The 5 Step Framework to Create Consultations That Sell

Summary

Podcast Summary: Med Spa CEO Episode - "The 5 Step Framework to Create Consultations That Sell"

Host: Heather Terveen
Release Date: November 6, 2024
Podcast Description: The Med Spa CEO Podcast helps boutique, results-driven med spa and aesthetic practice owners grow their profits without the nights and weekends.

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Introduction: The Critical Shift in Consultation Processes

In the latest episode of the Med Spa CEO Podcast, host Heather Terveen delves into a transformative approach that has revolutionized her practice and those of her clients. Heather emphasizes that while many med spa owners focus on creating signature packages to enhance their service offerings, they often overlook an equally crucial aspect: updating and refining the consultation experience within their practice.

“What happens to many folks and to many of you who maybe listen to the podcast and have really put together signature packages is that you don't actually update or break the habits of how the experience is inside the consultation rooms with your patients and clients.” [00:00]

The Impact of a Structured Consultation Process

Heather recounts her experience transitioning from her initial workplace to a subsequent one, highlighting the significant revenue and result improvements that stemmed from overhauling the consultation process. She identifies three primary areas that med spa owners typically focus on to grow their business:

1. Offer Suite Development: Creating a signature menu of packages and programs to enhance service productization and increase the average patient visit value.
2. Consultation Process: Establishing a consistent and effective consultation framework.
3. Team Training and Consistency: Ensuring all team members adhere to the established consultation protocols.

Heather observes that even with a robust offer suite, failing to standardize the consultation experience leads to inconsistent patient outcomes and limited revenue potential per patient.

Common Challenges in Med Spa Consultations

Heather outlines several prevalent issues that med spa owners face due to inconsistent consultation processes:

• Inconsistent Patient Experiences: Without a standardized approach, patients receive varied experiences depending on the provider, leading to unreliable results.
• Limited Patient Commitment: A lack of a clear, confidence-inspiring consultation can result in patients not committing to recommended treatments.
• Absence of Ongoing Engagement: Many practices conduct consultations only for first-time visits, neglecting the evolving needs of returning patients.

“When you have a lack of an intentionally thought out consultation process for your team, it results in inconsistent and unreliable experiences for patients and clients.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

The Importance of Annual Consultations

Heather advocates for the implementation of annual consultation processes. Drawing parallels to primary care, she suggests that regular check-ins help in:

• Maintaining Patient Engagement: Continually assessing and addressing patients' evolving needs and goals.
• Introducing New Services and Technologies: Providing a natural avenue to present new treatments and products.
• Enhancing Patient Lifetime Value: Building long-term relationships that increase overall revenue.

“There is a lot of neuroscience behind as a patient wanting a roadmap to feel like every single year that your expert provider is actually touching base with you and then, you know, giving another roadmap for the upcoming year.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

Shifting from Patient-Led to Provider-Led Consultations

A significant barrier Heather identifies is the tendency for consultations to become patient-directed, where the patient takes the lead in planning their treatment. While this might seem like excellent customer service, it can inadvertently undermine the provider’s expertise and authority.

“You position yourself less as an expert when you're really letting the patient captain the ship.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

To counter this, Heather introduces the CARES Consult Process, an acronym for:

• Clarify: Understanding the patient’s needs and goals through targeted questions.
• Affirm: Acknowledging the patient's concerns and aspirations.
• Recommend: Offering tailored treatment options based on expertise.
• Explain: Clearly detailing the benefits and procedures of recommended treatments.
• Show: Demonstrating results and reinforcing the value of the proposed solutions.

This structured approach ensures that providers lead the conversation, showcasing their authority and expertise while still being patient-centric.

“Clarity creates confidence. Clarity creates certainty.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

Benefits of a Unified Consultation Approach

Heather emphasizes that a unified and consistent consultation process offers numerous benefits:

• Enhanced Team Performance: Clear guidelines empower team members to conduct consultations confidently and effectively.
• Consistent Patient Outcomes: Standardized recommendations lead to reliable and repeatable patient results.
• Increased Revenue Per Patient: A streamlined process facilitates higher commitment levels, allowing for upselling and the introduction of higher-value packages.
• Improved Patient Satisfaction: Patients appreciate the professionalism and consistency, fostering trust and loyalty.

