Welcome to today’s episode of True to Form with your host, president and co-founder of Crystal Clear, highly regarded speaker, and two-time Ink 500 entrepreneur, Tim Sawyer. True to Form is a podcast that highlights leaders making headway in the aesthetic, anti-aging, and elective medical industry. Learn from the experts to discover the secrets of success and pitfalls to avoid when growing all aspects of your elective medical practice.
Speaker 1:
This week’s episode is brought to you by TouchMD, the all-in-one aesthetic technology hub that educates your captive audience in the waiting room and consult room, consistently captures and manages photos, provides digital charting and consents, and allows patients to take their experience home to share what they learned with friends and family, via the practice’s patient app. Please join me in welcoming your host, the authentic, the transparent Tim Sawyer.
Tim Sawyer:
Hello. Welcome to True to Form, the podcast that connects you to the people, technology, and the hot topics that shape the elective medical community, provided to you by Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, and brought to you by this week’s sponsor TouchMD, the leading all-in-one aesthetic technology hub.
Tim Sawyer:
I’m your host, Tim Sawyer. To our returning guests, we say welcome back, and for first time listeners, we appreciate you joining us and encourage you to become a subscriber. In the last episode, we spoke with Dr. Edward McLaren, an entrepreneurial prosthodontist who talked about the industry-wide convergence of aesthetics and dentistry and its true relevance to all practices of elective medicine. If you missed it, you should check it out.
Tim Sawyer:
With all that said, we are ready to go this week. We have got an incredible guest. I’m so, so, so psyched to have him here. He’s a client. He’s a friend. He’s got a few neat projects going on that we want to talk about. He’s an incredible plastic surgeon. Dr. Jonathan Kaplan is a board-certified plastic surgeon based in San Francisco, California. He is the founder and CEO of BuildMyBod Health. I want to talk about that today. Price transparency, lead generation platform. His presentations and published works all strive for the same goal using statistical analysis and outcomes measures to produce actionable insights in the clinical, scientific, and practice management arena of health care. With that said, welcome to the program, Dr. Kaplan. How are you today?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Thanks for having me, Tim. I appreciate it. Doing great today.
Tim Sawyer:
First of all, that was a mouthful for me, so I have a question.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
All right.
Tim Sawyer:
Unpack that. Outcomes measures to produce measurable insights in the clinical, scientific and practice management arena of health care. What is that?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward. Just being in the plastic surgery arena, coming through medical school and residency, you’re always being exposed to journal articles, and the journal articles that are based on outcomes measures and research. They’re always about clinical medicine or bench research in the lab, but it’s never really about practice management. So, yes, we do things, talking about clinical research and all that, but when it comes to practice management, there’s so little out there that really that is based on outcomes measures and data and things like that. For example, people will say, “Oh yeah, we have more traffic to our website,” and they’ll show you their clicks. But what can you do with a click? You can’t really follow a click.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, what we do is, with BuildMyBod Health and just in my practice alone in San Francisco, we really strive to make sure that whatever things we’re talking about when it comes to practice management, lead generation, building your practice, that we back it up with data. A perfect example is that, when I came here, I took over a practice. I bought a practice. I wrote this up and it was actually in the PSN News Extra. I think everybody has access to that. But, the point being is I bought a practice, and I looked at it five years later. We looked at what percentage of patients came back to see us, and that’s the kind of thing that nobody else knows. When you talk about outcomes measures when it comes to practice management, nobody knows that kind of data. So, we published it.
Tim Sawyer:
Retention.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, typically people will say, if you tell them you’re going to take over a practice, they’ll say, “Oh, you should expect 25% of the patients to stay with your new practice.” I think that, whenever somebody says that something is 20%, I think that means they don’t really know the answer. That’s a good number, 20%. Because 10% sounds too low, 50% sounds too high. Let’s just go with 20%. The same reason that the $20 bill is the most common currency.
Tim Sawyer:
[inaudible 00:04:47]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Anyway. So, we actually looked at that and the percentage of patients that stuck around. It was 8.66%. It’s a really low percentage.
Tim Sawyer:
Wow.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That’s the thing is that’s kind of what we do with … That’s what I like to do as far as what I published, whether it’s online journals, whether it’s actually print journals, that we’re trying to apply some statistical data to the world of practice management, which nobody else seems to be doing as much as we’d like.
