MSD Insider 0:00
Welcome to med shark insider with Bill Fukui, your expert host on all things medical, marketing, and SEO.

Bill Fukui 0:09
Hi, I’m Bill Fukui. And welcome to another edition of med shark Insider. And today I have a longtime veteran of medical, not only just the the marketing side, but the technical side, being in the practices, but also understanding, you know, medical devices, which is relatively new to me, I’m not as familiar with the role of technology and a lot of these practices and how to assess so I’ve got with me today. You know, Kimberly and Kimberly has been with a number of, of agencies, Kimberly Hall, it actually I think you’re from Denver originally, weren’t you? Were you spending time in Denver? Yes,

Kimberly Hall 0:54
I actually wasn’t Denver for a long time my parents relocated to Denver from Glendale, California when I was just entering high school, which Oh, okay. Oh, now. So I spent about 35 years in Denver until I just recently moved back to California a couple years ago.

Bill Fukui 1:13
Okay. Okay. Well, do me a favor, just for the audience sake, give me a little bit more background, because I’ve known you, you know, primarily when you were working with Sandra. But give a little more background of yourself. And really, I’d like for you also to share some of your in Office experience as well.

Kimberly Hall 1:35
Absolutely. So I’ve been in patient facing health care for 34 years, I can’t even believe that. Now that it has been that long, but it has been. And I actually have always been really motivated and driven by helping people and whatever that looks like. So when I first started my career, I decided to go into counseling. And I got my degree in counseling psychology and started working on a behavioral health unit, Porter Hospital in Denver, Colorado, I know exactly where that’s at 1988 and worked on the behavioral health unit, and did that for quite some time, and went to graduate school at night and then started a private practice, and started really working in developing my private practice. And unfortunately, after about 17 years of doing that, I was assaulted by a patient and suffered a spine injury, and also a pretty serious case of post traumatic stress disorder. And I really needed to take some time out and kind of reevaluate and honestly reinvent myself a little bit. So it was a great opportunity to do that. And at that time esthetics was actually a huge growth industry. And I went to a career counselor, and she said, Hey, have you ever thought about the fact that you’ve been selling mental health, you know, for a long time, and you have really a lot of transferable skills to maybe get into, you know, medical esthetics and, you know, maybe the sales side or something like that. So I did some research and I decided to jump in, I was really attracted to the idea. And I went back to school and got my medical esthetician training and got my certified laser specialist training. And did some work with a friend of mine, who was a plastic surgeon in Denver, and then decided to open my own medical esthetics practice in Denver, which I did and loved it, and did really, really well with that took on a partner. And we did that for quite some time. And I decided I had a milestone birthday, and I decided I wanted to simplify my life a little bit, and my partner bought me out. And that’s when I went in to working more in a sales consulting role. Okay, and helping other people develop their own practices. And so I’ve been doing that for the last eight years.

Bill Fukui 4:14
Okay, and you’re within mode right now.

Kimberly Hall 4:17
Now, I’m in mode. Love it. Just absolutely. I think it’s one of the best things that ever decisions I ever made in mode is such a great medical device company in the aesthetic space. That’s great.

Bill Fukui 4:30
So a question. Not all of, you know, the reps that I deal with in terms of that I have relationships with friendships with but we talk a lot about, you know, the practices. And how they look at a practice is very different than somebody that used to either own or be in it or, you know, was the frontline person in those practices. A lot of the reps weren’t don’t have that experience. Um, Right, what would you say would be the one thing that that as you were a provider, when you’re consulting with your clients, that you can speak as somebody that’s, you know, I’ve been side by side, I know what it’s like to be in the trenches, you know, kind of thing. What do you see as the most common mistakes or things that practices are overlooking, or missing opportunities when it comes to, you know, attracting or closing or generating leads for, you know, aesthetic patients?

