What to Do Right Now! - Essential Business Strategy and Tactics During Challenging Times

Hearing about the slowing economy and uncertainty is topic #1 in recent days. Focus on what you have control over at this volatile time. As a leader model being calm, transparent, and avoid emotional knee jerk reactions. Here are some strategies that provide you a baseline of information of how you can stay in action when and if appropriate for you.

Look at Your Finances – Determine Cash Flow – Prioritize What You Have to and Can Skip Paying

Negotiate with Vendors to Extend Your Terms and Get You Through. We are all in this Together!

Team – Transparency, Training, and Being a Good Source of Information and a Leader During a Crisis

Keep in Contact with Your Patients- Virtual Tele Medicine and Video Conferencing. Using systems to allows you to see patients for Consults, Pre-operative visits and Post-operative visits. 

Train on Technical, Recommendation and Selling Skills during Possible Closure

Putting a Virtual Special Sales Event Together to Create Cash Flow Now

Advanced Gift Card Sales and Package Incentives Online

Consider a Concierge Travel Service

Cash Flow

Cash flow is always a critical factor in keeping our business healthy. Right now, here’s what needs to be done. Determine what costs of goods and expenses are do each month. Of that dollar total Payroll will usually be right on top. Negotiate terms with all your vendors to either be able to skip payments say for 60-90 days or reduce your monthly payment amounts. Don’t be afraid to ask, your vendors want you to succeed and stay in business. Be on top of this right away and don’t delay.

Regarding payroll this is a tough area. Look at what you can realistically do. Be transparent and upfront with your staff. Emphasize you are all in it together. Perhaps your staff can use their PTO during a shut down. Some of your staff could take a voluntary leave and be rehired once you re-open. Talk to your financial advisor and have them help you be a resource of information regarding unemployment insurance filing, perhaps your state has programs for rent abatement and or mortgage relief, find out anything and everything that can help your team. They could be afraid, and it is your time to have empathy, and listen with intent to reassure them of what is possible.

Whatever changes you make document everything. The Society for Human Resource Management can be a resource to help you through the necessary steps. www.shrm.org

Communicating with Your Patients/Clients

Keep communication with your clients open! Be a calm presence, stay relevant, and be a wellness leader. Keep the flow information open with your website, Google Business Listing, and your Social Media Channels.

Put an announcement banner on your home page that stands out. Have it link to a landing page of information about the up to date status of your business. Don’t alter your home page as it could affect your long-term SEO.

People will be looking. Adjust the hours on your Google Business Page, create a post on the status of your business.

Be a calm presence on social media. Offer wellness advice that is appropriate to your business. Stay relevant to the pulse of what is happening now. This is a great time for you and your team to post content. Video your service treatments with step by step explanations of their benefits. You could create a private Facebook group for VIP information and learning. Put up a how-to Instagram video. Facebook and YouTube allow up to 4 hours of recording while Instagram will allow for 60 minutes. You call also use Zoom or WebEx as a tool to convey non HIPPA compliant information.

The services you offer your clients are a part of their wellness experience. Get them thinking services not only help them look and feel better, they help them to reduce stress and be able to give more to their work and the important people within their lives. On average, during a downturn in the economy, the first things to be excluded from an individual’s budget are “perceived” luxury services and products such as massages and aesthetic services. We want most clients to consider our services a necessity, not a luxury. However, one must agree that clients are pushing appointments out further than normal, attempting to maximize their dollar. Instead of visiting every four to five weeks, we are seeing clients returning six to eight weeks, which translates to one less visit per year per client. When we do the math, this can add up to a considerable drop in profitability at the end of the year, not only for the overall business but also to the practitioners and technicians. You can counteract this with the right type of training.

Everyone is affected by the economic slowdown, so it is everyone’s responsibility to come up with solutions. Do not fall into the trap of your staff chanting “You need to do more.” The truth is everyone needs to do more. Everyone needs to market more. Everyone needs to network more. It needs to be a collaborative effort working towards common goal of procuring more business for everyone. There is NO magic bus of clients that will drive into your parking lot for services.