Tim Sawyer:
Exactly. We’re trying. But let me ask you this, because I want to make sure that our listeners understand. When you talk about patients who return, you’re speaking in terms of retention, right? So, if you have 100 patients, is it that, in this case, 8.6% are going to come back at some period in the future and do an additional procedure? Is that the analysis?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Well, I’m specifically talking about when I took over this practice from the previous plastic surgeon. He left me about 1,700 people in his database.
Tim Sawyer:
Oh, those.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly.
Tim Sawyer:
So, 9% stayed. I see.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly. 8.66% just gave me a chance that first time. I’m not talking about they all came to see me and then only 8.6% said-
Tim Sawyer:
I see.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
… after they met me, “I’m not coming back to this guy,” only 8.6%. I’m talking about 8.66% at least gave me the shot to come in and see me at least once after that doctor left.
Tim Sawyer:
Right. And are you doing-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But we took the data a little bit further is that, after five years, it was like, okay, 8.66%. That’s pretty low. That’s kind of depressing. But granted, I did get an operating room, an accredited operating room, in the process. So, financially, it was a good decision. But we looked at it five years later, and found that, of those 8.66%, that the amount of money they spent ended up being a 312% ROI based on the amount that I paid for the practice. So, it ended up being a good decision but just took five years to prove that.
Tim Sawyer:
Wow. Well, first of all, congratulations.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Thanks.
Tim Sawyer:
I’d be curious to know how that stacks up against the average purchase. Is there data for that?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah. It’s kind of hard to find data. And even though you can find the … Anecdotally, people will tell you how much they paid for their practice. Every practice is a little bit different. So, for example, I’ll just tell you the practice I bought, I got it for $191,000. That included the phone number, the patient charts, which you really can’t depend on that much, as I’ve just pointed out with 8.66% retention. But I also got an accredited operating room. So, I actually got a good, not just a good will, I got something worthwhile that could start making money from the beginning.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, that’s how much I paid for that practice, but you talk to somebody else about a practice they bought. Well, maybe it’s not an operating room, but you’ve got a lot of machines that you’re taking over and a lot of aesthetic machines that you’re paying a monthly mortgage on. It’s kind of hard to give you data on what other people are paying, because the practice … You’re not really comparing apples to apples.
Tim Sawyer:
Right. In those types of transactions, and then I want to move onto BuildMyBod, do they trade on EBITDA? In other words, is it some percentage of what EBITDA, meaning the money that the person’s taking home, and then it’s a multiple of that, isn’t it?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Right. Great question. Great question. Keep in mind that, if somebody’s looking to sell a practice, there’s more than enough consultants that you can hire that will help you figure out how much to sell the practice for, how to value it. Maybe that consultant will cost you 10 grand. But the way this doctor particularly, the way he valued it was not on EBITDA. He chose to look at the net value of his injectables in the last full year of his practice. So, the injectables: Botox and fillers. The reason he wanted it just based on injectables is because he thought it’s not fair to charge you based on all the revenue that I made from surgical patients, because those patients probably are not going to come back to you. They already got their surgery. Thank god some of them did.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But, anyway, he based it on the patients that were probably going to be most likely to come back, and that was injectable patients. So, he took all the Botox, all the fillers, the total revenue he got from that. Then he subtracted out the cost of the Botox and the fillers, came up with a net number, and then he did a multiple of two. I don’t know why, but when you’re doing valuations and purchases, people do multiples of things. I’m not really sure why you get to just have these fudge factors of two, three, or four, but he did a fudge factor of two. That’s how he came up with $191,000. That included the operating room and all the supplies, so it ended up … It was a great purchase, in my mind, and hopefully he feels like it was a great sale, because that’s when people are happiest, when both sides feel like they got a good deal.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. And he got out, right? At the end of the day, not all-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
He got out.