In her example of working at a larger practice connected to a plastic surgeon’s office, Heather notes that the absence of a unified consult approach led to:

• Varying Patient Experiences: Different consultation styles resulted in inconsistent recommendations and patient commitments.
• Lack of Essential Information Gathering: Incomplete information hindered the ability to provide optimal treatment plans.
• Inconsistent Sales Performance: Disparities in team members’ consultation skills affected overall sales and revenue.

“It really is crucial for team members to have clarity on the process, ensuring that you can actually competent and reliably have a consistent experience and outcomes for every patient.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

Implementing the CARES Framework

Heather provides actionable insights on adopting the CARES framework within med spa practices:

1. Develop a Clear Roadmap: Outline each step of the consultation process so that all team members follow the same procedure.
2. Train Your Team: Equip your staff with the necessary skills and confidence to lead consultations effectively.
3. Establish Regular Check-ins: Incorporate annual consultations to maintain patient engagement and introduce new offerings.
4. Monitor and Refine: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the consultation process and make necessary adjustments.

By integrating the CARES framework, med spa owners can standardize their consultation processes, leading to enhanced patient experiences, improved team performance, and increased revenue.

Conclusion: Elevating Your Med Spa’s Consultations

Heather Terveen’s insights highlight the pivotal role of a structured and authoritative consultation process in driving the success of med spa practices. By moving beyond merely developing signature packages and focusing on refining the patient consultation experience, med spa owners can achieve consistent results, higher patient satisfaction, and sustainable business growth.

“Clarity creates confidence. Clarity creates certainty.” [Timestamp Not Provided]

Implementing the CARES Consult Process offers a strategic pathway to elevate both the operational efficiency and financial performance of med spa businesses, ensuring that practices not only meet but exceed their patients’ expectations.

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Note: The transcript provided contained only one timestamp at the beginning ([00:00]). As a result, specific timestamps for quotes within the summary are not available. Future transcripts with detailed timestamps would allow for more precise attribution.

Transcript

[A]

