Topics Discussed Include the Following...
*Transforming from ER Doctor to All-Cash, Specialty Practice. The personal story of how children do a "happy dance" because Dr-Mother gets to take better care of patients and sleep at home every night (with more money as a side-effect).
*What free strategies work better than expensive TV and Newspaper ads
*When to buy the machines (and when not).
Video/Recording of CMA Journal Club, Pearl Exchange, & Marketing Tips
Transcript
Charles Runels: All right, guys! Let's get started. Should be a great meeting tonight. We have a couple of guests and good stuff happening. So before we jump into it, I think I'm going to just go ahead and introduce one of our guests tonight, Emily Porter. Let me unmute you, Emily ... there you are.
Emily Porter: I'm here.
Transforming from ER Doctor to All-Cash, Specialty Practice
Charles Runels: Beautiful! So, Emily, you had several things we wanted to talk about tonight. What's happened with you? You were in Vegas and met some people. You just went completely, no more insurance, no more ER, and you've got some things you've been doing with P-Shot®. So, talk to us. Share or pretend like someone just joined the group, because some of the people in the call have, and give them some advice and teach us some stuff. I don't even want to direct you tonight, just talk to us.
Emily Porter: Ah, okay! So, I'm board-certified ER. I did that for about eight years, eight or nine years, but I kind of always wanted to do aesthetics. I wanted to actually be a reconstructive plastic surgeon, because I really wanted to help people and change their lives. I had a lot of scars when I was a kid, a lot of surgeries, and it turns out I hate the OR. I want to help people, but I hate the OR and you just can't undo that, so I thought I'd do dermatology because I like that stuff and I had melanoma when I was 21 and it was so boring to me, so I ended up in the ER. It seemed to be the best fit for what I thought I wanted to do and then, I think probably just like everybody else.
Emily Porter: ER has a really high turnover. It's just difficult enough, patients are hard enough, they're hurting, they're upset, they don't like to wait. And now, you've got people that are upset about how much they're paying, their co-pay, patient satisfaction scores, and you've got corporations that are hiring Disney and the Ritz-Carlton and Toyota for [lean 00:02:12] management and patient satisfaction scores. They're basically telling you how to do your job. And it's not about your patient outcomes anymore, it's about whether you made people happy, and it's just hard to do that in the ER.
Emily Porter: So I got Botox® myself when I was 35 and got it a couple of times, and then I seriously thought, "Well, why am I paying somebody else to do this when I can do it myself?" So that's kind of how I started, I went and took a weekend class, and I just did it with the intention of I'm going to work my ER job, and I'm just gonna save some money on my Botox®. And I got on the plane to Arizona and did a little weekend thing with Botox® and filler and ... knew that I needed a lot more training. It was a horrible training, actually. But I basically told my mother who was my model that I was gonna open a med spa. And my mom is an entrepreneur, and she's very much like a tough love kind of person, and my mom goes, "I think that's a great idea!" And so I knew I should do it.
Charles Runels: Who? Who?
Emily Porter: My mom didn't put me down and tell me I'm crazy. She goes, "If you told me you were going to open a clothing boutique, I would tell you you're stupid! But I actually think that this is a good idea."
Emily Porter: So that was like May of 2016. By the end of September, I owned a laser, I owned a VISIA system, and I had a one room rented in a hair salon that I was running, it was like a 10 by 10 room with a three-week old baby. And I started my business.
Charles Runels: Cool.
Emily Porter: I started with a PRP. I took the training from Dr. Pete down in Houston, because I thought this was kind of new and trendy and I like the medicine. I like the science of it. There were a couple of people doing it, but not everybody. If somebody's starting out, you have to do Botox® and fillers because that's just what people expect of a med spa, and you have to be good at them. But I got some advice from somebody to get a laser. She wished she had gotten a laser sooner because you have to pay it every month, but you make thousands of dollars every time you turn it on, if you do a good job. It really is the thing that probably generates, time and time again, the most annual revenue for me.
Emily Porter: I have a Sciton [inaudible 00:04:36] and I'm very happy with it. Anybody can e-mail me; I'm happy to talk about my experience with them. One of the things that Sciton does is that they put you in contact with good and they want you to be successful. I don't work for Sciton; I don't get any kick backs for it or anything. They have this thing called the success builder program. I knew that I didn't know anything about business and I didn't know anything about marketing, so they sent me to see some consultants and to talk to some people.