Tim Sawyer:
… practices have any intrinsic value at the end if it’s just that it’s a doctor’s name and a lease. There’s not much to that. It’s a really interesting part of the business. It’s funny, because my friend Lou Frisina who we were talking about before we hopped on, post that work with Restylane, that’s what he does now for a living. He does M&A. So, he’ll kind of help you value the practice. He leads a hedge fund, and they’re actually actively buying up practices right now, med spas for the most part. We always have these neat conversations around how they arise at a value, how they arrive at a value.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Right. That’s the big thing right now, buying up urology practices and dermatology practices, and then med spas. Private equity hasn’t been as successful buying up plastic surgery practices yet. I think there’s just too many egos to deal with. I don’t know.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. I work with a few of them. So, let’s talk about BuildMyBod. How’d you come up with that idea? How long has that been around now? And how’s the platform work, and how would it enhance-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Right. I started out … After I finished my fellowship at Cleveland Clinic, I was back in Louisiana. I practiced there for six years before my wife and I moved here to San Francisco. But, I had this idea back when I was in Louisiana that … We had patients calling in all the time, asking how much things cost, and with cosmetic procedures they want to know how much an arm lift costs or whatever. But then nowadays, with people having high deductible health plans, even if it’s a medically necessary procedure, not even a cosmetic procedure, people are having to pay out of pocket. It’s more and more common now patients want to know how much they’re going to have to pay for their health care, because they know it’s not going to get covered, at least the first $5,000 or whatever.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But, anyway, with cosmetics, patients are always calling in, and it was just such a painful conversation with the front desk to have. Either they would say, “Oh, you’ve got to come in for a consult first,” which irritates the hell out of the patient. Or they would go on this long diatribe about how much it costs and giving them all the details, and then the patient would say, “All right. Thanks,” and, click, and just hang up, and you wouldn’t get any contact information out of them.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, I realized that patients want to know pricing, so we have that … And every doctor’s office has that information in a fee schedule, so it’s not like the numbers don’t exist. It’s just a matter of making it digitized, making it accessible to the patient, but don’t just list is as a menu on your website. Get something out of it. Get a lead out of it. I found that this is by far the most powerful call to action button now. You go to somebody’s website. We were talking about Dr. Young, the plastic surgeon in San Antonio that, on his website-
Tim Sawyer:
Yep. [inaudible 00:12:04]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
If you go to his website … Excuse me. If you go to his website, you’ll see a Get a Quote Now button. Everybody wants to know how much something costs. It doesn’t make them a price shopper. It doesn’t mean you have to be the least expensive. But you go to his website, you click on the Get a Quote Now button. It brings you to a pricing page on his website. Then the consumer can look through all of the services that he offers, injectables, surgical procedures. Then they can add that to their wishlist. Before they can see the pricing, they have to put in their contact information.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That what the BuildMyBod platform does is it connects price transparency with lead generation. So, the consumer can, in an automated way, see the cost that the doctor provides. And we’re not talking about US averages that are worthless, but it’s actually that doctor’s pricing. In exchange, the doctor gets, or the front office staff gets, an email with all the patient’s contact information for followup. That’s kind of how BuildMyBod started. Go ahead.
Tim Sawyer:
Can you see what they clicked on in terms of their wishlist?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly right. The email that is generated that automatically goes to the consumer and to the doctor, it shows how soon they’re looking to get it done. They have to choose between as soon as possible, a few weeks, a few months. Then they show their name, email address, phone number, their city, state, and zip code of the consumer that’s checking. Then it shows a breakdown of all the pricing for that specific procedure that they’re looking at. Exactly right. So, the doctor can see what they’re checking out.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Something that’s really cool that we just added is that, if you think about it, whenever somebody comes to your website … Y’all can do this too. But when someone comes to your website, you know the IP addresses they’re visiting from. That’s how Google Analytics tracks people that are coming to your website. So, the thing that’s cool about it though is, when you have the ability for somebody to check pricing, they’re going to want to know pricing more than they’re going to want to fill out a contact submission form. They’re going to want to know pricing more than they’re going to want to join your email list or sign up for your newsletter or whatever.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, what we’re able to do is that, each time somebody comes to the doctor’s website and checks pricing and enters their contact information, we’re able to connect their IP address with their contact information. If the doctor logs into the BuildMyBod provider portal, then not only can they see all the leads they’re getting, but in realtime they can see who is on their website checking pricing, even before they maybe sign in upon that return visit. You can actually look at the dashboard and see who’s on your website, their name, email address, and phone number, but they haven’t necessarily submitted a wishlist yet, but you know who they are, because they’ve been there before, because we’re connected the contact information to the IP address.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
And it’s legal, because they’re providing their contact information. They’re checking the boxes saying it’s okay for you to have my contact information. Now, if we sold their data to somebody else, that’s illegal.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:14:46]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
[inaudible 00:14:48]
Tim Sawyer:
I would be curious to see … So, we don’t typically talk a lot about Crystal Clear on the podcast, but in this case it’s relevant. The reporting that Crystal Clear provides, one of the things that I always look at is what are the top visited pages, and where does those people come from? But in terms of top visiting pages, I’d be curious to see where the BuildMyBod page [crosstalk 00:15:19]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Sure. On the doctor’s website. Yeah.