What happens to many folks and to many of you who maybe listen to the podcast and have really put together signature packages is that you don't actually update or break the habits of how the experience is inside the consultation rooms with your patients and clients. Welcome to the MedSpa CEO podcast, where I teach you how to grow and scale your med, spa or esthetic practice so that you can have the income and impact you know you were meant for without overwhelm, stress or feeling like you have to sacrifice your personal life and happiness to do so. It's totally possible for you and your business. Plus, simpler than you think. Keep listening to find out how. Why? Hello my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I hope you are having an outstanding, fun fourth quarter and I am thrilled to be talking to you today about a topic that is literally probably the biggest shift that happened when I moved from the original place I worked at to the second place I worked at that many of you have heard this story before. This was one of the most critical things that I learned that had the absolute biggest impact on the amount of revenue we were able to bring in per patient, but it also had an incredible impact on the results we were able to deliver. And it also really ensured that our lifetime patient value was very, very high. And so I'm going to share with you today what that one big shift was. Because what's interesting is wherever you're at right now, there's essentially three main things that you're doing to grow your business. Okay? You've got your offer suite, okay? And we talk often about like creating a signature menu of packages and programs. It's something that we have talked about a lot and oftentimes, I tell you, this is the biggest thing because I have now watched hundreds of my clients who we have shifted to create a signature menu, really have that big pendulum swing because it forever changes how they are productizing their services. It also lifts what their average patient visit value is. It lifts their ability to be able to sell more combination modality things because of how they're packaged. Okay? If you are listening to this podcast, have been listening to this podcast for any length of time, this will not be the first time you've heard me actually really evangelize that, okay? But what happens to many folks and to many of you who maybe listen to the podcast and have really put together signature packages is that you don't actually update or break the habits of how the experience is inside of the consultation rooms with your patients and clients. And the biggest shift that happened when I really, really look back when I first started working with Dr. M in the family practitioner, who I worked with for the first about eight months or so that we worked together, our offerings were still mainly customized treatment plans. Okay. And so what we had put together was like, we knew that we really needed to maximize the amount of revenue per person because we were new. She was very, very extended and invested, like, heavily into the practice. And so our overhead was very, very high. Not only that we wanted to be a practice that was boutique, but also really, really driven by incredible results that we got for our patients. And you can't get incredible results if you are just, you know, doing a tox here haphazardly, just delivering on whatever the patients come to you for. And we knew this, okay? And so initially we did not have, like, I didn't have the ultimate rewind or like, different packages that we eventually put together that those first eight months. And so the way we were able to actually sell oftentimes five figures to a patient was because we. We had a very strong consult process. And what I've discovered with so many folks in the industry is that the consult process, if you will, lack of process that many of you have is inconsistent at best. Okay? So you may have one or two providers in your practice that are, like, hitting it out of the park with their consults. Maybe they're just naturally good at them or what have you. It could be that you are one of the hero providers in your practice and that your team struggles with it. It could be that you, many of you, haven't even really mapped out a roadmap for your patients or clients in the form of putting together a really strong consult process. The first place I worked, and I've said this was a successful clinic, if you will. I don't know the exact numbers because that wasn't shared with us, but it was attached to a plastic surgeon's office. But it just wasn't as important. They had very strong systems and processes and a whole like, you know, sales flow, if you will, for the consults that were happening on the surgery side, they just had not. It was like a missed opportunity. They just had not put the same thoughtfulness on the aesthetic clinic side. And so we didn't have a consistent. And there were many estheticians there. We did not have a consistent consultation process for the estheticians and injectors and, you know, the non surgery, the non surgeon providers, if you will, because of that, here are the problems. And I wonder if any of you can relate to some of the problems that we experienced. And also these are some of the problems that I see with my clients. Okay. When you have a lack of an intentionally thought out consultation process for your team, it results in inconsistent and unreliable experiences for patients and clients. And not only that, because of that inconsistency, you actually don't deliver consistent, reliable results or you're limiting the effectiveness of your entire team delivering consistent, reliable results across a whole large pool of patients. And this makes sense, right? Because if you don't have a clear process for, you know, how a patient is walked through, essentially the conversation from the intake, from the questions that are asked, from the actual flow of what you really want, your team, and even for yourself, if you're a provider as well too, it actually lends itself to where you limit what the patient actually ends up committing to. It actually doesn't project a lot of confidence to patients and clients and they inevitably end up not investing in as much as they would have because there hasn't really been a clearly communicated reason why they're going to be recommended X, Y and Z. The second thing that many of you, and that we had as well too in the first place is that consults were only for first time visits without an ongoing process for staying in touch with patients and clients evolving needs. So this impacts the overall experience, outcomes, benefits, results and reduces profits, revenue and lifetime value as well too. And honestly, from a patient experience standpoint, it feels good. There is a lot of neuroscience behind as a patient wanting a roadmap to feel like every single year that your expert provider is actually touching base with you and then, you know, giving another roadmap for the upcoming year. So