Emily Porter: They're actually how I ended up doing my vampire training with Dr. Pete instead of with you, because Johnny helped with diVa. That's their vaginal laser, so he was closer than you were. I reached out to him, and then he told me about bioidentical hormones, so I kind of figured out what my menu was going to be and just sort of listened to the people around me that were smarter than I was or that had more experience than I did. Which is, I think, a problem for a lot of physicians, because we're all really smart people, but we don't know shit about owning our business.
Emily Porter: I mean, you don't learn any of that stuff when you're in medical school, so I hear over and over again that physicians are suckers, and we kind of are. They get sold a lot of stuff, and I fell prey to it a little bit, spending money that didn't get me money, spending a million dollars on your build out. It doesn't make you any money. You have to be nice, that it's not unsterile, but you don't need a $500,000 fish thank. It's not going to make you a dime.
Emily Porter: So, I see people that meet with these consultants that messaged me through this Facebook group that I run. They spent all this money on stupid stuff, and they could have had a SkinPen and some PRP tubes, trained with you or with me and be making money sooner. Instead, their businesses fail because they waste all this money on the wrong stuff, and I don't know how to emphasize that enough, other than you have to be smart about where you're spending your money, and don't get oversold on every little thing.
Escape the ER<--
Emily Porter: So, I thought I'll do [Vampire Facial® 00:06:37] stuff. I didn't do a whole lot of the facelifts, just because Dr. Pete didn't actually teach those, but I did a few O-Shot®'s and I did some P-Shot®'s, and I did some BBL photo facials. I had one esthetician who worked there for me the 40 hours a week that we were open and I was still working in the ER. And then when I'd have days off, if we had an appointment, I would come in. And if we didn't have an appointment, then I paid her $18 an hour to answer my phone and do laser treatments on clients that I already seen.
Emily Porter: Then I started doing the build out of 2,000 square foot place. Now that I had a clientele of a few hundred people, I don't know, 300 or 400 I think after six months just with word of mouth marketing. I was in a hair salon, so the people that had the hairstylists, I gave them free stuff or I gave it to them at cost. And then they've got people that are prey to them talking for an hour, so [inaudible 00:07:35] would say, "Well, what is she doing in there?" And somebody goes, "I hear she's making the orgasms better!"
Emily Porter: Right? I've got a bed; I can do an O-shot® in a bed. [inaudible 00:07:45] my room had blinder shades and stuff, so it was real private, but I did P-Shots® and O-Shots® in a 10 by 10 room and did a little bit of Botox®, and fillers, and a little bit of laser treatment. And then I built out my space, about 2,000 square feet. Every time you grow, there's always growing pains, because I had to hire more staff now. That's the thing that I found to be the hardest is so much staff turnover. I respect the way that you talk to your staff. I've seen your staff, and I know it's hard. They can't read your mind, but sometimes it's hard to have people that can keep up with you and can understand what you want from them.
Emily Porter: People are lazy [inaudible 00:08:24] on a post it note. She literally quit on a post it note like two and a half months into her job, because she thought that it was too hard. She was sitting at the front desk making crazy money. I gave them all free treatments, too. And she quit on a post it note. If there's been a lot of turnover, that's hard on staff, and it costs a lot of money to train people, so I learned slow to hire, quick to fire. That was one of the things that I learned. You give people 90 days and if you're not a good fit, then you just move them on along and find the next person.
Emily Porter: Get a good manager up front. Tracy's probably one of the main reason why my business has really exploded the last say six months, because I hired her in May. She had management experience, and she can hire people and she knows who she can direct and who she can't. She knows how to run a tight ship. I think doctors, I don't know, a lot of us are really anti-conflict. I hated that in the ER. I hated fighting with people. I hated worrying about whether they were going to shoot me because I didn't give them hydrocodone or that they were going to egg my house or whatever because I didn't give them the Z-Pack they wanted. So I have a manager that can kick ass and take names and people respect her. That allows me to not have to worry about the day to day stuff. I say I'm only one person's boss, and that's my manager. She's everyone else's boss, so that's helped a lot.
Emily Porter: And then I just started listening to you honestly, about some of your marketing stuff. We do an open house every year. We did our grand opening. We publicized it pretty well, but I made some mistakes. I mean, I spent way too much money on newspaper marketing. The one newspaper that everybody reads, I spent probably $60,000 my first year and I think I got two patients. You have to be able to track where your people come from, your leads. You have to know where they come from or you can't ever know whether that was a good return on your investment.