Tim Sawyer:
So, have you looked at that in your own monthly reporting-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
In terms of the home page is number one, and then is BuildMyBod number two?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah. So, this goes back to my bio, that I’m always looking to assign statistics to outcomes, measurements, and practice management issues. I’m right there with you.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Bradley Hubbard, a plastic surgeon in Dallas, he did a study on his price estimator on his website and gave us the data. What he found was that, going from most visited, the top three most visited on his website, so the most visited was his landing page. Then the second most visited was his photo gallery. Then the third most visited was his price estimator page. But then, he looked at how long did people … What were the pages that people stayed on the longest? Then that flipped around. The longest amount of time people spent on a page was the price estimator page. Then the second most longest time was the photo gallery, and the third longest was the landing page.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, even though we don’t always know what the Google algorithm is, we’re always trying to keep up, there is some data to show that, the longer people spend on a page on your website, the more likely you’re going to rise up in the organic listings. Even though on his website the price estimator page was maybe the third most visited, it was actually the one that they spent the most amount of time on. Keeping people on your website, that’s very powerful. So, that kind of speaks to your question of some of the data that we found in regards to that.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. It would be interesting. So, there’s two things that I’m always curious about around those analytics. One is that. In other words, what pages did they arrive on, the time they spent? Because then you can fool around with that. Then the other piece is where’d all that traffic come from?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Correct.
Tim Sawyer:
So, obviously part of that is a function of SEO rankings, but part of that also is promotional efforts through email and social media.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Sure.
Tim Sawyer:
Are you, in your own practice … I know you’ve got a huge following on Instagram. So, talk a little bit about your social and email strategy, if you don’t mind.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Sure. Of course. By far, the most powerful way to build our email database is just getting leads to our website and through social media. So, sure, you can get people to your website. You can get people to your social media page. But kind of going back to what I was saying earlier is that you get a bunch of clicks. You can’t really do much with that. So, the key is, whatever traffic you’re getting, whether it’s social media or advertising to your website, you want to find out who those people are. Again, it goes back to that Get a Quote Now button is a great way to capture people’s contact information and build your email database.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
When I first got here and took over the practice, there was 200 email addresses in the guy’s database, and then we’ve grown it to … Of course, he had more than 200 patients, but that was the only email addresses he had. So, we’ve grown the email database from 200 to over 9,800 in over six and a half years all through just capturing people’s leads when they were checking pricing.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But as far as how we’re doing, whatever kind of advertising we’ve done … And we’ve tried everything. We’ve done TV advertising. We’re not currently doing that. We’ve done billboard advertising. We’re not currently doing that. We’ve done radio advertising. I am currently doing that, and I’m on the radio once a week with a local morning show. But whatever the advertising I’m doing is … And I’m not doing any Google AdWords right now. But whatever it is, we’re just trying to get them to that final common pathway of getting them back to our website to our price estimator so we can find out who they are.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That’s really been useful on Instagram, because everybody on Instagram is asking you … They’ll see the stories. They’ll see the operation you do. They’ll see a post of a before and after. Everybody asks, “How much does that cost?” One of the cool things you can do is, with Instagram direct messaging, you can say, “Here, you can check pricing for that specific procedure here.” Instead of just sending them a link to the price estimator, then they have to scroll through and find the procedure they’re interested in, we can actually send them a deep link or a direct link to that specific procedure they’re considering. It goes straight there. They submit a wishlist. They get pricing. We get their contact information. But that’s something that’s really kind of increased our leads as of late, because Instagram makes it so easily with direct messaging to give them that information.
Tim Sawyer:
Right. Yeah. See, now, where did, as a … So, a couple things. On a personal note, when we started talking, even I realized that your Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery practice is in San Francisco. Something didn’t add up. Part of me felt like it was like talking to Buddy the Elf in New York City.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Right. Exactly.
