a client select yours over the other 4? Without specific differentiators you will be lost in the clutter of the competition and it will be difficult to capture your fair share of the market.
Quality
As the Aesthetic Medical world becomes more competitive you need to insure that the experience and services you provide are of the quality level that you communicate to the marketplace. Your quality must match the expectations you build through your website and other marketing vehicles that communicate your location’s message. Successful businesses test their quality through secret shopping, client satisfaction surveys and online reviews.
Staying on Trend
Every year new technologies and techniques are being launched to increase the level of results you can receive at a Medical Spa. Your client is well read and is seeking what is best on the market to accomplish the results they wish to buy. Successful Medical Spas are continually identifying new trends and implementing them as part of their program. It is important to do this before the competition so you can’t hesitate when launching new services. It should be a competitive action not a competitive response.
Fair Business Practices
When building relationships with vendors, clients or employees, successful Aesthetic Medical businesses do it with integrity and fair business practices. Negotiating fairly with your vendors, pricing fairly and consistently for your clients and managing your team consistently will create for you a long-term sustainable and successful business.