Kimberly Hall 5:34
Honestly, Bill Wood is the number one issues that I see every day. Practices, undervaluing the importance of having someone as a marketing, especially a digital marketing partner, expecting someone that is their office manager or sits at their front desk, to do their marketing for them, or to help them with their marketing. And I think it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see practices make is expecting someone who works internally in the practice, who has another role to also take responsibility for posting on their social media doing their newsletter, or their email blasts. You know, doing their Google AdWords, someone who’s distracted and who has a lot on their plate, and maybe they have no background or experience in this. And it’s just not the right way to go.

Bill Fukui 6:31
Okay. So when when you’re assessing a practice, when you’re going into a practice looking at potential opportunities for them, whether that’s investment in, in, in in equipment, or rec making recommendations regarding personnel, or processes? How do you go about assessing? You know, what, what would a practice expect when you come into the practice in terms of, of what you’re going to be able to deliver in terms of consulting recommendations, those types of things? Absolutely.

Kimberly Hall 7:09
When I first started working with a practice, one of the first things I want to do is I want to interview the folks who work in the practice. And I want to really get to learn a lot about the practice, what their goals are, what their mission is, their, their branding, you know, how they see themselves, and what they really want to accomplish. I also want to learn a lot about what they’re already doing, that’s working for them in terms of marketing, internal, external, digital, social media, all about what are you already doing that’s working, and what’s not working. And then I’m going to put together some recommendations as to how to make things or help things go better for them to be generating consistent revenue, and to be acquiring new patients. Because, of course, it’s really easy to fish your own pond, right, and to market to your own internal database, which is definitely something we want to be doing and doing in the right way. But we also really want to be focusing on the Holy Grail, new patient acquisition. So how do we do that? How can I help that practice to really put together a plan where they’re going to be able to acquire new patients?

Bill Fukui 8:24
Okay. So, you know, you kind of talked about the internal patients, and that building those, that residual revenue in terms of lifetime patients and keeping them, you know, within our sphere of influence within the practice, make keeping them loyal? A question on that is, are there things that you recommend that you see practices not doing consistently, that can help keep these practice, you know, these these people that are, quite honestly built this practice? You know, how we can keep them in the fold, as opposed to just recycling new new patients all the time?

Kimberly Hall 9:04
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s so I think it’s really important to recognize that our patients who already have a relationship with us, and who trust us, they are going to be one of our greatest assets. And so it’s really important to treat them that way. And to go out of our way to show our gratitude and our appreciation for those patients who are coming back to us who are referring their friends and family to us. So we want to give them incentives to we want to recognize them. So having a loyalty program is is a great way to do that. And that can look like so many different faces, right? It can look a lot of different ways to have that loyalty program, whether it’s points. And I think point systems work really, really well then you get out of the whole dollar value thing. So you even have Being a, you know, a system that’s connected with your EMR where a lot of EMR systems now have this where you can kind of keep track and have a point system going on and award system going on where they get, you know, 50 awards points, every time they refer, you know, a friend or a family member, maybe they get a discount, maybe they get a 10% discount, because they’ve referred so many people, so maybe they’re considered a VIP patient, be and they love that they love that status. So, you know, hey, I’m a VIP patient of Dr. Smith and offering those patients who come back frequently and refer lots of folks, when there’s an opportunity for them to maybe take advantage of, maybe you bought a new device, that’s my specialty, right? So maybe you bought a new device, and you’re launching that new device in your practice, maybe you’re going to be getting some clinical training on that device, maybe you have an opportunity to offer that VIP patient the opportunity to be a part of that training and to be a model patient, and they get a treatment for no charge or very small charge. And then they’re going to be a brand ambassador for you to go out there and say, I just had this brand new treatment. And it was great. It was amazing. Look at the results that I got.

Bill Fukui 11:15
Yeah, I think you touch on a couple of really important things. I mean, that that gets my wheels turning. Number one, it is that a lot of practices. They take the existing patients for granted. They just think oh, well, they they like me, they refer us and they’d spend $0. And yet the time when practices are saying, doctor, we’ve got to start marketing internal, we need to build up plans for this stuff. And he’s gonna say, Well, how much does that cost us? You know, what’s, what’s one of those things costs? And if we give those away to the patient, how much is that going to cost us? Yet, they’re not looking at the big thing that when I look at revenues from a practice, it’s it’s not unusual. In fact, it’s, it’s detrimental. If I see a practice that gets the majority of their their patients through marketing, if they generate most of their patients through, you know, pay per click advertising or social media, that’s great. But if their referral volume or their referrals or return visitors, their revenue isn’t based on their existing patient base, at least 50% of their practice isn’t referral or return visitor type of revenue. I’m wondering, do I have a bad product? Is there something? Is there something wrong here?