Tim Sawyer:
[inaudible 00:20:06]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
So, how did you end up in San Francisco? What was that?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah. Yeah. Again, as I mentioned, I finished my plastic surgery fellowship at Cleveland Clinic, went back to Louisiana where I’m from, and I was employed by a hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Remember, this was back in 2007, so this was two years after Hurricane Katrina. Katrina decimated New Orleans. The hospitals closed. There was a big shift in population to Baton Rouge. This community hospital became the biggest private hospital in the state, Our Lady of the Lake. So, they needed somebody to help with the plastic surgery fellows that had been at LSU New Orleans and the Tulane program in New Orleans that, a lot of those programs, they had to shift to finding training available, patients to see and treat, in Baton Rouge.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
This hospital needed somebody to kind of formalize that rotation. So, they brought me back in as the program coordinator, I guess is my official title, for the Tulane and LSU plastic surgery programs in Baton Rouge. That’s the job I got hired to do. I was there for six years. They treated me well. That’s when I came up with the idea for BuildMyBod. Because I was employed by them, I had to get them to sign a release, giving me intellectual property rights to it, which was a little bit … It was a little bit of a nail-biter. So, I was there for six years.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Then I was looking to have … I was starting to get more cosmetic patients. I wanted my own operating room. The hospital wasn’t going to build me my own operating room, which is understandable. So, I started looking around for practices that had their own operating room. ASPS sends out a weekly newsletter. American Society of Plastic Surgeons sends out a weekly newsletter, and at the bottom was a job listing. This guy in San Francisco was looking to tell his practice and his own accredited operating room. That was back in February of 2013. My wife and I flew out here. We saw the practice, saw it was legitimate, saw that you can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the office.
Tim Sawyer:
Wow.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That was all pretty cool, here in Pacific Heights. So, we talked, and he gave me the last three years of his tax filings, had an accountant and a lawyer look at it. They all said it was legit. So, we came up with a deal, and we moved out here in June of 2013. We’ve been here ever since. Now it’s all mine, including all the bills.
Tim Sawyer:
Well, first of all, that’s awesome. Taking a shot is never easy. The second part of that question though is … So, you’re an entrepreneur. Clearly you’ve got an entrepreneurial spirit. But not only do you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you’ve got an appreciation for data and data on the business side, not just the clinical side. That’s relatively rare in elective medicine. Do you have a business background? Where did that acumen come from?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
I really don’t have a business background. But what I learned early on is that you can talk about things that you do all day long, but nobody believes you until it’s published somewhere. So, in my first year here in San Francisco, I was like, “I need to show people how pricing can be really useful to your practice as far as generating leads and things like that.” It was like the perfect kind of native territory. I moved to San Francisco. Nobody knows me. Let’s have this price estimator on my website, see how many leads I get, see how many of those people come in. And let’s look at that.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
We got it published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, and that’s now how I’m able to go to all these meetings and talk about price transparency and lead generation within my own practice, because you can’t just blatantly promote your product. Thankfully, you are letting me do that here on this podcast, but, when you’re at these CME meetings you can’t do that. You and I are at a lot of meetings together and speaking either right before or right after each other.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
In my first year here, the study I got published in Annals of Plastic Surgery showed that 17.8% of the people that submitted a wishlist through our website to check pricing, 17.8% of those people came in for a consultation, and then 62% of those people booked a procedure. We found that people that came in that were price aware were 41% more likely to book a procedure than people that were not price aware. That’s not that profound. That doesn’t surprise you that people that know the price ahead of time are more likely to book when they come in. But you can tell people that all day long, but until you publish it in a journal, and then nobody believes you. Once I did that, then I was able to go around and speak about that.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. That’s actually very powerful, which begs the question … There’s always this debate and argument at the meetings. When you talk about price transparency and publishing prices on the internet, there’s two schools of thought. A big group comes down on “I don’t want to tell anybody my pricing,” which … Okay. Well, like you said, if there’s data to support one is better than the other … And even at Crystal Clear, we should be advising our clients on … If there is data out there to support that, we should be advising our clients on what the data points to. That’s number one.
Tim Sawyer:
The other thing that always blows me away is … As you know, we capture and record hundreds of thousands of phone calls and do some spot checking and analysis on those. It always blows me away when somebody calls up and says, “I’m on your website. I notice you do CoolSculpting. Does the doctor do that, and how much does that cost?” And the person acts like that’s the most offensive thing anyone has ever asked in their life. And I say, “Would it be reasonable to assume, at some point in the next 12 months, someone might call the practice and say, ‘How much does that cost?'” And they act like … Well, the best thing I always get is “Well, I don’t want those kind of patients.” I’m like, “What kind of patients? People who want to know what this shit costs?”