Charles Runels: Okay, let me stop you right there. I want to stop you right there before you get further about the newspaper. I'm not saying don't do newspapers, but I've heard that over and over again. One of the top people in our group who just sold a bunch of clinics, that he built very quickly out, and sold them out, he came to one of my workshops. When I talked about how your advertising does not need to be real expensive, he said, "We built the whole thing." He was up to, I think, six clinics when he just recently sold out. But the whole thing on Botox® parties and the other things that I talk about, he found that the ads didn't bring any return. Newspaper ads brought him nothing.
Charles Runels: I've had a few people who have done well or had some return on television ads put in the right place, but it has to be in the right order. If you throw the ball, somebody has to be there to catch it. Here's the thing about a newspaper ad or a TV ad. It could be if you go back now and we do those same things, it may work. Because what happens is you can't really sell someone on the idea of having their blood drawn and a needle into their genitals with the space in a newspaper or a TV ad. All you can really do is create curiosity enough for them to then find out more, so if you create the curiosity and then they try to find you on your website and that's not thought out properly, or whoever answers the phone has to sit there and try to explain what an O-shot® is, which takes too long to do. Then it's ... You just pay, you made a $60,000 pass as you just said, and thereby there was nothing to catch the ball.
Charles Runels: On the other hand, if you flip it, and we have people who sometimes are excited. They do somebody's class, usually not mine, but someone else's class or something, and then they immediately want to go buy ads. My advice is always stop, first do the basics, which I think are a video on a webpage where that webpage is nothing but devoted to that one procedure. The whole plan is laid out right here. I'll show you where it lives. Once you get this in place, now when you arouse curiosity with your newspaper, TV, or radio ad, now there's place for them to land and find out whatever else they need to see. With some people, it's going to be they want to read the science. Some only want to see that six celebrities had it done. Others want to see ... Whatever it is.
Charles Runels: All these websites are made the same way. So if you go to the dashboard and click on the marketing part and then if you do the basics and then keep doing them ... So, if you do the basics and then you get six patients. Well, repeat! The basic plan is right here. It tells you everything that you need to know to get this thing going. And I think that's what you're saying [crosstalk 00:13:35] What's that?
Emily Porter: I'm not seeing your screen, so I don't know if other people are seeing it.
Charles Runels: Hold on a minute.
Emily Porter: Oh, now I see it. Okay.
Charles Runels: Okay. Alright, yeah. So, this is all sitting here and now, if you went back and did those same ads, they may work. I think my understanding is you don't really need them anymore; it's working well without them. But at least now, if you did something like that, you have a place for them to land and figure out. In my opinion, without that in place, a video preferably with the provider that's at that location talking about it, it's difficult.
Emily Porter: Yeah, I think [crosstalk 00:14:22] spend some money on marketing on marketing and creating a brand awareness, but their sunk costs ... I mean, Dr. Sheila Nazarian, I know her. I want to say she spent like a million dollars or something crazy her first year on marketing her business. She's a plastic surgeon out in Beverly Hills. Her husband's a neurosurgeon, so they had some money in their bank account, so it's not possible for everybody to do that. But she really, really marketed herself a lot. Everybody tries to sell you advertising all the time, and my-
Charles Runels: Let me just stop you there just a second, because what you said ... It is true that you have to spend something. It has to be something, but I want to make real plain, for example, and this is not unusual, one of our people spent $100 that he gave to a 12 year old who made, you've heard me tell this story before, but there are others like it. 12 year old sit there and filmed the doctor talking about the procedures. The 12 year old made the YouTube channel, and then the guy made $20,000 the first month after doing my class. But he was following these plans about how to make the videos.
Charles Runels: So, I'm not saying you can do it for free, but I'm just saying that if it takes a million dollars to create brand awareness ... You know my analogy, that sex and marketing are the same. If you've got to spend a lot at it to get good sex, you're not very good at it. So yeah, you can do it, but you don't have to do it if you know what you're doing. And over and over again, I've seen people make easily ... And again, these are not plastic surgery procedures. These are not procedures we're getting paid $20,000 or $30,000 to do them. But over and over again, I've seen people follow this plan and spend in the neighborhood of hundreds of dollars per month, not even thousands, and the thing goes crazy.