I really recommend everybody go move to having an annual consultation process. That way every single year, your patients and clients, you've set the expectation, hey, just like your primary care doctor gives a well check or a physical every year, every year we are going to have the equivalent of a well check to make sure that we are meeting your needs, that we are tapping into your goals and what have you. Not only that, but for many of you, this is how it was for us is like every year we were bringing in new technology, new products, and having an annual consultation process is a great way to ensure and it's an easy way to actually open up the dialogue when you've brought in new things to actually sell existing patients into maybe other packages that they would want to move on to next and also just makes sure that they are getting the maximum optimal opportunity to get results with you, to get Their problem solved, to tap in and to feel like, hey, like this place cares about me, because they are actually listening and tapping in to what my needs are. The next big problem, and I totally had this problem at the first place I worked, and I see it very often with many of the clients that I work with, is that they have the patience, directing the console process. And, you know, this happens unintentionally in. And at the surface of this, we think we're doing good customer service by letting the patient really take the lead. And this can happen when you let the patient take charge of planning, which, you know, on the surface, like I said, it seems like a customer support, like you're asking for their budget, their preferences, and all these things. However, this approach really fails to establish you or the provider's expertise, if you will. You position yourself less as an expert when you're really letting the patient captain the ship. So to position you as a trusted authority, you and your team needs to own the process by leading the conversation, providing expert advice, and directing recommendations. Patients come to the practice because they trust that the team has the solutions and the expertise to meet their needs. And what oftentimes happens is that you or a team member are inadvertently actually shifting the power back to the patient. Now, this doesn't mean that you don't listen. And in fact, we have an entire. We call it the CARES consult process. And it's CARES is an acronym for Clarify, Affirm, Recommend, Explain, Show. And that process is very patient centric. At the heart of it is making sure that we're listening and truly asking a appropriate questions. But there is a difference between asking questions, staying in curiosity, leading a conversation, and leading a patient through that conversation and simply kind of punting it back to the patient to expect them to just tell you their needs and what have you as well. So, and this happens the more you lay out a roadmap of what you want your team to do and what you want them to say and what, why. The more you map out that process, the more confident your team can walk folks through that conversation. Okay, Clarity creates confidence. Clarity creates certainty. And the more certain and confident we are, the more certainty, confidence, and conviction we are. Walking a patient through a conversation like that, the more that is projected to the patient, the more they're likely they're actually going to believe that what is being told to them is something that is consistent and reliably told to a lot of people who are just like them as well, too. One of the things at the Aesthetic Clinic that was connected to the plastic surgeon's office. That was quite honestly a lot big bigger of a practice than the second place I worked was that we had a lack of a unified consult approach across the team. We had all the same intake, obviously that our patients filled out, but we all had different approaches because there wasn't a really mapped out roadmap for us. And so yes, we talked about what we did with patients, but it was a little bit of fly by the seat of our pants, which meant some team members were really outstanding at just selling in general. Some of us were not as good as others, and we were inconsistent as well too. And we certainly didn't have an annual consult process as well too. And so it what ended up happening is you had varying experiences, you had inconsistent recommendations, you had oftentimes a lack of essential information being gathered, meaning gathering the bare minimum of course, and what that intake, which was pretty thorough, but there weren't conversations that were consistently happening in a certain way. So it's really crucial for team members to have clarity on the process, ensuring that you can actually competent and reliably have a consistent experience and outcomes for every patient. Yes, it helps to have a signature menu built so that your offer suite is actually very, very clear for your team members as well too, because that helps with the consistency too. But then we have got to have a consistent consult process as well too, right? Now, for those of you who are listening that are really, really, truly interested in learning our entire consult process, there's two ways you can do this. Right now we have a brand new program. It's called Five Figure Consult. This is a program that is inside of msa, but it's also a fresh program as I am delivering a live four day workshop series with the launch of five figure consults as well too. And so it'll be a four day workshop makeover. We're calling it Consult Makeover Workshop where I'm going to walk you all through the CARES consult process. That program is currently on pre sale right now. It will never be at this price point again. So if you're interested and you're ready to revamp your entire consult process for your team and to really hit it out of the park and have consistent 5 potential for 5 figure consults. Adopt an annual consult process. Then I want you to go to heatherturveen.com forward/consult to learn about that pre sale. And if you're somebody who wants weekly coaching and support in a more intimate setting and to work with us to remake your menu, learn our consult process. Learn our authority marketing method, then you should consider joining us inside of MSA. You can head over to heatherturbine.com to learn more. Hey, if you're enjoying this podcast podcast and you're a boutique results driven med spa owner who is looking to drive more sales profitably each month without hustling yourself into the ground to do so, then you should consider applying to join us inside of the MedSpa Advantage. It's the only program designed to help you grow your revenue and profits while gaining back more time so that you don't feel scattered and drained while running and growing your business each month. To learn more about whether or not you're affiliated fit for joining us, you can head over to heatherturveen.com apply to apply to get on a call with us to learn more. That's heatherturveen.com apply to learn more.