Welcome And Guest Introduction

Dr Andrew Greenland 0:00

So welcome to another episode of Voices in Health and Wellness, where we speak with healthcare leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators who are shaping the future of healthcare. Today's guest is Anshul Maheshwari, managing partner of Balanced Skin Dermatology and Aesthetics. Balanced Skin is growing a growing dermatology and medical aesthetics practice, and alongside that, Anshul has built extensive experience advising healthcare businesses on growth, operations, and strategy. That combination gives him a unique perspective on delivering outstanding patient care and building sustainable healthcare organizations. So with that, Anshul, I'd love to welcome you to the show. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this afternoon.

Anshul Maheshwari 0:36

Thanks for having me, Dr. Remind.

From Biomedical Engineering To Practice

Dr Andrew Greenland 0:38

So I wonder if we could um start with your background, if we may. Would you mind giving a little bit of information about your background and your journey and how you got involved in healthcare in the first place?

Anshul Maheshwari 0:47

Yeah, no, definitely. So taking you back, my backgrounds in biomedical engineering from training, right? A bachelor's in biomedical engineering, also master's. Alongside that, I was also doing a fellowship in entrepreneurship and a minor in innovation management and strategy. So sort of always had an eye for medical technology and how to bring it to the market. Right after my education, I spent about a couple of years in a medical startup incubator up in Boston working on microfluidic chip technology for diagnostics. So again, heavily science-based, but also with an eye for, hey, how do you commercialize this thing, right? How do you bring it to market? And that led me down a path really to understand, hey, look, you know, innovation in medicine is great, but if you can't bring it to the market, if you can't commercialize it, then you know it just stays in the lab, right? And so I ended up uh uh working with a consulting company for about uh 12 years, working with a big pharma, medical device, life sciences, uh healthcare company across the entire value chain, right? So from um product development to clinical development to um you know corporate strategy, commercial operations, uh you name it, you know, I've seen it. So um all that sort of really went into me thinking further about my future on, okay, you know, I understand the science. I sort of now understand the business, right? Where can I sort of take this to do something of my own? And uh, you know, the decision was made uh, I want to say five years back when I ended up joining a pharma company, Abvi, uh, in the meantime also encouraging my wife to start her own practice. And so, in parallel, while I was working at the pharma company on corporate strategy, sort of understanding how you know pharma and life sciences would be five to ten years down the road, um, you know, alongside I was sort of starting this journey with my wife on starting a medical practice. Um, all that came to fruition, I want to say, just about a year or two ago when we launched the practice, it's doing well, and I left my corporate job earlier this year to focus full-time on scaling and growing that. And of course, working on advisory projects on the side.

Services And The Skin Of Colour Niche

Dr Andrew Greenland 2:48

Amazing. So, for the listeners who haven't come across balanced skin before, can you give us a kind of an insight into the practice itself?

Anshul Maheshwari 2:55

100%. Yeah, balanced skin dermatology is a dermatology and aesthetics practice of Nicole Beach, California. The Mike Alpha Medical Aesthetics, I've got a little SLA. Um, we uh have been around for about two and a half years. Uh we do quite a few different things in dermatology and aesthetics, right? So we do energy based devices, lasers, we do injectables, right? Toxins uh uh biostimulators, and then we do a full uh set of medical dermatology procedures, uh, and then also excision and surgery. So a range of range of things, but we do specialize very specifically in lasers for darker skin tones. Um, we found that that was an unaddressed uh uh unaddressed area in the market, which um you know has worked really well for us.

Dr Andrew Greenland 3:42

So you've obviously found that niche. Um, is there anything else that makes your approach of balance skin different from you know your competition or people in the neighborhood?