Next Workshops with Live Models<---
Charles Runels: I built the whole business on hundreds of dollars per month. Just know that it's not necessary if you know how to do it. Your main work horses are e-mails to your people. That's the other misconception, I think, that you don't have now that many people have in the beginning. You are not marketing to the masses. You're marketing to your people, and then the masses will listen, so-
Emily Porter: Yeah, but you have to know about the lists. So that's where it starts to snowball. You're starting from an ER doctor who has zero clients, zero customers, so you have to be patient with that.
Charles Runels: Yes. That's good. That is a good point. [crosstalk 00:17:05]
Emily Porter: ... I gave everybody I knew a $50 or $100 gift card. I had these fancy, little cards made. They're like little plastic credit cards. And it was $50 off any full price procedure, and it had this little [inaudible 00:17:18] made for them with my address and the procedures that I offered and the conditions that I treated.
Charles Runels: Okay, good! Now, let me stop there, because I want you to finish that, but I want you to understand, I want everybody to understand what you're saying. That is really not costing anything. Because if you're doing procedures that make you $1000 profit or even a couple hundred dollars profit because it's Botox® or something, and you are giving $50 off, it's still not costing you. You're making less profit, but you're not taking money out of your bank account to make money and then hoping money comes back.
Emily Porter: It costs me like a buck-fifty.
Charles Runels: To make the card, but then it didn't cost you anything ... I mean, that was to make the initial card, but in the end it didn't cost you anything, because when they brought it back ... You get the point.
Emily Porter: Yeah. I mean, I'll do something for five dollars. If somebody came to me, $50 or $100, and said, "Oh, you've never tried Botox®? Go to this place," and I gave them to happy people. So I didn't hand them out at the Wal-Mart parking lot, okay? I gave them any time somebody said, "Oh, I love the way my Botox® looks." I said, "You got a couple friends, here. Give them a couple of these."
Charles Runels: Okay, stop again, because you're laying down a lot real fast and I want to dissect it. So, we're talking about two different things. The first is building the people who know you and trust you, and the second is marketing to those same people. Marketing as to have them come back for either more of the same or for something different. People start into the cosmetic or the sexual medicine business through two different arenas. One arena is where you came from. Part of the reason I'm interested in hearing what you're saying, and I'm learning from you too, as well as the others, is you started with no lists because you were an emergency room doctor.
Charles Runels: So, you're starting with no patients, just the desire to take care of people in a different way and profit in such a way you can still take care of your family, too. So, no lists. Then there are many on the [inaudible 00:19:25] who already have a huge list of people because they're family doctors or gynecologists or something. So they've already got that part whipped, but yet even having that part, and this part you may not have seen happen because you've seen what's happened with you and some of the people you've taught.
Charles Runels: So you may not have seen this happen, but it does. You'll have someone with a big list. They've got 3000 or so charts in their office or more. Or let's say it's 1000 charts because they're new to practice. They have no reason to go take out some big TV ad. All they need is to market to those people who already know, love, and trust them, and let market, as in educate them in the way I just described, which is explaining through what you can help, what you cannot do, and then let them know about in very effective but extremely inexpensive ways.
Charles Runels: Then, you go do the thing. And I'm going along exactly what you're saying. The sixty grand didn't do so well to bring you new people, but the personally asking the people marketing to your people, even if it was your people being, in this case, maybe the bank teller who already knows you or the person who just cut your hair or changed the tire on your car. Marketing to people who already know you and see you and trust you, and then making them happy, and then empowering them in a simple way to bring you more people. That's how you win in this game. That is you do it.
Charles Runels: Then, those same tools that you're making though, to educate those people, as I'm describing in this page that you're looking at, which is on the marketing page of all the procedures, will start to bring you other people, which is, I think, what you're seeing now. Keep telling them your story, Emily, because you're right on the target. I'm just adding to it.
Emily Porter: Yeah, so I gave out a lot of those cards. They're cheap to have made. Every time somebody was happy, I would ask them for a review, because you have to ask them. The unhappy people will yelp, but happy people, they don't take the time because we're busy people. They'll tell you how much they love you, but they're not going to go put it out there. So I just ask people. And you know, I have maybe 80 Google reviews and I probably could have thousands. I don't push it as much as I should.