Train While Your Closed

The uncertainty will end! Don’t have your staff lose and opportunity for learning. With virtual learning opportunities abound everywhere. We can lead virtual trainings with programs like Zoom, or WebEx. If your business is closed use this time to enhance your staff’s skills sets. Whether its technical training working on their service skill sets, practicing their dialogues on how to recommend series, pre-booking, or ask for referrals it is a good time to keep focused on something productive. Most med spas completely under utilize their retail sales capabilities. Training for recommending retail is more important than ever.

Suggestive Selling - Train Staff on Selling Techniques

There is a HUGE difference between “Do you need any retail today?” and “These are the products I recommend, which of them would you like to take with you today?”. Suggestive selling is one aspect of merchandising that is often overlooked, yet it can make a tremendous difference in the total retail sales of a medical day spa. It is a proven statistic that close to 40% of clients will say yes when asked by a staff member if they wish to upgrade in size or quantity. There is a fine line to being perceived as pushy or merely suggestive, though. A good way to assist your staff with suggestive selling is through the creation of simple scripts. Choose two to three products that you wish to feature. Write out key features and unique selling points of each of the products and ask the staff to get comfortable with the language you have chosen. If you find this step challenging, your product representative is a great resource to turn to for help with descriptions and sales techniques for the featured products. Then require staff members to be sure that each client receives at least one mention per visit. When clients are scheduling their next appointment, and paying for their service, this is a wonderful opportunity for your staff to suggest gift cards and your packages. The “every client gets one mention” is a great way to boost sales of gift cards. Offer prospects $25 in retail products for every $300 they spend with you? Don’t discount services in your packages as it takes away profits. Use retail which has no labor cost as the incentive.

Ask your product representative for all press releases and endorsements the product line has. Suggestive selling may also be accomplished simply by featuring a ‘product of the month’ in a high visible area. This technique is great for seasonal specials and time-sensitive products. Cross-merchandising is imperative for your staff members to learn and master. It is a technique that is used with tremendous success by top medical day spas. It is simply the art of matching products together that complement each other. Try using merchandise from different parts of the med/spa, with the intent to introduce clients to ancillary services as well as products. Displays using this tactic present a wonderful opportunity to introduce clients to other services the spa offers than what they usually visit for. Just like it’s counterpart cross-marketing, cross-merchandising creates opportunities to increase sales while creating loyalty to your medical/day spa. It is highly effective and is the suggestive selling technique that can offer a significant reward to your business when applied consistently. 

Plan a Virtual Spring Semi-Annual Sale 2020 Online

Plan a sale or promotion online where your clients can purchase value now and use later when they are more comfortable. Much has changed in the last few days. We want to continue to reward our most loyal clients. Clients look forward to this sale twice a year and we want to still make sure we can offer some sense of normalcy during these stressful times. We also know that people will want to take their minds off the stress and self-care always helps.

Offer Your: 10-15 Best Treatments of 2020 – making sure to not discount too deeply to have short term cash flow and lose money long term.

When: Launches

● Soft Launch: March 18, In-office only; look for any issues with checkout, booking

● Full Launch: March 19-TBD, 2020, In-Office and Online Store

How: Clients will learn of the sale from our outgoing marketing efforts. We will post the link for our online store so clients can browse from the comfort of anywhere.

Clients can find the link: Facebook, Instagram, Website, Email Blasts, Word of Mouth, In-Office

FREE Retail Skincare: Any clients who purchase either 3 of the same item or any other combination of 3 sale items, will receive 10% of the purchase price in free retail. This can be any products that the provider recommends or that the client is interested in trying. Any client who qualifies for this benefit will be scheduled with a Skincare Consultation

(Provider) preferably before the first booked service. During this visit, the client will have a skin scope and discuss their goals and we will recommend a skincare regimen. We will recommend the client 2-5 products based on their needs. They will have a predetermined credit based on 10% of semi-annual sale purchases that will be on check-out tickets. You will recommend the products and remind them of their free credit they can use towards any of the products. Clients will purchase anything above their complimentary voucher.

Checkout and Rules: Please checkout skincare to Rep if possible. If no rep for the product, discount the credit amount. Any remaining balance would be owed by the client. Vouchers must all be used at one time. No store credits will be issued for any balances.