Kimberly Hall 12:43
Exactly. It’s so important to be keeping track of your retention, your patient retention, if you’re not retaining patients, and they’re not referring friends and family to and they’re not coming back for other services? It’s a really big red flag, what’s going on in my practice? Are we giving stellar customer service? Are we giving a great patient experience? Are we treating our patients like they should be treated like they are gold because they are gold, we know that the lifetime value of an aesthetics patient to a practice right now is about $150,000. Wow, okay, in that patient, because not only is that the money that they’re going to be spending in your practice over their lifetime, but it’s also the money that their friends and family are going to spend in your practice over their lifetime. So it’s so important to bring it back to basics. And, you know, before you start really jumping into what’s my marketing plan for new patient acquisition, you know, the Holy Grail. But yeah, of course, that’s important. But before we get there, we have to make sure that internally, we have our infrastructure working exactly the way that it needs to be working, and that we’re providing a smooth, stellar, seamless patient experience where our patients feel cared for, they feel valued. And they feel special. Yeah, that that is key. If you don’t have that going on, and you don’t have you don’t feel like, you know, hey, we’re at that five star experience that we need to be at for our patients, then now’s not the time to jump into spending a ton of money out of money. Because let’s work internally first, let’s get our own house in order. You know, we can’t invite people into our house, if it’s a mess, and expect them to leave and say hey, you know, you should go over to a building. Make sure make sure your house is in order, make sure it looks beautiful. Just making sure that they they really the team needs to be on the same page to that they want to provide that stellar experience.

Bill Fukui 14:56
Yeah, I think that you know, one of the things that you’ve talked also out was, these patients that are, you know, when they do get rewards, they almost kind of like they take ownership, they take ownership of the practice many times. And those are many times your, you know, the champions of and help build the foundation of a really solid practice is we got to we got to cultivate those,

Kimberly Hall 15:19
though because it’s actually really important, what you said is a lot of the practices that I’m working with right now, they want to jump into building relationships with social media influencers, you know, let’s let’s, let’s build a relationship with this social media influencer, let’s get this influence in here. Let’s get Okay, that’s great. But again, that’s, that’s external. And if your internal house isn’t in order, and you’re not where you need to be with that, then bring your focus inward again, and let’s focus on who are some VIP patients that already exist in your practice. Who are some patients who, who come back to you, they love you, they refer people to you, they’re repeat patients, let’s talk to them about whether or not they’d be willing to let you use a couple of photos of one of their treatments, or some video of one of their treatments on social media, let’s find out if they would be willing to post for you on social media. Because they have friends, they have a circle. And yeah, they might not be an influencer, but they have a circle and they have friends in your area in your community. So let’s work on that first and make them feel special. I think

Bill Fukui 16:28
that is such an I think that’s such a great idea. And so overlooked. You know, the fact of the matter is, you know, that whole marketing concept that people kind of forget about, it’s birds of a feather flock together, if this patient came in and had a particular procedure or treatment or technology done, there’s a good likelihood they associate with, you know, demographics that are of similar lifestyle age, and they talk about the same things. I mean, half the time they motivate each other to do things, you know. And so I think, you know, marketing to their network, I think is what viral marketing really should be, I think with these influencers that get, you know, hundreds of 1000s of followers or whatever. I mean, that’s great, it’s great exposure, but how many of them are actually gonna walk in that front door of your office today, the influencers that are within your practice, chances are, they’re in, you know, their network of people, or a much greater likelihood of walking in that front door. And they already have a live spokesperson, who they have a they trust, saying that you’re good. You know, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

Kimberly Hall 17:47
You don’t need a Real Housewives of Orange County, you don’t, you don’t need a real housewife of Dallas, because you have a real housewife in your practice right now. Who has her own circle of friends who has her own network, who loves you and appreciates you and wants to feel special and a great way to make her feel special is to invite her to be a part of your practice by sharing on social media, and, you know, give her a treatment, you know, give her an absolutely, you know, whatever, because that those referrals are gold to you the ROI is the ROI is exponential.