Emily Porter: Another thing I found is ... I think I sent you another Priapus Shot® review that I got today. He put one on Google as well. The men are more likely to review, in my experience. If I ask a man to review, I've got about a 50-75% chance that he'll actually go review me. If I ask a woman to review, I've got a 5% or 10% chance that she'll actually go and review me. So I started asking the men to review me on https://priapusshot.com/reviews and I've probably got, I don't know, half a dozen in the last two months including one today. Yeah, there you are, Jason, right there.
Charles Runels: So just so you guys know, for some reason I'll bet you less than a dozen doctors have taken me up on this, but if you Google ... I'll just show you. If you Google Priapus Shot® and you go buy Google click ads for Priapus Shot® ... By the way, the price is still reasonably low because, since we own the [domain, 00:22:52] not ... Oh, I didn't Google it. I typed it in. A lot of people, they can't use it. I've even threatened to sue Groupon. If someone tries to do an advertisement, whether it's through Google click ad or Groupon or whatever and they're not in our group, I make them take it down. So that's our main website. But look at what the second one is. That's the same website on reviews, and all you have to do to be there is answer a couple questions from somebody. Or as you just said, Emily, if you have a happy patient, have them go say something honest about what happened. And now, the phone starts to ring.
Emily Porter: Yeah, so my experience has been that the women trust the word of mouth reviews. That's 100% what they're going to go on. They go to my website, and I'm not going to lie, I spent forty grand on my website. I'll throw that out there. It was the best money I've ever spent. The guys are geniuses. I'm happy to refer anybody there. No kickbacks or anything. They're really, really great. And they know some marketing and they have a thing on there that's like a virtual consult. It's brilliant, because it makes people think that they're getting a consult, but what they're really getting is just a suggestion of what procedures might work for what they have.
Emily Porter: So for example, there's a body on there, and you click female. And then you click on the woman's vaginal area and you can click the symptoms that you have. So, it'll say vaginal dryness or decreased orgasm or pain with intercourse, and when they click that and they click submit, it requires them to put in a phone number and an e-mail. So I was able to grow my e-mail database that way a lot. I don't even need your name; I just want your e-mail. Then it'll say, like "We recommend an O-Shot® for you," and they'll get just a little information about an O-shot®. It tells what it does. Then, we get an e-mail immediately that says, you know, "Tina Smith was interested in an O-Shot®. Here's her name and e-mail."
Emily Porter: And then we nurture those leads. We're not as good about it as calling them back several times, but we get them all called back pretty quickly the first time. Then we have that chance to talk to them about the thing, because we know they're already interested, and then we find out if they've been marketed to and send them to your website. The women want a personal referral generally. Just like when you get your haircut, I don't care if some place has five stars; I want to know, "Where do you, Sally, get your hair cut? I like your hair." And that's your hair you're talking about, not your vagina or your Botox® or whatever.
Emily Porter: Men, they don't talk to each other about this stuff, so they're going to go one of two ways. One is, they're up late at night at 3:00 in the morning researching about how their penis doesn't work the way it used to, and they find GAINSWave or Priapus Shot® or whatever and they find you that way. Or two, wherever their wife tells them to go. So I market internally to my couples, so if I'm doing a Priapus Shot® of a man, I have your book any time sitting on the table next to him and I've got the how to activate the female orgasm sitting right on top. And I'll be damned if every single time, I don't walk in there they're not reading that book. Every time. And there's a little sign there that says "Take home with you." And then their wives come in, so I get lot of men that way, too.
Charles Runels: So you're saying the men take home the O-Shot® book and bring back the women. Is that what you're saying?
Emily Porter: Yeah. I hate the fact that this is true, because as you know, this isn't the case in my house. A lot of women have to ask their husbands how they can spend their money, but men will gladly spend $1200 on an O-Shot® for their wife if they love her, and they all do. Whereas if you talk to a woman about ... I don't know what it is about women. You sneeze and you wet your parents. And you jump on a trampoline, and you wet your pants. And I tell you I can fix it for you, and you have to go home and ask your husband.
Emily Porter: But the men don't think twice about it. They'll drop money in a heartbeat, so I find that you have to convince women and plant the seed and kind of almost give them ... permission for something even though it's an actual medical ... We're not talking about how your vagina looks or whatever. I'm talking about you wetting your pants. You can make it very medical for them and they still, I don't know if they feel bad or maybe they don't work and they feel like they've got a relationship where they need to ask their husband before they buy a new TV or a couple pairs of shoes or whatever. So I feel like you have to talk to women several more times. And the men, I find, come in ... They've already been marketed to. They call up, we just need to answer a couple questions, and they're ready to do it. They're ready to go. And they want whatever procedure done that day.