Anshul Maheshwari 3:51

Definitely, right? I mean, you can imagine when I said Newport is the Mecca for medical aesthetics, we have hundreds of you know, dermatology, plastic surgery, med spa type uh practices out here. And so how do you differentiate and stand out in this crowded environment, right? And tell you a little bit of a story where my wife used to work at a big hospital organization when we moved out here in California. And she sort of had the realization, okay, well, she wants to start her own practice, but again, you know, the the sort of the paperwork, the compliance, the sort of day-to-day operations was intimidating for us, uh, for both of us. And uh, I advised her to first go work at a smaller practice to really understand what that would entail. So she worked at a practice in Newport Beach, and she soon realized that, you know, all the patients that were coming in uh, you know, were coming in for medical concerns but also cosmetic concerns, and the the folks who are at the higher skin type levels, right, from skin type four onwards, darker skin tones, were being basically shuffled around these practices saying, hey, look, these lasers aren't here for you. If they did the laser, they would get hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation. And so my wife really sort of figured out which lasers would work well for this population. And she developed a protocol um to take it safe and effective for this population. And uh, you know, we spoke about that quite a bit and realized, hey, look, there's this is an unaddressed uh gap in the market. Let's sort of have a specialized clinic around addressing conditions for this specific subpopulation. And so that gave rise to uh us coming up with this concept and and create a balanced skin, where again, I would say close to 70% of our of our patient population is Asian, South Asian, Hispanic, African American, right? So uh we we definitely have found that niche and people fly from all over the country to come see uh Dr. Paul.

Dr Andrew Greenland 5:42

Very interesting. So you told us a little bit about what you do about the skin, the your kind of um target market, as it were. What about the um the culture you've built in your team? Tell us about that.

Culture, Retention, And A Lean Team

Anshul Maheshwari 5:53

Yeah, no, that's a great one. And um, you know, the the funny thing here is right, when I speak to a lot of doctors who are looking to start their practice, the questions always on top of their mind is okay, well, how how will I be profitable? You know, how do I find the real estate? Very practical sort of operational questions. But I encourage people to first take a step back and really write out their vision for this practice, right? All medical practices aren't run the same. You make uh you can make it uh how you want it to be made. And so um, you know, I encourage people to write out a vision statement. And so, similarly for us, when we wrote out our vision statement, we clearly laid out the type of patients we'd love to see in our practice, the type of employees that we'd like to be in our practice, right? And within that, we sort of wrote about you know integrity being a big part of it, uh, being happy at work, right? And finding it a sort of a second home, uh, you know, a home away from home. So, how do we incorporate those elements into the practice and day-to-day operations was where we uh really focused a lot of energy on when we're working, and that is pay dividends, right? Our our our employees come in, they they feel comfortable, uh, they feel that they're backed by uh not only support from the team here, but also are being led by a doctor who really believes in what she does, who's a great leader. And so those sort of things are bought up not only in our meetings, but in our day-to-day operations. Um, alongside that, we have a special space for them where they can sort of uh you know recharge. We have uh you know, snacks, we have food, right? So those are some sort of auxiliary items that also make the place more comfortable and welcoming for them. Um, and then of course pay, right? We we pay them above market uh rates. So I think all those things combined uh do help with retention and um staff satisfaction.

Dr Andrew Greenland 7:36

For sure. And I think you've built a relatively lean team, but you're obviously continuing to grow. So how do you balance that out? You know, you've got a lean team, you're trying to deliver excellent patient experience, uh, but you're trying to grow. So how does that all kind of stuck up?

Anshul Maheshwari 7:50

It's uh it's a balancing act, right? I think I think the big the big balancing act is okay, are you generating enough patient demand to justify having a larger team? But on the flip side, when you do have a larger demand, do you have the capacity to serve those patients and provide the same experience and outcomes, right? So uh what I've learned through the growth of Balance Gin is build the capacity first, right? I think um in terms of generating demand, we have figured out some really good levers to really bring more and more patients in. But uh you don't want to be in a situation where you have a lot of patients come in and you're not able to service them. So um what the way we figured it out is is we we build the capacity, right? We have new staff, we have a new dermatologist on board, we have mid-level providers, but ultimately we can turn on the faucet on the marketing side, whether it's um you know through paid ads or through social media or through um you know other channels, we're able to bring that demand in. So it's a balancing act, but uh, but um it's it's one that you sort of have to stay on top of um you know pretty much every day. And um I you know I don't want to always say, like, hey, we've completely figured it out, but I think we're we're heading in the right direction for good organic growth.

Differentiation, Marketing, And Organic Growth

Dr Andrew Greenland 9:00

Sure. And you mentioned organic growth just then. So what is it you think that small specialist practices um like yourselves can do particularly well compared with larger organizations?

