How Sticky Is Your Practice?

Establishing strong client relationships is crucial too long-term success. This is especially true in the medical aesthetics industry where trusting relationships drive growth through add-on services, referrals, and online reviews. Strong relationships can lead to top-of-mind behavior and ultimately “stickiness”.

In this instance, stickiness refers to the attachment to a brand that would make a client unwilling to switch to a competitor that may offer an equivalent product or service or better price. As such, this type of loyalty can add up to a significant competitive advantage.

To achieve this type of client loyalty a practice must become a master in the art of listening to their clients, understanding their desires, and developing products and services that meet their expressed needs. Practices that achieve this level of intimacy with their clients understand that the voice of the client reigns supreme and it is the client who is the ultimate determining factor of longevity and relevance in the marketplace.

Practice managers, providers, and owners that listen closely to their clients can develop a type of foresight that can give them a distinct advantage over competition. This client foresight allows leaders to predict, instead of reacting, to client stated preferences. This type of insight allows a practice to shape client purchase criteria.

Well in tune practices can shape client criteria because most clients do not know what they want. All clients know they have problems. However, they do not always know how to solve them. Sometimes clients must be shown what they need to solve their problems. This is why they seek professional guidance. Hence the importance of a strong consultation process.

Another advantage of being in tune with clients is that it can lead to becoming a segment leader and being viewed as such in the marketplace. Leaders in market segments define what performance means for their respective category, which in turn creates a brand identity for leading the marketplace for that performance standard. Clients then use that performance standard to make sense of the behaviors within the marketplace and to connect with brands.

For example, Starbucks set the standard for ambiance, community, and service for coffee shops. Now, most other coffee shops are judged based on the standard set by Starbucks. The same is true for Toyota and automobile reliability, The Ritz Carlton and hotel service, and Chick-Fil-A and fast-food customer service. Notice that those who defined and subsequently set the standards are also leaders in the marketplace. Market leaders often are top of mind and the go to for many seeking services they offer.

Brands that are the standard reap the benefit. The more consumers are awed by a brand the more those who are in their target market are willing to pay. Think Apple, Mercedes, and Sub-Zero/Wolf. Apple, for example, is in tune with their customer base, many times offering products their customers don’t know they need or want. As such, they’ve been relevant for a long time and remain relevant and the market leader. 

Questions To Consider

How do you position your medical aesthetics brand in the mind of your clients or target audience? Is your brand viewed as the innovative leader? Is your brand viewed as client centric and results driven? Is your brand viewed as a discount service provider?  What problem are you solving? Is it the same as your competitors? How are you defining the market for your brand?  

What empirical data can you gather that becomes accumulative and leads to more data that leads to more information about how to do things better, giving you a larger competitive advantage? Is it data about how to do something that will lead to lower costs and better outcomes for your clients? Is it data that can lead your team to deliver better results for your clients? Is it data that makes you more efficient and results in a better client experience?

How Can You Lead?

The question remains, how can you steer client purchase criteria, so you become the leader in the marketplace? It is not only through innovation of an existing product or service that drives marketplace dominance, but it is also understanding client needs and guiding them to a solution to a problem they know they have but do not know how to solve. How do you develop new criteria that renders the old obsolete? Solve that problem and you may identify a new criterion that ends up becoming the market standard.

Once your brand is known as the market standard, your brand becomes more valuable than your entire production process. Think about this, if all of Apple's manufacturing facilities were destroyed in an earthquake, investors would line up to support the rebuilding of them due to the brand's reputation and recognition in the marketplace. If Apple lost its brand reputation and recognition in the marketplace investors would think twice.

Producing a great product or offering a great service is a table stake. Every medical aesthetics practice must produce great results or offer great service if they hope to have a chance at surviving. Becoming the standard allows you to build a brand that withstands the test of time, is highly profitable, and leads while others follow and try to catch up...if they can.

💌 Are you ready to take on an investment partner to help you grow your medical aesthetics practice? If so, we are here to partner with you every step of the way. Fill out the contact form or send us an email at info@baraesthetics.com and we will schedule a call to discuss the possibilities.

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