Emily Porter: I know you tell everyone to prepay. We actually haven't had to do that. I've got my pulse on that. Our most cancellations that we have are flaky ass women who want some Botox® and they've never met me before, and they have to have a consultation with my esthetician that I'm present at to do a medical history. And I do the Botox® and those women have a no show rate probably 10% or 20% of the time if they've never met us. But the men, they always show up in my arena. And maybe it's because we tell we book three weeks out, which we do, and they don't want to lose the appointment, but I haven't had any men no show. Not a single one without them having to prepay.
Charles Runels: You're better than I am, but maybe there is ... I'm not doubting it. That's cool that you're pulling that off. So, don't go away. I wanted to see if anybody has questions and then I want to talk a little bit about the research, because we need some more participants in our research. We got a double blind going that's stagnant because we don't have enough people in it, so I was going to see if you guys would help me fill it. Anybody have any questions they want to bring up or they want to contribute to, I know we've got some experienced people, other teachers on the phone, about getting started with some of the new people? Looking for hands to go up.
Charles Runels: Of course the fun conclusion to your story, which is wonderful, you've got to tell them about your daughter's happy dance, and then I'm going to pull up some research. You got to tell this; it's just too good.
Emily Porter: Okay. I quit my ER job on Sunday after a little over two years of doing this. I wasn't going to quit; I thought I would just still work two shifts, three shifts, or whatever. They just quit valuing me, and I realized that the time that I was spending there was taken away from me being able to build my business on Mondays when my clinic is closed. Because that's, usually when I worked in the ER was Sunday night into Monday. I did 24 hour shifts.
Emily Porter: Anyway, so I came home and I told my daughter, who's six, my oldest daughter, that I quit my ER job. She just squealed with joy, and she jumped up and down, and she says, "Now that means that you're not going to have to sleep at the hospital!" She was just so excited, and she goes, "That means you're going to be home more." I'm like, "Yes, baby," and she goes, "Hey, Alexa! Play Girls by the Beastie Boys." And she starts co-opting and she wanted me to dance with her. It was like, wow, I did the right thing, you know? I was so afraid all that time my bank account didn't have enough money or that any time, I might not be recession proof or whatever. I did it and I don't regret. I'm not looking back.
Charles Runels: Beautiful. I just love that story about your daughter being happier because you made some changes. You can say, you know ... We talked about this yesterday when you were telling me the news or day before, whenever. But you could say, "Well, the world lost this really smart ER doctor." But the thing is, they got a really depth of understanding hardcore doctor, who trained as an ER doctor, who now can take that experience to a different level with what you're doing now.
Charles Runels: There was a piece of your story though that I would like to ... Correct me if I'm wrong, but you just didn't willy-nilly suddenly decide, "Okay, now the time is to quit." Your income caught up to where it was costing you to be in the ER because you could be in your office making more than you would be if you were at the ER, did I-
Emily Porter: Absolutely. And even if I have the day that I ... I mean, I might open my clinic on Monday. Right now, I work Tuesday through Saturday, and I'm not there every minute of every hour of every day, because I still travel and go to conferences and stuff. I'm there most of the time, and I see patients before hours and after hours. But it got to where it's like, Okay, I need either A, to see more patients and I hired a medical assistant, which was the other thing I did [inaudible 00:33:05].
Emily Porter: She started last week, so now instead of having 30 minute Botox® appointments, where I got to [consent 00:33:12] them and numb them or you know, sorry ... Cleanse their face and take their pictures and whatever. They're making those like 15 minutes on my schedule. And then all my laser appointments that would be an hour long, well I only need them for half an hour. So, they're putting that other half hour on my medical assistant's schedule. And I did a wing lift tonight at 5:00 and a modified O-Shot® because the lady was worried about her urinary retention that she had after surgery, so we just did her ... It's real sad, actually. Her husband has severe ED; I think he's Parkinson's. But she enjoys oral sex with her husband very much, and she's on testosterone. She's crying in my office at 5:00.