Anshul Maheshwari 9:10

Yeah, yeah. Look, for a smaller practice, um, you know, really a few things are very important, right? So understanding your differentiating factors, right? I'll give you an example for us. And I did mention the skin of color being a big differentiating factor for us. Having said that, you know, we've also laid out very clearly that all our doctors are highly credentialed and experienced, right? So that needs to be displayed on your website, on your social media channels, right? Everywhere saying, hey, look, we have credentialed board-certified doctors on board. Um, we specialize in skin of color, we can do safe and effective treatments for that population. Uh, we also have an inviting space with great experience, right? And I can go a little bit more deeper into creating that patient experience. And lastly, we want us to be seen as a center of excellence, right? So, what I mean by that is we also host trainings, conferences, we do product launches in our clinic, right, to really be seen in the community as at the forefront of dermatology and aesthetics. So those were our differentiating factors. What I do when I work with a lot of doctors who are looking to start their smaller practices is really talk them through what do we think would differentiate them, right? And so I think the first step is really, like I said, laying out your vision and your differentiating factors and then building on those. And so what I mean by that is having all the right channels activated. Whether it's uh uh you know a social media page where you need to have some presence, right? In this day and age, about 80% of marketing is done through socials. So you have to have presence on there, right? Uh that doesn't mean you need to generate you know thousands and thousands of views and followers, it just means having a presence. So when people are looking you up, they're not only Googling your Google Business page, but they're looking at a social media page, seeing how you talk, seeing, you know, getting familiar with your style, um, you know, how you um address conditions or or talk to patients. And then lastly, I would say um, you know, ensuring that there is a good mechanism for referrals and word of mouth, right? So you want to have a good network of doctors around that are that know your business exists, that you're sending patients to and they're sending back, but also with your patients when they visit, they have something to talk about when they when they go back to their family and friends, right? Whether it's great outcomes or the experience they had or the interaction they had with people. So uh those are the little things that that we would focus on to really sort of make it sticky for your practice and help with that organic growth.

Dr Andrew Greenland 11:27

Thank you for sharing that. It's really interesting. So you're in a very rapidly changing speciality niche. Dermatology and aesthetics is seems to be moving at an incredible pace. What are you noticing in terms of trends right now, which are making an impact on your practice?

AI, GLP-1s, And Laser Advances

Anshul Maheshwari 11:44

Yeah, no, this is right up my alley. Like as I mentioned, I worked on corporate strategy with Algan Aesthetics, and there we were always looking at sort of what's five to ten years out. I'd say the big ones, you know, of course, in everyone's mind is AI, right? And I can talk a little bit more practically how that uh currently um looks today at dermatology and aesthetics practices and what it could look like in the future. Um, you know, there's a rise of GLP once, right, which is really increasing that patient pool for medical aesthetics. And uh I would also say, you know, lasers in general, where they're able to address conditions that were previously being addressed by, let's say, topicals or orals. Um, you know, a lot of laser advanced technology is now being able to treat a few medical conditions, not only, not only cosmetics. So starting with AI, I mean, um, that's an interesting one, right? Uh, where you know, we we are in the mode of let's start learning and let's start implementing where there might be efficiencies to be had, but again, that sort of human interaction is still intact, right? So, so let me let me tell you our perspective at the moment with AI from a very practical uh in-clinic type uh type um setting. Uh, you know, I still think uh you know AI has a role to be played on the on the consumer, on the patient side, but I at least our clientele, what I've seen, prefers a human on the other side of the interaction, which is fine, right? AI is getting better and better at sort of booking appointments and automation, and and and that's great for high volume practices where you're trying to get a lot of you know people through the door for a concierge specialty type practice that's sort of elevated patient experience where you're talking to a human and very customized. Um, I'd still say AI has a few more, you know, uh, I don't want to say years, I don't know how long it would take, but has some ways to go. Um, having said that on the back end, right? So, in terms of organization, right? Uh we have a bunch of files that our patients upload and we use AI agents to organize them, right? That that increases efficiency. Um, we use this one tool for note-taking, right? So we we we take a recording, it summarizes the the patient uh consultation, and it puts it in the fields within your EMR systems. So those are really high-efficiency AI tools that help with um operations, but on the patient engagement sign, we're still yet to sort of uh implement that uh you know, once we find something that's effective. Where it's heading, I mean, in the dermatology space, it's uh it's highly, highly uh interesting just because when you bring the imaging capabilities with AI, then diagnostics becomes very interesting. So currently we have a tool in the in the in the clinic where you know you put your face in this uh imaging device, it takes eight different photographs, right? Um, you know, skin pore size, uh skin damage, uh hyperpigmentation, right? It does a range of uh photographs and it gives an output on where you would fit within um your uh population within your age group. So it tells you, hey, look, you have higher than normal sunspots, or you know, your wrinkles are on the lower side, etc. So that combined with AI could be highly effective in in both the consultation process with the doctor, right, where there's more quantitative information because a lot of medical aesthetics is qualitative, right? And there are patients out there that want quantitative information. So uh so that's that's one one area. And um, you know, uh on that side, you know, it also feels like the patient has something tangible they're taking home with after the consultation. But that's really where I see uh more sort of deeper use of AI in aesthetics. Um that's AI. I can go into GLP ones and also uh uh you know lasers in general, unless you want to go a little bit deeper into AI.