Bill Fukui 18:21
You know, and I think even when you’re introducing new technology, new technology into practices, is you got to prime the pump. I mean, 25 years ago, we started marketing, lasik surgery. I was doing LASIK TV advertising 25 years ago, but nobody knew what it was. I mean, the industry pumped in millions of dollars in marketing. But the consumers, you know, they were anticipating that first year that the excimer laser came out for you know, nearsighted vision correction that the industry expected, I think about 5 million procedures done in the first year. And what ultimately happened was about 150,000 people had it done. Okay, way below expectations, partly because the market didn’t know about it enough or didn’t, you know, it’s my eyes that there was a phobia about laser in my eye, there’s something not safe about that kind of thing. So I think when you’re introducing new technology, into a practice, new laser, new cosmetic, I think getting patients to use it, getting patients in there feeding priming the pump, and building off of that you leverage every one of those patients that you have using that and you make it like you said, give them an opportunity to try it. They’re gonna love it. If the technology is good, and it’s and they’re getting the outcomes. The business will come from it, but you got to somewhat prime the pump and I think that’s kind of what you’re talking about.

Kimberly Hall 20:00
It is exactly it is exactly what I’m talking about. When you bring a new device into your practice, you need to you bring a new procedure into your practice, the first 90 days, your focus needs to be 100% on launching that new device within your practice, and focusing on your existing patient database, your staff, and branding your office, getting it on your social media, getting it on your website, making sure that it’s really digital friendly, mobile friendly, that. And then once you get through those first 90 days, you get all the kinks worked out, you get your team trained, you get your staff on board, you get your staff treated, so that you’ve got some internal staff and

Bill Fukui 20:44
I like that,

Kimberly Hall 20:47
oh, that’s huge. One of the number one recommendations that I make to practice with a new device is First things first, clinical training for the clinical providers, staff training for your front and back office, how to talk about it, how to sell it, and then treat them treat at least three patient facing team members who love to talk to people, they have good social skills, they’re friendly, they’re gregarious, treat them, treat them whether they think they needed or not treat them. Because once they experience it for themselves, and they get a great result, which most of the time, you know, with a lot of these devices, they’re gonna get a good results. Yeah, got the old days of lasers, where you don’t know what kind of results someone’s gonna get, you’re gonna get some great results. Yes, you don’t even have to sell it then anymore. They’re just happy to tell patients or they’re just

Bill Fukui 21:39
telling the story. Yeah, so the story, they’re gonna say, Hey, we

Kimberly Hall 21:42
got this new treatment, oh, my gosh, it’s so amazing. We just got trained on it, I’m so excited, I got the treatment, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe it, that that you want to focus on that first. And then once you get through that, then you can focus, you know, once you get to that 90 to 120 day, Mark, then focus on external marketing, and, you know, putting some money and investing some money into a good digital marketing campaign to bring some attention to that new device in your practice. Yeah,

Bill Fukui 22:11
I think that that’s great. The other thing was, you also said about getting reviews from, you know, patients who try new technology or try this, you know, get them to try it and stuff, have them post reviews, I think that’s that that’s really also hugely important, you know, from a marketer standpoint, so that I can have assets on that page, I want testimonials I want, you know, things that, you know, have credibility, or third party endorsements, I think those are, that’s really important. You know, one of the things that, you know, I’m gonna go back to, you know, that relationship, you know, building in the practice, and, and having those, those champions that are willing to promote us and stuff. One of the things probably the biggest thing, miss, you know, Miss opportunity is when they go out and post reviews, the doctors are so proud of them. You know, when I talk to a doctor or practice, they’re like, Oh, I’ve got 70, I’ve got 120 reviews, I got blah, blah, blah, and I got four point, you know, six stars or whatever. And they’re really happy about it, which is great. So but when I go in there, and I’m like, Gee, Doctor, this is all great. But, you know, I’m looking at Susan Smith. I’m looking at, Sherry, I’m looking at John, I’m looking at all these people, and they posted really stellar reviews for you. Yep. I don’t see that anybody’s responded to them. You have not responded to any of these people. You know, these are the people that are out there cheerleading for you. And they don’t even know you saw it.