Emily Porter: I've only met her one other time. She came to me because she's getting hormone pellets somewhere else and started getting hair removal from us and then she signed up for a wing lift. And my front desk person, because she's gotten those things. That's the other thing you always say, have your own staff market for you. And they're not pushy about it at all, but if somebody asks them if they've got the O-Shot® and when they smile and their eyes light up, that's genuine. My front desk person tells everyone that the Vampire Facelift® she got last month in my training was her favorite thing that she's had done, and she's had everything done. So, they sold this lady a wing lift so her labia would be more plump, because she enjoys oral sex. We did a diVa on her actually and then just did the clitoral part of the O-Shot®. Anyway, she's happy, but she's crying in my office.
Emily Porter: So, I got to where even if I just have that Monday off, where I can have a little bit of a minute to catch up on my charting, because I'm notoriously bad. I don't have time to catch up on my charting. It's all fun and games until the medical board comes after you and you're six months behind on your charts. Just to have a little bit of time to sit down and think about strategizing, like who would I want to talk to next? Do I want to go talk to some oncologist and talk to them about the O-Shot®? Well, you've got to have time Monday through Friday to be able to do that, right?
Charles Runels: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Emily Porter: And Tuesday through Friday, I was always in the clinic, so Monday now could be my day that I'm going to make an appointment and go market to an oncologist, or I'm going to go do those sorts of things to help grow my business. Anyway, I just decided that that time was going to make more money. So, if I worked a 12 hour ER shift and I made, I don't know, $1500 or $1800 or whatever ... What if I just spent three hours with the right person making those videos that I don't have on my site or three hours that I'm going to go talk to a couple people or hand out some of my little cards or whatever? But I didn't ever have that time, and so now I have that time. And I just have to put it on my calendar and do it, because you can't just have the time and then fill it up with other crap. You have to actually apply it.
Charles Runels: Okay, so let me jump in there one more time and then I want to cover some research, but don't go away. So, I think you guys just heard now why I really wanted Dr. Porter to talk tonight, because that jump from this is really, really important ... I think, when it comes to marketing, that jump from giving up your insurance job to now, I'm out there, I have no more pimp to tell patients to come in. It's just me with no marketing in my skillset. That takes some courage, and you did it. There's a difference between positive thinking or even praying and a strategy.
Charles Runels: I don't know if it's true or not, but supposedly, there's a story that someone told Mohammed that they were going to untie their camel and trust God to take care of the camel. At least I was told this story by my dad; he might have made the whole thing up. But Mohammed said, "Nope. Tie your camel and then trust God to take care of your camel." So that was always a running joke for us that we would say our prayers, but we'd also get our camel tied. So here's the tying camel part of your story that I want to tease out. You took your class. How long ago did you do O-Shot®?
Emily Porter: September 2016.
Charles Runels: Okay, and when did you come to my marketing class the first time?
Emily Porter: August of this year, so two years later.
Charles Runels: Yes. Now, the class you did was amazing. Dr. Pete, he's a luminary; he's so brilliant and personable and teaches the procedure [crazy. 00:37:42] Sometimes, it's just time to do the next thing and it may or may not have been what you learned in my class. But when you came here, the next thing became doing some things with your marketing. Now the cash is flowing even more, because you've done a lot of things the right way, and you've laid some stuff, and cash is already flowing. Now cash is flowing even more, but that happened not by just saying prayers or having a goal to quit the ER.
Charles Runels: You had a strategy, and the strategies were, "Okay, it takes too long to explain this and so here's what I'm going to go do. I'm going to make sure that I've got a video, a webpage, that everybody that talks to patients has had these procedures so that I'm not having to spend as much time explaining things. I can do more of the doing," and on and on. A lot of what I'm saying is your strategies have now paid off, and you're implementing even more strategies to leverage.
Charles Runels: The other thing ... So, first thing is you had strategy, and you actually did it. You didn't try to invent a new strategy. You said, "Okay, here's the guy that thought this thing up. Here's what he's saying that people are doing that are profiting from it. I'm going to go do some of these things." And you can say a lot about Emily Porter, but what you cannot say is that you don't do stuff. You went home and you just did some stuff, and it wasn't a $60,000 ad. You went home and you did some stuff that was strategically thought out, and then you were able to have your four year old child do a happy dance because Mama followed the strategy that worked. That's the way you were able to make the jump.
Charles Runels: And I just wanted to make that point that you guys don't have to make up a new strategy; I know what works, and I didn't figure it out. I experimented, and I watched what our other doctors did, and I'm not saying you don't do other things, but we got a strategy that works and if you're phone's not ringing, I've got people that are paid to answer the phone and look at what you're doing and help you with it, as can some of the people in this call who've been very successful and are teaching classes. There's several people on the call that do classes and they're doing well and can also answer those same questions if you just go look at our list of teachers.