Dr Andrew Greenland 15:36

No, that I wanted to get to kind of the general overview. So AI is really helpful because it's talking about what you're doing from an operational point of view to make things easier and more efficient. I'm still so interested in some of the treatments and things on the cards. So maybe you could talk to the things like the GLP ones as well.

Anshul Maheshwari 15:50

For sure. I mean, with GLP1s, they're everywhere now, right? I think I think um, you know, uh they not only are impacting both the sort of metabolic type conditions, chronic conditions, but there's been uh you know research in cardiovascular, even addiction, where GLP1s are creating uh an impact in those populations. So it's a very interesting drug, uh at least in in my perspective. But on the flip side, right, like the after effects of GLP1s is creating a pool of patients that are now looking for medical aesthetic procedures, right? So on the extreme end, you have folks that undergo rapid weight loss and they have loose skin, which needs plastic surgery intervention to sort of get that um that skin laxicity under control. But on the on the other side, right, on sort of um, you know, some of the after effects you're seeing is higher wrinkling, right? Some of you're seeing skin quality decline. Um, you're also seeing a big pool uh of patients that are, you know, originally they were not that focused on their appearance, but after losing weight, now they're more and more focused on their appearance, right? So that's generating a population that's funneling into medical aesthetics. And so what I recommend for a lot of doctors in this space is uh keep an eye for in during a consultation to definitely ask those questions and see what their broader goals are, right? Yes, weight loss might be one of their goals, but are they looking at sort of after effects that are happening after GLP1s? Are they not focused on other parts of their body? So uh at least in our clinic, we're seeing a steady uh stream of patients coming from GLP1s. Uh, so that's definitely a growing, growing population and something to look out for. Um, lastly, with lasers, I mean, this is an interesting one, right? I was um, you know, been I've been going to conferences, uh, you know, laser conferences for the last three to four years, and every year I see new laser technologies that are not only treating more sort of cosmetic concerns, whether it's you know spots, acne, scars, but now you have lasers that treat medical conditions. So like even acne formation or acne, uh cystic acne, right? So you have lasers that you could treat active acne with. And uh where it's heading is is you know, medical conditions generally they're treated by topicals or orals. Uh, you're seeing energy-based devices being able to address those conditions. Um, why that's interesting to me as a practice is it's a capital equipment cost, right? You buy a laser, but you can use it multiple times. Some of them have consumables, some of them don't, versus using a topical or an oral, right? Either, you know, uh yes, you're seeing, you know, getting getting paid for the consultation, but um, you know, if you're buying those products, you're seeing very thin margins, right? So so at least from a practice operations perspective, lasers seem pretty pretty interesting, but also the outcomes they're achieving are on par by um you know with with orals and and topicals. Um so three very interesting fields to to you know stay on top of, and and I know we as a practice are definitely gonna uh keep our pulse uh on the on these three um advances.

Patient Expectations And The Triple Aim

Dr Andrew Greenland 18:59

Thank you. What about um patient expectations? How have they changed over your time in Balanced Skin in terms of what they're kind of expecting from a practice or expecting from your clinicians when they come through the doors?