GOALS of Retail:

● Recommend Skin prep kits first

● Fill in their missing skincare regimen that will help maintain their goals

● Increase retail sales

● Loyalty through gift with purchase promotion

● Future repeat sales of retail

10% Retail Calculations

2nd promotion purchase Gift cards now for later visits and get 10% of your gift card purchase back in the form of a retail redemption towards product

3rd promotion buy any package series of treatments and receive 10% of your series purchase back in the form of a retail redemption towards product

Example:

$1500 purchase= $150 in free skincare

$2599 purchase= $260 in free skincare

Series - Sell Everything Possible in a Bundle!

Identifying services sold in packages such as luxury facials, body treatments, medical grade peels, and massage services is a great way stock up the dollars in the business coffers. Selling a series has a client come in with frequency to maintain the service and are more likely to be loyal to a service provider or business because of the consistent service and results. You have collected the money up front, so they are committed to your business. In addition, they will tend to spend more on products and other services in subsequent visits as they are not paying for the service after the first time. Do not discount series as it takes away all service profits. Instead use retail as the incentive for a series purchase. It keeps the client loyal, maintaining their service results and again has no labor cost associated with it. Example purchase a series package for $1,000 and receive a retail gift package worth $100 at the time of purchase.

Gift cards- purchase gift cards right now and receive 10% of their value back in complimentary retail products.

VIRTUAL CONSULTATIONS INTRODUCTION

We are sensitive that clients may not feel comfortable in public right now. Create an

appointment called Virtual Consultation for all providers.

Online-store: clients have the option to purchase from the store or fill out a virtual consultation request.

Online Purchases: Forward purchases to the concierge for input into the software. When knowing what the client purchased contact the client to schedule their visit. If the client qualifies for Free Retail Skincare Consultation by purchasing 3 items from the sale, please book before service. Virtual Consultation Request: If the client fills out a virtual consultation request, Reply to the client and get them booked with the provider that best matches the list of their concerns. If multiple concerns, please specifically ask the client about concerns and match with the correct service/provider. Verify phone numbers and tell the client they will receive a phone call from the provider at their appointment time.

Providers Virtual Consultation: You will call the client during the Appointment time on your schedule. Our goal is to review the client's concerns and recommend the best treatment plan to the client. To have the best outcomes for long term benefits, Clients will receive free skincare with the purchase of any 3 sale items. The are options with companies like Touch MD or One Touch Telehealth for these services.

One Touch Telehealth- This video system allows you to see patients for Consults, Pre-operative visits and Post-operative visits. This can be setup in approximately 48 hours.

Click here to view a demo of the tele medicine system. Don’t fill out the form, just watch the video.

Here is the pricing:

Setup fee: $199 one-time fee. 

Monthly charge for 1 provider: $149/month (discounted from $214/month)

The program with One Touch Tele Health does not include a link for your website. It requires that you email or text the link. If you want the website integration, there will be an additional fee and it will take longer to implement. 

To proceed, Click Here to order this system.

Virtual Visits will help protect your staff and patients from the COVID 19 virus and comply with rules for in-person contacts.

Consider - Concierge Treatments at the clients home- create an “at home on demand” list of services you can take on location when the time is right

It is a collective effort of every member of the team, especially during economically tough times. Act NOW to protect everyone from a smaller paycheck at the end of year. Ensure the downturn the country is facing does not affect your business negatively. Be proactive. Get creative with marketing programs, team coaching programs, special events.

Bryan Durocher

Durocher Enterprises Inc.

5110 W Bismark Ave.

Spokane, WA. 99208

Phone: 406-863-9448

www.durocherenterprises.com

Example COVID 19 Script

Dear Valued Clients,

At this time our office is open, and we are taking all recommended precautions. We have been diligent with sanitizing and disinfecting. We are striving to keep you, all our patients, as well as our staff safe so that we can continue excellent care. If you have been exposed to someone or you yourself are experiencing a fever, cough, or other respiratory symptoms, or have traveled outside the US within the last 14 days, we are asking you to please reschedule your appointment. We will be happy to assist you with any further questions or concerns.

Please see this CDC fact sheet below for more information about COVID-19. We will keep updated with any changes.

Thank you and stay healthy!

Sincerely,