The aesthetics landscape is dynamic and constantly evolving. Strategic business adviser Hanya Oversby provides an insight into what is currently happening in the business of aesthetics.
Whether you’re a one-clinician, one-site business or a multi-disciplinary, multi-site business, a sound strategy is essential to ensure a profitable return on your qualifications, time and financial investments.
In the aesthetic medicine arena, many clinicians also need to be entrepreneurs, constantly working on their business to ensure a success practice. Unfortunately, the demands of being both the clinician and income generator can take their toll, and too often the business development arm is neglected.
This is where strategic business development services come into play, to help grow your business, increase profits and reach its full potential. The following is a snapshot of some of the key areas pertinent to the medical aesthetics industry right now.
The Great Business Reset
With the disruption of COVID-19, many of our clients found themselves in trying times, both personally and professionally. It was definitely a threat to business, but it forced us and our clients to look at their businesses in a different way, to pivot and see things with fresh eyes.
Opportunities do exist to reset your business and move forward, embracing the new landscape and all that it offers. They key is to spend time to stop and review, set an agile plan in place and reset. The main areas to review include:
- business mission, vision, values and goals
- key business metrics
- strategic business plans to identify and prioritise opportunities, including: attracting new clients and client retention; streamlining operational processes; identifying growth opportunities; reviewing organisational structure and culture; renegotiating clinician contracts; reviewing financial processes
- clinical reviews to look at current treatment offerings (including most in-demand and least-performing treatments), current marketing offerings and support, staff clinical skillset, and current educational and training support, motivation, rewards and incentives for staff.
Buying And Selling A Business
When purchasing a clinic or medical business, it’s important to work closely with a network of legal advisers and buying advocates in addressing key legal considerations. Performing due diligence is a huge part of a business adviser’s role – sometimes our clients only see the positive, and it is our job to educate them about what the risks are and things to look out for.
We also work with business owners who are thinking about selling their practice. One of the most important questions we ask is: ‘why do you want to sell?’. Thinking this through is then likely to inform the selling process and strategy and, importantly, whether now is the right time to sell.
It’s imperative the business is ready or ‘geared to sell’ to a third party. The secret to success is a well-thought out succession plan where the practice has strong profits over at the least the past 3 financial years, strong projections for future maintainable earnings and perhaps a niche or speciality that sets it apart from other practice businesses.
Business Mentoring and Coaching
Working with our clients who are medical business owners, we find one of the greatest challenges they face is identifying where they fit within their own organisation. Going into private practice they find themselves suddenly thrust into a position of leadership as the director of the business. Yet at the same time they are working in the business, day-to-day, shoulder- to-shoulder with their clinical and administration team. Having an understanding of and applying effective leadership skills can be the key to a successful business.
We work with the business owner to identify their key value proposition within their own organisation as they are required to take on various roles from clinician to manager to leader. One of the important distinctions to identify is that there are different characteristics between leadership and management. The best use of the business owner’s time is in leadership. Management should be delegated to a trusted team member.
Outsourcing Solutions For The Business Owner
Network partnerships can work with your business in the following ways:
Business dashboards – Online document collaboration software and client portal solutions are the most effective way to work across teams, with remote workers, and with clients and partners. It’s challenging to run a medical practice. Expert reporting distils key information to help you make the right decisions.
Online policies and procedures – Online medical practice management software built by experts help navigate the complexities of running a modern healthcare business, making managing your practice simpler, safer and more efficient.
Finance brokers and institutions – specialists who understand the needs of a medical health care business. Property advocates – specialists in finding the right area and property to set up your medical business.
Clinical consultants – Clinical skills and clinical practice are continuously evolving in this area of aesthetics. Experts can work with you to upskill, add value and improve the clinical aesthetic outcomes of your practice. Their aim is to accelerate the level of your staff’s clinical skills and confidence.
Clinical training – Engaging with industry-leading cosmetic training organisations with a focus on cosmetic injectable specialised nursing. They are all about life- long learning and professional development in a supportive environment – all courses we recommend are highly interactive and led by some of the industry’s most experienced and respected individuals.
Environment & culture consultants – Our network partners have developed sound change management skills based upon the adoption of best practice methodologies.
Marketing consultants – Specialists in healthcare digital marketing for doctors, dentists, medical centres, hospitals, allied health and pharmaceutical – they are strategic thinkers, creative minds and digital marketing creators.
Online marketing platforms – These provide the ability to collect quality reviews, monitor customer reactions and respond from one easy-to-use platform. These types of systems assist you in managing your online reputation and drive patients to your clinic. They also provide automated processes to engage with enquiries and convert these enquiries into booked patients.
Industrial relations experts – Trusted experts take the confusion out of Fair Work Act Advice. They offer advice on your rights and responsibilities as an employer and can offer assistance in management of your staff.
Transcribing services – Transcription services can support your strategic objectives by delivering time- efficient correspondence, overcome employment and staff management challenges and realise actual cost savings. Bookkeeping services – Experienced medical bookkeeping and reporting services keep track of your books, help you understand your numbers, and make smarter business decisions. It is also prudent not to have the same person in your organisation who handles the money also oversee reconciling the money.
Information technology experts – Expert medical IT support and solutions for assistance in modernising your network infrastructure or upgrading your communication system. Generally, they can assist in all stages of healthcare IT.
Clinic Set-Up
Often our clients have a vision for their new healthcare business, but without a clear understanding of how to achieve their strategic goals, they struggle to succeed. Specialised healthcare business advisers will help you to capitalise on your existing strengths to build a practical roadmap for sustained growth and success. A key area of planning is developing a cash flow forecast for the first 3 years. It is much better to work out whether your new business will be commercial in the planning stage, than steam rolling ahead to meet challenges that will cost you time and money in the future. AMP
Interested in growing your business? Connect with Hanya Oversby at hanyaoversby.com.au.
You can also listen to her podcast, The Doctor Diaries.