Anshul Maheshwari 19:10

That's a great question. Um, you know, patient expectations are changing, and the way I sort of um measure that, right, has been through so in the US, there's something called the triple aim in healthcare. A lot of big healthcare organizations, uh, you know, insurance companies, they use this framework where they have three buckets that they look at to really understand the value the patient is getting, right? And well, how I know that's changing is because now they're now that they're up to like five or six or seven, you know, things that they're looking at. So patients are expecting more and more out of their provider, out of their healthcare system. Um, having said that, I still think the three are the main focus, and I'll go over that, right? So the first one being delivering the outcomes, right? The patient is coming to you to see outcomes, right? Are you able to deliver the outcomes? Are you building confidence for a new patient that they will be able to achieve the outcomes that they expect from you? So that's the core number one expectation from patients. The second expectation is is sort of its cost, right? If you look at the hospital organization, a lot of times, at least in the US, a lot of them are privatized systems. So cost coming out of the patient pocket is one that's uh that's a concern, right? And then of course the cost on the broader healthcare system. The way we see it in smaller practices and cash-based practices is value for money, right? Do the patients see value for the money they spent in their clinic? And the last one being patient experience, right? So patient experience, how they feel when they enter the clinic, when they leave the clinic, what sort of impression have you left on them? And so for each of them, right, um, I have a very, very um strong framework I use to ensure that I'm addressing these three needs for each patient. So the first one, confidence and outcomes. I want to make sure the doctor's credentials are very apparent everywhere, right? Whether it's you know uh certificates in the clinic, whether it's on the website, whether it's on their social media page, I want to build that trust by indicating to the patient that the doctor is highly trained and experienced in their field. Second one being before and afters, right? So at least in our in our field, you have um what the patient's condition was before the treatment and what the condition was after the treatment, and you make sure those are on display again, and and this is what the patient can expect. That also builds trust and confidence in their outcomes. The third one being uh again, sort of having doctor, a good network of doctor referrals, right? When a patient hears from another doctor that, hey, I'm referring you to Dr. Paul at Bounce and dermatology, that holds a lot more weight than them doing their own research. So having a good referral network is important. And lastly, authority, right? The doctor needs to build authority, whether, like I said, there speaking at conferences they have a social media channel where they're talking about the the medicine that they're practicing right they're doing podcasts like these right so building some sort of authority because people are searching you up before before they come see you and that takes care of your confidence and outcomes bucket second one value for money I won't go too much in detail there right because it's not applicable to a lot of healthcare organizations but really um you know that's where you need to figure out okay well your patient population that you're looking at um what can they afford right what is the the sort of treatment how much uh you should price it and so those are the things around value for money and of course you're delivering the outcomes where the patient is satisfied um the experience one again there are three things that go under underneath experience one being their people interactions right so every interaction they have with the person from picking up the phone to going to the front desk to speaking with the doctor that needs to be a pleasant interaction the people interaction is very important and so again you do training to make sure that your staff is well trained to deliver that uh that experience the second one process so process needs to be seamless whether it's uh making it easy to check in online you know coming in and and taking them to a room uh it all that process needs to be seamless and happy and sort of um without any kinks and the last one being is the perception so the five senses when the patient enters the clinic the five senses need to be addressed what I mean by that is the place should look nice tidy clean you know pleasing to the eyes should smell nice you know maybe there's refreshments for the patient or some water right so you look at all the five senses and how do you address those five senses in a pleasant manner that takes care of that perception bucket. So a pretty long answer but as you can see I've really thought a lot about how to deliver on those patient needs and again how they're changing and and uh you know how we're evolving to address those needs at the as they change.

Helping Clinicians Become Entrepreneurs

Dr Andrew Greenland 23:55

Thank you a very comprehensive answer. It's gives us a lot of and food for thought over you know enhancing the patient experience. So thank you very much for that. So as well as doing your work in balance skin you do sort of healthcare consultancy what are the kind of things that you're helping clinics with in your kind of wider work and consultancy in the health sector no thanks for that question because um like I said I've been consulting with big companies for a while but now I'm sort of venturing out on my own.

