Building your BUSINESS

Want to grow your clinic but don’t know where to start? Aesthetic nurse and business coach Sara Cheeney shares her advice

After14 years in the aesthetics industry, running an awardwinning clinic and working as a key opinion leader (KOL) and trainer for brands like ZO®, it’s safe to say I’ve seen a lot in this industry.

As clinic doors were forced to shut during lockdown 2020, I received an everincreasing number of calls from those struggling to keep their businesses going through the pandemic. While giving out advice on a daily basis, I quickly realised how rewarding I found it helping others with their aesthetic practices and so my aesthetic coaching business – Clinic Success – was born.

If the COVID-19 crisis taught us anything it’s the need to be organised and adaptable at all times. And if you’re struggling to achieve this, here I will talk you through how to get on the right track quickly.

BUILD YOUR DREAM BOARD

There is nothing worse for a business owner than to feel stressed, anxious and like you just don’t know where to start.

As clinic owners, we should be striving to tackle business disorganisation and create a clear, actionable plan to achieve our goals.

When I’m working with clients, my first aim is to understand these goals.

To do this, I always start with two questionnaires.

The first questionnaire is all about your business as it stands and how things are going for you. At this stage, we develop an organisational chart too.

It’s valuable to understand who is in the business currently, what their roles are and how you might want to restructure

this in future, like expanding the team. This is all crucial to ensure you have a clear view of your business’s direction.

The second questionnaire focuses on you as a clinic owner and your personal development goals. It’s important to reflect on why you started your business in the first place and what the motivation was behind it. This is a moment to ask yourself what lifestyle you really want and how your business can help you achieve that. Questions such as, how many days and hours a week you want to work? What money do you realistically need or want to earn? All of these things help to put together an actionable plan that meets your goals.

CREATE A STRATEGY

Once you know what you want to achieve, now is the time to plan how you will achieve it. At this stage, I help clients set realistic deadlines and consider the steps needed to reach their goals.

For example, if your aim is to increase your patient database by 20% in a year’s time, some steps you’d need to consider would be:

• Consumer research: where would these patients come from and who would they be? Is there enough demand in your area or should you start marketing elsewhere?

• Treatment portfolio: is your current offering satisfactory or would expanding bring in different patients?

• Marketing strategy: how can you reach more patients and what tools should you use to achieve this?

• Retention: what can you do to ensure you don’t lose existing patients and keep any new ones on board?

Of course, one of the main considerations in taking each of these steps is resource.

Do you have team members to help you, or do you need to outsource? If getting in third-party support is necessary, ensure you budget for this in advance.

REVIEW AND REFINE

Regularly track the progress of your goals, so you can make suitable adjustments along the way. For example, you may find that one marketing tool is outperforming others, while another isn’t working at all. Move your spend to the most effective one before you waste any budget!

Depending on the goal, I generally recommend weekly or monthly reviews. Book in time to do this in advance so it doesn’t get missed. Using shared online spreadsheets and documents via systems such as OneDrive or Google Drive can allow multiple people to view and update, while also being safely stored in the Cloud.

I also recommend online systems to keep you organised. One my personal favourites is Asana, which is a project management tool that allows you to create projects, add tasks, assign responsibility to different team members and keep track of progress. There is a free basic plan available and you can also upgrade to access more features.

Another favourite is Pomodoro. You may have heard of this technique, which recommends using a timer to breaks down work into 25-minute intervals with short breaks in between. If you visit the website or download the app, you can set tasks and use the timer. It can help you focus and make bigger projects appear more achievable.

MOVING FORWARD

A lack of strategy for where you’re heading is always induced by disorganisation, much like driving a car without a map. The longer this goes on, the more your stress-levels increase and you begin to feel lost like there’s no way home.

Ultimately, lots of businesses, aesthetic or otherwise, will seek help from a coach due to a lack of direction. They can hold you accountable and give you that foucs back to help resolve the biggest problems in your aesthetic business.

The target market for what medical professionals can offer is huge, so there is certainly enough room on the map for all of us. I look forward to coaching as many businesses as possible along the way.

Through her business, Clinic Success, Sara offers coaching through weekly calls and regular Whatsapp messages for as long as needed.

To find out more or sign up to mailing list, email sara@clinicsuccess.com