Kimberly Hall 23:49
Okay, it’s such a good point, Bill, and I agree with you. I see it all the time. And engagement is high priority. Yes. The engagement. Yeah, engaging. Again, it’s helping those patients to feel appreciated that you appreciate them, you appreciate what they’re doing for your practice, show your appreciation. So one of the things you know about me is that I recently was working on as the CEO and a large plastic surgery and Med Spa practice in Newport Beach, California. And one of the things that we did in our practice that was very successful and made a huge difference. It not only is that responding to reviews, but get we had an awards program, we gave them 50 points on their on their awards account that they can apply to you know, when they come in to other treatments or whatever. So it’s not dollars you’re not giving money as points. So we think them as a as a way to show appreciation and it really goes a long way in helping patients feel appreciated and special. And don’t be afraid To ask patients for reviews, you know, I

Bill Fukui 25:02
think that’s probably, you know,

Kimberly Hall 25:05
I had an experience, I got a great result. Hey, would you be willing to share that? You know, would you be willing to share your experience? It would, it would mean so much to us. And by the way, if you do, we’ll give you 50 points, you know, I don’t reward security.

Bill Fukui 25:21
Yeah. And I think people will go out of their way to do that kindness for you, not because they get the 50 points is because they like you. That’s why they it’s the relationship, it is anything that we can do to facilitate that. That tighter knit relationship on a more personal level, that I know them as people and their family and their husband or whatever. I think it’s those people that take ownership of your business, you want people to take ownership of your practice, feeling like that’s my or, you know, the old saying, Oh, it’s my plastic surgeon, you know, my plastic surgeon? Well, that is exactly the point, you know, we kind of lose sight of the fact that we need patients to feel like you’re theirs. Those are the ones that refer us.

Kimberly Hall 26:12
That’s right. That’s right.

Bill Fukui 26:14
Yeah. So, hey, anyway, I’ve taken up a lot of your time today, what I’d like for you to do is you can end with two things. Number one, if there is a takeaway, if there is one thing advice you can give either a practice administrator, a surgeon, or a frontline person, you know, especially in in the midst of all this, you know, COVID, and all these things going around as what would be the one, you know, advice you would give them. And then also give me some idea of how people can get a hold of, you know, if they have questions, or really just some advice in terms of helping them with their practices internally, because I think you are a wealth of information.

Kimberly Hall 27:00
Absolutely. Well, it may not be what you think it is. But having worked during this time, during the pandemic, has been a really challenging time for all of us, not one person has escaped, the challenge of working in this time, working in healthcare is a really interesting challenge. Whether working, you know, in a medical esthetics practice, or a plastics practice, or even family medicine, it doesn’t matter. It’s very challenging time. And it’s really easy, you know, as an administrator or as a provider, to get discouraged, and to focus on the things that aren’t working, or the things that are different, that are challenging and stressful. And I would really encourage everyone out there right now to take a deep breath, step back and really refocus on what is working, and what is positive in your practice right now. And focus on that, and build on that. Because it is really possible to have a really successful practice right now, even during this time and share in our practice, we were really concerned about how COVID was going to impact us and a revenue wise, specifically, but we were actually up 80%? Yes, we were up 245% on our injectable sales. So again, but that took some stepping back, and refocusing and looking at, hey, what are people asking for? What is working? And how can we maximize that and also keep our team motivated and positive? So the other thing I would say to my best advice right now is really figure out and learn and look at how can you keep your team happy, positive and motivated right now recognize them, appreciate them, you know, and give them some incentives as well, because they are the face of your practice. And so when they’re happy, and they’re motivated, and they’re positive, patients are gonna feel that and they’re gonna get they’re gonna want to come in and and talk to your team because people are isolated right now. So when they come into your office, and your team is friendly and happy and positive, it makes them feel good. And they want to come back in, they want to come back and see you and so they’ll they’ll come in for other services.