Anshul Maheshwari 24:20

And you know while I do some projects with the bigger companies I think a lot of my time and energy and my mission really is to work with individual medical providers or small medical teams to really get them more excited about entrepreneurship and empower them to really seek this path as a viable path for doing medicine. And so you know my mission comes from the fact where you know practicing medicine isn't the same as it used to be 10 to 15 to 20 years ago right a lot of my network consists of medical professionals and the way they talk about how medicine was practiced in the day where they had more autonomy they could practice the way they wanted to there was not a lot of um I don't say oversight but not a lot of um hindrances in their uh um interactions with patients that has completely changed today right there's a lot of paperwork that takes place today um medicine is highly regulated right which is which is again you know for for good reason but also sometimes it hinders uh the patient um uh experience and also uh uh you know the outcomes the patient can can can see so so essentially I've realized hey look doctors need to sort of take back medicine right again being a little uh uh provocative here but take back medicine from sort of the private equity and the the privatized players in the market that's especially in the US here and the way uh I sort of do that is I'm here someone who can help you navigate the business world right I think for a lot of doctors they hear business finance spreadsheets and feel scary and hairy for them and a lot of times I give them reassurance saying hey look business is actually common sense okay you're a doctor you've had uh highly uh you know complex scientific training uh business is really just two things okay business is revenue minus cost equals profit and underneath that are a few things that go right so volume times price and so so if you just focus on that top level equation that's the the the mathematical scientific part of business the other side of business is people you know how well do you work with people you work with patients you work with your staff you work with your partners your vendors right so if you're able to do that part which is the common sense you know revenue minus cost equals profit and you can work with people that's what business is about right a lot of people in the business world they they muddy the waters with lingo and that's where I come in I help them sort of navigate that that world where you know a profit and loss statement is is actually a pretty simple concept um and in that um in that regard I've helped about six practices start up and now they're up and running you know smooth.

Cash Pay Versus Insurance Trade-Offs

Anshul Maheshwari 27:03

I have two other projects that are on the way right now alongside that I'm working with three professionals to help with their uh personal branding because uh you know if you're in the business of medicine if you're in the business period you need to have presence of social media so um those are a few things that I've been working on and and I think um I'm I'm I'm excited to see more medical professionals uh being empowered and excited about uh running their own business amazing and as part of that work are you trying to make those practices less dependent on traditional insurance models what's your kind of take on the kind of the the weighing up between you know cash pay versus insurance in the US no that's that's a great one um look at the end of the day when you have so many players in the healthcare ecosystem right um you know redundancies are created and costs can go up and you know as just that's the nature of if you introduce complexity there's more handovers more time more costs so uh if a transaction can happen directly between a service provider and a you know consumer or patient uh you know why don't we sort of strive for that right that's sort of my uh you know one of my goals and uh cash pay I feel like you know is is trending right of course there's some you know uh services that are not covered by insurance and those are cash pay but now more and more as I speak to professionals they're providing the cash pay option to patients that can completely omit their insurance provider um and the way people are able to do that they even have payment plans now right so instead of sort of paying up front you're paying over a period of time which allows the patient to pay cash um the benefits of that are of course you know you're directly working with the patient you're sort of you know maybe you could reduce costs because sometimes the insurance providers actually have higher costs uh when they're providing a service so you can technically have a lower patient cost for the patient um you're seeing the money right away right entry account which is helpful for working capital helps you keep your business afloat versus looking at long lead times for the revenue coming in through reimbursement uh and and uh you know I think I think uh it just makes it for an easier and faster experience the flip side of that is of course there might be economic downturn and then people might not be willing to pay cash right and they go to reimbursement channels so what I encourage a lot of practices to do is have a reimbursable component right make sure you're seeing insurance patients still because you know you're in medicine for a reason and there are people on insurance who still need to be seen to a doctor but um also grow your cash basis uh part of the business so what that does is you know in good times yes you you're sort of um you have the cash flow taking place but again there'll be times where the economy might not be doing well great and the cash portion might go down so you're still at least keeping your business afloat with um the reimbursable channel um so there are pros and cons for both sides but um I personally would like to see more and more physicians uh take on the cash pay channel as um as one of their their ways of uh uh you know getting getting reimbursed thank you and when you when you go into practices to help them with your consultancy what do you typically find the owners underestimate about running a practice when you when you go in and kind of assess what they're doing yeah yeah so so I'll put this in two buckets right there there are owners that are currently running a practice that need help right and then there are folks that are looking to start a practice that are intimidated by sort of getting into it right um on the population the first population right uh owners are very comfortable with the medical part of of the business which is great you know they they they love the medicine they love the patient part but it's always the demand generation that gets very tricky for them right there's always a concern hey look this month was great you know I had X number of patients but can I forecast that out for month two month three right and and there's always a worry in the back of your head if patients are going to come in or not and that's where I really help them dial in their marketing efforts right and what that means is a few things. First one as I said the step one is finding out your differentiating factors displaying those differentiating factors across all the effective channels in marketing right and then how do you get that messaging right right a lot of doctors will work with agencies you know where they might or might not uh really hit the nail on those aspects but a lot of times it comes off as very generic you know if you look at the websites for a lot of doctors first thing I do is do a full website review to really understand what they're positioning what they're messaging what the differentiators are and if it feels very generic like the next five websites then I really focus on that first because the website is is of course is it's great for marketing but it's actually an exercise in understanding you know who you are what are your services what differentiates you what's your the experience going to look like right based on just the virtual experience that you're seeing the website. So I start there first. And once I do that that helps feed into your other channels whether it's social your Google business profile your in-office sort of marketing and um that would be the number one thing I would say marketing being a big one right the other one really comes out of people management. But like I said I think that's a skill that I can help with but ultimately the doctors have to realize they need to be great leaders they need to be great people people people people right to to uh lead those teams so um you know the number a lot of their headaches is around managing people but that's something that um you know I can help guide but ultimately it comes down to if they want to sort of really understand and change the ways they work with their with their staff. With the second population very quickly right it really comes around the sort of navigating the business world and really saying hey look the the fears that they have in entering this space and I call those fears again by providing a bunch of examples saying hey look medical practices generally do well right generally um they're profitable even even banks will provide you a better loan term for a medical practice versus any other business so it's really calling those fears and empowering them to start their practice thank you so you're obviously incredibly grounded in business you have a very good business brain on you to help run the practice but what are the things that even you are find find as obstacles in the work that you do in the practice or even the consultancy?

