My New Years Resolution

I owe all my faithful blog readers of the past 4 years an apology.  For the past 6 months or so I’ve been somewhat quiet going from posting a few times a week to barely once per month.

I’m on a flight to visit one of Acara’s clients in Texas and I just made my first New Years Resolution (wow, only took me the entire month of January to figure one out) and that is to once again post on a regular basis.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to post or my well of business thoughts went dry it’s just been incredibly busy for the past 6 months at Acara.  We almost doubled the number of clients in the second 1/2 of 2012.

We also have increased the digital marketing focus of our company to include in-house web development, search engine optimization, pay-per-click management and expanded our social media management capabilities.  This completes our initiative which began in 2008 to offer full-service advertising agency services to our clients.  This allows us to combine our Aesthetic Medical business acumen and strategic marketing expertise with the development of lead driving deliverables.

Many of our clients have already reaped the many benefits of our additional programs.  If your interested in discussing how Acara can work with your Medical Spa or Aesthetic Practice please feel free to reach out to us by calling Colleen at 203-488-0028 x 305.

Cost of Doing Business

One of the services that Acara offers is our complete turn-key aesthetic practice / medspa development program.  Phase-I starts with working with our client to develop their concept, then conduct a market assessment  to identify the size of the market and the estimated penetration levels (sales) that can be achieved within the market.  Once we have that information we further define the scale and scope of the practice and build the financial model.

The first section of the financial model it to identify the capital investment needed to launch the concept as it relates to the scale and scope of the practice.  There are four “buckets” of capital investment: 1. leasehold improvement, 2. furniture & equipment, 3. start-up costs and 4. working capital.

It is important to realize that launching an aesthetic practice is more costly than a regular medical practice and/or typical spa.  Let me take each one of the above buckets and review the cost drivers.

Leasehold improvement: Once you add a descriptor such as aesthetic, spa, medspa, or cosmetic to your name (XYZ, Aesthetic Center) there is an expectation built into your message that needs to be met if you’re going to have satisfied customers (patients).  Thus your investment into the physical plant needs to be higher than a typical medical practice.  The per square foot cost runs between $100 – $150 to build out a practice that has visual impact and is functional.  This is approximately $50 – $70 more per square foot than a standard medical practice.

Furniture & Equipment: Lasers are an important component of an aesthetic practice.  If you are seeking to invest in a laser (with multi-functionality) from one of the top ten laser companies you will typically spend between $125K – $185K.  If you plan on doing laser lipo (one of the most requested procedures) then it’s an additional $150K between the laser and the other equipment necessary to perform the procedure. Hard to pass up because of the high demand is offering non-invasive body contouring but the device costs around $80K.  We just launched Ultherapy at one of our practices and their sales paid for the device in the first two months.  If that excites you then add another $80K.  Total, just for aesthetic procedure technology, $460K for the package I just described.  I’m not saying you have to launch your business with all of this technology day-one but you do have to make a significant investment into technology to be competitive.

Start-up Costs: Unlike traditional medicine where your leads are generated from physician referrals and your insurance carriers, aesthetic medical leads are generated by your marketing program. This is one of your major start-up costs.  Prior to opening you need to develop a brand identify, website, brochure and advertising campaign.  This can cost between $25K – $50K.  Also included in start-up costs are pre-opening rent, payroll, inventory, supplies, cost of financing, and consultants.  So often these costs are overlooked when adding up the total investment and they can add up to over $150K.

Working Capital: Finally, in order to successfully implement your operating and marketing plan you will need money in the bank day-one to cover any operating losses which will be incurred in the first 3-9 months.  We typically see a need for $30K – $75K available to fund the “runway to profitablility”.  Similar to Start-up Costs, Working Capital is oftentimes overlooked in the planning process.

Too often when we work with clients or discuss business development with prospective clients they totally underestimate the investment necessary to be successful in today’s competitive aesthetic medical field.  Being under-capitalized is the number one reason why new businesses fail.  Inevitably an under-capitalized business is more costly (to salvage the business) than a fully capitalized business.  Twice we’ve had clients move forward with their project without being full-funded (against our advice).  One ended in divorce and the other drained their savings completely.

What is exciting about Aesthetic Medicine is the success that can be achieved.  The market continues to expand and for a well planned and capitalized venture the return on investment is excellent.  Over the years we have invested in day spas, health clubs, hair salons, wellness centers, skin care lines, and medical spas and to this day, the highest return on investment (by far) has been our investment in aesthetic medicine.

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