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly. Right. Just like if you’re going … You turn it around on the doctor. When you’re going to a dealership to buy a car, you’d like to know how much the car costs before you get there to know whether it’s worth going to the dealership. Same thing with buying a house. You want to know how much it is before you go to the open house. It’s not unreasonable. As I said earlier, just because somebody asks about the price of something, that doesn’t make them a price shopper. It just makes them a normal human being.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
You kind of brought it up. People call and ask about pricing, and there’s two ways of approaching that, and both of them are wrong is typically what doctors do. Either they say you’ve got to come in for a consult, or they say that … Or they give them the pricing right on the phone, and then the person hangs up; you get nothing for it. That’s another thing is why it’s so important to build a huge email database and get as many leads as you can. When people call up, if they want pricing, we have an app where we can send them pricing while there on the phone, and we get their contact information. But it’s so important.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Every touchpoint you have with the patient, you should be trying to get their contact information to build a huge email database. Because, what we were talking about also, before we got on the phone or got on the podcast, was that, with Google algorithm updates and Instagram algorithm updates, that you are going to lose a lot of engagement potentially. March 2019, I lost a lot of traffic to my website. You can be standing there with nothing to show for all of your time and effort of your SEO and everything, or you can have a email database of 9,800 people like I do.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, I think that’s kind of the main kind of lesson I’m trying to teach everybody. Whatever you do, always be trying to get that email address, because that’s the only thing that’s going to save you on those rainy days when you don’t have a lot of traffic on your website, maybe even when the economy goes sour. You want to have something to show for it. Having a huge email database, you can then email market to these people whenever you want, and you don’t have to pay Facebook to email market in those cases. You don’t have to pay Google to email market. Just go after some self-sufficiency, I guess is what I’m saying.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. Philosophically, we preach a blended strategy. Another great case in point was when … We work a lot with antiaging folks. So, the antiaging folks do a lot with stem cells and PRP. That’s not just antiaging folks, but for the most part. Google comes out and says you can no longer advertise on their AdWords platform for anything related to PRP, stem cells, and they just did basically everything that an antiaging guy or gal would do. Adam and I did a podcast on it and said, “Guys, if that was your entire business model, now what?”
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly.
Tim Sawyer:
You just got wiped off the map. [crosstalk 00:29:07]
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That could happen to any of us.
Tim Sawyer:
I’m sorry. Go ahead. What?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
I was going to say that can happen to any of us. I don’t know that … Hopefully it won’t happen to the Brazilian butt lift, but that has been getting a lot of bad press lately. I’m going to a BBL conference in Miami in a couple days. It’s actually called the World Association of Gluteal Surgeons, WAGS. Isn’t that a great name?
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But the BBL had gotten some bad press lately because fat embolism and things like that. So, what if Google said you can’t promote the Brazilian butt lift anymore? If that’s your main practice, that’s really scary that they could have that much power over you. Same thing with the stem cell and PRP. So, I’m right there with you. You’ve got to have some alternative ways of marketing, or at least a huge email database, to follow up with those people in the future.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. It always comes down to the path of least … The easier path, while more expensive in the long run, is PPC, or pay-per-click.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Sure.
Tim Sawyer:
All of those things, whether it’s organic SEO or PPC, those are volatile. You have no control. They scream at Crystal Clear, “I’ve lost traffic to my website!” It really affected some of the people in our industry, RealSelf being one of them. I said, “Listen, RealSelf, that’s a great company. They laid off 40% of their workforce because they got wiped out in that update, and it was tough on them.” And I said, “So, it’s not just you.”
Tim Sawyer:
Because then they want to say somehow we screwed up their SEO on that given day, and that we should be able to fix that. We try to explain to them it’s going to take time. You can’t just … And we have doctors who have been with us, clients, for six years, five years. We started in 2014. Who thankfully we had built up enough equity in that relationship that they understand, hey, listen, this isn’t a Crystal Clear issue. This is a Google. Issue. And we don’t control that.
Tim Sawyer:
If you put all your eggs in one basket, you’re going be in trouble, which brings me back to why I think that the BuildMyBod is a really neat way, particularly from a lead capture standpoint. I’m absolutely going to reach out to those clients that you mentioned and look at their reports and see how those are performing. Because, like I said, if it works, we should be promoting it to all of our folks.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah. The idea is just using pricing as the carrot to get them into your sales funnel. You’re not guaranteeing that every single patient’s going to come in, but these are real-
Tim Sawyer:
No, no, no, no, no.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
These are real people, and these are real email addresses. So, eventually they’re going to get cosmetic service from somebody. It might as well be you.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. If you have the data, at least you can chase them.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Exactly right.