Bill Fukui 29:30
Yeah, I think, you know, you point out a really important thing that it’s not always just the surgeon or the doctor that they’re coming there for. It’s the people experience, it’s the relationships that they develop. So I think anything that you’re talking about in the long term, in terms of keeping staff there, it’s longevity. If you don’t have if every person that’s in your practice is new to the practice. Every time somebody comes in, they can’t build a relationship with, you know, it is the stability of a solid practice. And not everybody needs to stay, we all know that there are certain times when people need to leave, and they’re not really a good fit. But we still need that core of people that create our culture that create this environment that people want to be part of. I think that’s, you know, that’s the healthy practice that you’re talking about. And absolutely, I agree that that’s, has helped these practices, surprisingly enough, I just posted an article on, you know, planning for 2021. And I did some research in terms of consumer interest, and consumer search activities and stuff for, you know, all the high dollar elective surgery, you know, breast augmentation, liposuction, tummy tuck, cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, and all those really expensive disposable income services. And we saw an initial, you know, drop in interest, you know, in March and early part of April. But from April on, the interest in that has gone through the roof, it has gone back to pre actually ahead of pre COVID volume. So I think the idea that, like you’re saying, Don’t get stuck on the negative, there’s so much opportunity out here, let’s focus on the things that we can grow because consumers still want it. I mean, they want what we offer.

Kimberly Hall 31:36
Absolutely, they do. Absolutely, they do. And I know you want me to wrap it up. But I just would love to add one thing about that. Yeah. What we know about our market right now, and it’s very, very clear is that patients are looking for aesthetic treatments, they’re looking for all sorts of treatments in that arena. But they don’t necessarily want to go under general anesthesia. And they don’t, you know, really want to necessarily have to take prescription medication and those kinds of things, we have a very savvy, sophisticated, you know, somewhat educated market. So open your mind to maybe some non invasive procedures that you maybe you hadn’t considered before. They’re great revenue streams, they’re great, consistent revenue stream. So there’s some great devices out there that you can add to your practice without a tremendous, you know, financial commitment that are asked for that are sought after, and that they’re looking for that can really create a solid, consistent revenue stream for your practice.

Bill Fukui 32:40
I think that even the COVID has actually accelerated that, you know, desire for a lot of those non surgical treatments, and people are spending the time looking into them. I mean, they are, like, you know, looking at what those options are, they’re spending actually more time online, which is, you know, for us as an internet marketing company, it’s always been good. But But you’re absolutely right, they are spending more time looking at those options. And non evasive is definitely something practices. I’ve seen more practices make much bigger investments in the med spa and in the non surgical aesthetic technology side. Absolutely. If you’re not doing it, you need to be looking into it.

Kimberly Hall 33:22
Absolutely, absolutely. Well,

Bill Fukui 33:25
what’s the best way that somebody that wants to reach out to you what’s the best way for them to reach out to you Kimberly,

Kimberly Hall 33:31
feel free to shoot me a text at 303-905-4769.

Bill Fukui 33:36
Super. Hey, Kimberly, thank you again for all your time. I do want to maybe in the future, have a separate conversation. And that’s really more on the technology side when we’re talking about, you know, getting more of those non non invasive options in practices. I’d like to talk to you more about that. Would love to super well have a great, great afternoon and Hey, happy New Year.

Kimberly Hall 34:04
Happy New Year. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 34:07
Take care. Hi,

MSD Insider 34:09
thanks for joining us for the med shark insider with Bill Fukui join us next week for another dive into all things medical marketing. All episodes can be streamed at WWW dot med Shark digital.com/med Shark Dash insider

Transcribed by https://otter.ai