People Challenges, Vision, And Closing

Anshul Maheshwari 33:28

Yeah no at the end of the day you know it all comes down to to working with people right and and people come in all shapes sizes flavors personalities right so what that what that means is is of course being able to adapt to work with different styles and so um I think I think you know I think this is a struggle almost for everyone right where you're working with different personalities how do you be effective to collaborate and come up with something that is uh you know beneficial for for all parties involved right and so that's where uh you know as a consultant uh first step is really getting to understand the person or the people that I'm working with and uh and again that's a long process right that's uh you know I would say that's part of the process maybe maybe you know you could call it an obstacle but I think that's part of the process really understanding the styles of working and and um once you get past that right uh and once you get past of uh both aligning on how you work together and and um you know your ways of working then it comes down to sort of planning and just getting things done right so so I would say that's the number one thing that I come across every time I get on a new project and once I'm past that it's generally smooth sailing but of course things happen down downstream where you know some new problems arise but if you have established upfront hey these are going to be my ways of working this is my style this is your style then you're generally able to address those uh downstream problems uh relatively well thank you so what does the future look like what what do you what what do you want to take the clinic over the next 12 months or so where would you like to be what are your kind of goals and ambitions yeah and and like I said it all sort of goes back to my vision statement right our vision is we want to be the national practice across the US that addresses concern for diverse skin tones using lasers right so the idea would be in major centers across the United States we'd want to have a flagship location where um you know folks that are currently flying in to see you know our doctors have a location in their in their um major city where they're able to get these uh conditions addressed by uh you know by doctors that are well well versed in um treating conditions for darker skin tones so that's that's sort of the um the vision for the the clinic right alongside that I do also want to bring bring along doctors and dermatologists uh to be part of this vision right so again empower them to either start their practice but also maybe be part of our vision right if they if they see that there's value in our vision and and um you know they're able to carve out their niche and specialty within our umbrella uh that'd be something great um one last thing right my wife and I we truly believe in this there there's there's enough there's enough for everybody so what I mean by that is you know some of our peers so that ask us a question hey why are you helping other dermatologists start their practice whereas you're in the space you're just creating more competition right which might be the case but ultimately we believe in two things right first of all there's enough uh to go around for everyone you know so so that shouldn't be a problem secondly um if you do find your differentiating factors right the people that uh want to see you as a doctor that want to be in your clinic will find you and be with you right so you'll find your people regardless of of where you operate and so it's a self-selective process people that don't want to see you will find another practice and they'll be part of another practice. So I think those two things drive us and and um you know encourage us to empower other dermatologists to start their practices too.

Dr Andrew Greenland 37:07

With that answer I'd love to thank you so much for joining us today and I wish you all the best with that ambition is fantastic. I've really appreciated the behind the scenes of what you do and it's really gratifying to hear that not only you're building a modern healthcare business but you're really putting the patient experience at the center of it all which I think is fantastic. So thank you very much for your conversation for your insights I'm really grateful to have you on the show.

Anshul Maheshwari 37:30

Thanks Dr. William this was a pleasure of mine and uh thanks for the conversation. I hope we have a few more in the in the future.