Tim Sawyer:
Then as you build that database … You meet someone today. It doesn’t mean … To your point, someone comes into your universe today. It doesn’t mean that she or he isn’t interested in doing it because they didn’t book on the first day. It’s just they have life going on.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Of course.
Tim Sawyer:
They’ve got yoga and kids and work. That person might not make a commitment til six months from now. But what email allows you to do, as you know … And at least even in the business application of Crystal Clear, we’ll meet someone like yourself at a show two years ago, and then all of a sudden we’ll get a phone call three years later that says, “Yeah, I get your emails all the time. I met you in 2017. Can we go through the pricing again?” But if we weren’t emailing, then they’d forget us.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
You can just do that until a show. With that being said, as we start to wind down, I noticed that you might be doing … Are doing some AAFE events. Is that right?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
I am.
Tim Sawyer:
The AAFE MBA events? Yeah, tell us about that.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, the American Academy of Facial Esthetics. They are kind of the … I don’t want to say the new kids on the block, because they’ve been around for a while, but they’ve really just brought in Gina Meyer who’s really kind of promoting the society, the academy. They’re having a lot more events around the country now. It’s really cool what they do.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
They really are kind of hitting on the major pain points for all of these doctors is that, one, they’re helping them with hands-on injectable training, because a lot of people are getting into Botox and fillers and things like that, but then the other part of it is they’re having these MBA academies, these medical business academies, on the second day of the program. They just go over all things practice management and really trying to get doctors that business acumen that you were referring to earlier, just trying to kind of get them up to speed.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Everybody’s so hard on doctors, and they always talk about “Oh, doctors are such bad businessmen,” but it just kind of irritates me, because businessmen aren’t good doctors either. It goes both ways.
Tim Sawyer:
Exactly.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
It’s just really what you’re trained to do. If you’re learning medicine and things like that, you’re not necessarily going to know everything about business. Now as more doctors are becoming employed, you’re really going to be less understanding of the business side of things, because you’re not going to be dealing with any of that. But that’s what the AAFE is trying to do is kind of bring doctors up to speed on the business side of things. Yeah. I know y’all are going to be there. Sure Solutions are going to be there. I guess Sure Solutions is a good … What they do is, if you don’t have the business acumen, they’ll help you with that business acumen. They’ll give it to you. They’ll run it to you.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But, no, I’m excited to be a part of the program, coming to talk. Excuse me. I’ll be talking a lot about using subscriptions and memberships to try and increase recurring patients and recurring revenue, getting some loyal patients, really trying to get away from that 40% off thing, that 20% off thing. Because, if you’re just running specials all the time, then you’re just going to get these one-off patients that are just going to keep going from practice to practice, whereas, if you have a subscription or a membership, you’re going to have … Sure, there may be discounted things involved, and they will like that, but it requires some investment on the part of the patient. Hopefully they’ll stay loyal to you so they can continue to reap those benefits. So, that’s what I’m talking about.
Tim Sawyer:
That’s actually a great point. I had it on my notes, and I wanted to talk about it. If you have two more minutes, could you talk a little-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your membership program, to the extent that you go there?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, it’s just something else that … BuildMyBod has a lot of layers. There’s the price transparency lead generation aspect, but also we have the ability for doctors to utilize the platform for their subscriptions and memberships. The thing is with subscriptions and memberships is that the idea is that the patient is paying … Essentially, I’m just going to kind of make the most basic argument here. The idea is the patients are paying a monthly fee. In our case, if it’s a package deal, they’re paying a monthly fee that covers the cost of the procedure whenever they come in for the treatment.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
So, for example, if somebody comes in every three months, gets $300 worth of Botox, instead of charging them $300 every three months when they come in, just charge them $100 each month. So, when they come in in that third month to get their Botox, it’s already been paid for. They almost feel like they’re getting their Botox for free when they come in. That’s one thing.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
You have to have a system that automatically charges them, which maybe you think, “Oh, well, that’s not that complicated, because manually charging them is annoying.” But you have to have a system that not only automatically charges them but also, if their credit card is not good, that there’s a system in place that sends out automated emails to let them know “Your credit card was declined. We need you to pay this.” But you’ve also got to notify the doctor, let them know “Don’t treat this person, because they’re not up … They haven’t paid their monthly balance so far.” So, you have to have that kind of communication between the patient and the doctor so everybody’s on the same page and make sure everybody’s paying.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Anyway, that’s the platform, excuse me, that we have where you can either have people paying monthly to cover the cost of the service, or you can have a membership where they’re paying a small monthly fee every month that gets them access to additional discounts when they come in. That’s the two things that we offer as far as those subscriptions and memberships. We’re just trying to get the patient to provide their credit card, to have that automated, recurring revenue, and that, when they come in, they have a nice experience, that they’re not necessarily having to pay for it then because they’ve been paying for it. And they stay loyal to that practice, that they’re not just jumping around from Groupon to Groupon. So, that’s what we do.
Tim Sawyer:
We have a pretty robust … In the Crystal Clear software, we have a pretty robust subscription program as well. We’re always advocating for our clients to utilize it. And it’s growing, but there’s still a lot of … It’s interesting. There’s a lot of reluctance around that, because, to your point, they give it a cursory glance and say, “It looks like a lot of work.” But there are great platforms that do it. Sounds like the BuildMyBod can do it. Crystal Clear can do it. They’ve just got to commit to it. Culturally, they have to commit to it. But it works.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
[inaudible 00:37:59]
Tim Sawyer:
Actually in studies that show … They had a blind study … It was called Riverchase Dermatology. 250 patients in the rewards program, membership program, 250 out. The 250 in spent almost 50% more than the 250 out over one year period of time in a blind study. So, that’s all I needed to know. I’m like, okay, so clearly memberships matter. And everything in my life is a membership, whether it’s SkyMiles or-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Netflix.
Tim Sawyer:
Netflix. Even the greatest one is the OpenTable. Have you ever used OpenTable?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Tim Sawyer:
[crosstalk 00:38:39] My wife is so proud of the fact that she’s built up like $90. Then one day I reverse engineered what you’d have to spend to get $90. I almost threw up. I was like, “Listen, blondie.”
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
That’s so funny.
Tim Sawyer:
But it is. Hey, we value that, right? So, it’s true. When is the next AAFE event coming up? Where can people find you?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Sure. The next event is in March at the LaGuardia Airport. I think it’s the LaGuardia Marriott. But, yeah, if people are looking to check out AAFE, it’s the American Academy of Facial Esthetics, and esthetics is spelled E-S-T-H-E-T-I-C-S. No A at the beginning of esthetics.
Tim Sawyer:
But if somebody wanted to send you a … So, if they listen to this and they had a question about your life or BuildMyBod, how would they get ahold of you? What’s your best email?
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yeah, absolutely. People can always email me, or they can … First of all, they can direct message me through Instagram @realdrbae, R-E-A-L-D-R-B-A-E. Not B-A-Y. R-E-A-L-D-R-B-A-E. They can direct message me there. They can email me at Jonathan, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N @ buildmybod.com. I’m always happy to talk to people about price transparency, lead generation, buying a practice, selling a practice. It’s been nice kind of building up this sort of skillset of knowing a little bit of things about health care that doesn’t necessarily have to do with direct patient care.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
But before we go, I would definitely want to say that it’s actually AAFE. You can Google that obviously, but it’s facialesthetics.org. It’s esthetics with an E. Facialesthetics.org. I’ll be speaking at their meeting in March in New York. So, hopefully people will show up, and they’ll learn a lot.
Tim Sawyer:
They’re going to love it. Audrey, who I believe you’ve met, or at least spoken to-
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Yes.
Tim Sawyer:
She’s actually going to be the MC of the event.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Oh, that’s great. That’s great. I look forward to talking to her.
Tim Sawyer:
[crosstalk 00:40:40] Yeah, she’s a real cool millennial who’s got a great perspective on elective medicine, is a powerful speaker. So, anyone looking at those events is going to enjoy it. With that being said, Dr. Kaplan, I really appreciate you taking the time and coming on the program today.
Dr. Jonathan Kaplan:
Thanks for having me.
Tim Sawyer:
It’s a rare find for someone to find someone who is gifted, as you mentioned, not only as a plastic surgeon but has a desire to be an entrepreneur and then aptitude and appetite for the analytics that support those efforts. So, I think it’ll be a great episode for our listeners. We really appreciate you taking the time. For our listeners today, once again, thank you for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you again next week. Everybody go, have a great week. Thank you, Dr. Kaplan.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of True to Form, brought to you by TouchMD, the all-in-one aesthetic technology hub. To learn more about your podcast sponsor, visit touchmd.com. And to learn more about your podcast provider, Crystal Clear, visit crystalcleardm.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to the show on all your favorite music apps, including iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and tune in to stay up to date with the newest episodes. Thank you for listening.
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