Emily Porter: The other thing that happened after August is ... I never had my [sure start 00:40:08] call. I didn't until August, because I kept putting it off and I didn't do it. They made me sign up for it in your class, and so when I teach my classes, I make the people sign up in the class, and I tell them, "This is a huge regret that I had that I didn't actually ever do this call." Every time I was in the ER and I didn't have patients and I couldn't sleep, I went onto your sites and just watched all the videos.
Emily Porter: And I took notes on them. I have like 20 pages of notes on your videos. You saw I wrote down pretty much every single thing that you said, and then I watched- [crosstalk 00:40:44]
Charles Runels: I'm going to jump in there again. What I've seen is the people that are making a half a million or more just from our procedures, without exception, always, they've called us more than once and they've done what you just said. They'll watch ... Because I can see how many times they've been logged on. They will have logged onto our websites 40, 50 times the first couple of months after coming to our class. And for those of you guys who haven't done it, some of them may not even know what you're referring to.
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Charles Runels: I just put it in the chat box. That's where you can schedule the sure start, which is basically, you call my office, one of my business consultants, and they're business people that have been talking, were in business before I hired them, and they take their experience with that, prior to working with me, with their experience, having seen what people are doing making things work. And then they look to see where you are. And especially like an intern is trying to diagnose you, only they're business people trying to diagnose where you are to tell you the next thing to do. And the people who do well, they'll call us sometimes 5, 6, 7 times, and we like that because we know that it's rare they don't just kill it. Then they're off to the races and they're ready to teach somebody else or just put the money in the bank. So I just put that link in the thing. I want to come back to that shortly, but I've also put in there some research that's come off of this for a second ... Oh, I pulled it up. Let me let you look at it.
Charles Runels: So this is what it looks like when you get to that link. And if you go right here, if you've never done this before, you click this one and it'll schedule a time for us to make sure you just know where everything is and you're able to log in. Some people just never log in. Everybody that drops out of our group, almost without exception, just never even logged in or implemented anything. Then after you've been in it for a while, some of you guys may have been in for six months, a year or more, it's still not happening with you, you go here and we'll give you a more detailed consult.
Charles Runels: Let's swap off of this for a second and let me just show you ... I just put it in the box, if you want to open it up. It's some research that came out this month about hair that is worth looking at. I'll pull it up so we can look at it very quickly together. Let's see here ... Yeah, there it is. You guys can download this really beautiful study where they didn't just take pictures. They really did microscopy and they documented that PRP works for hair. Interestingly, they did more injections than that's normally done. Most protocols is two or threw shots six weeks apart. They went every three weeks for three months, so I guess that's four injections, I guess depending on how you count it, four or five injections. But a really beautiful response to that, so just know that this science is not the first study like this. This science is growing.
Charles Runels: We've had some other people on these calls talking about hair. I think it's important to show people what success looks like. You could use pictures from this study if you wanted, talking to smart people, to show them the science that ... A success is this, it's not your 18 year old mop back, but it's thicker hair. And the response, really following out for three months or 12 weeks is not full effect. Full effect is probably six months to a year out.
Charles Runels: Anyway, I want you guys to have that, to know the research is growing. We might shut this thing down in second. There was a question about how did you make the virtual consultation on your website. I want to comment on that. That consultation is very elegant, and Dr. Porter's website is very beautiful. I don't want you to think, if you're new, that you have to come out, if you don't have 40 grand to pop in from the start to a website, that it's not going to work for you. Yeah, it's great if you do.
Charles Runels: But the biggest point of what she told you was you do need a way to get that e-mail address from every patient you're seeing. One way is to have the consult, which she does have a gorgeous website. What's your domain, Emily?
Emily Porter: Https://wrinklefreemedspa.com/
Charles Runels: Hold on a second.
Emily Porter: I'll type it in for you.
Charles Runels: [inaudible 00:45:31]
Emily Porter: I put it in the comments there under questions. And I have a new one that I'm launching, too. But it's the same thing; it's just a landing page for Austin Love Doctor, but it has a way to collect information from people. It's like, "Am I a candidate?" And then they click on the different symptoms that they have. Erectile dysfunction or low libido or vaginal dryness or inverted nipples or whatever. Then it collects the information. You don't have to put a name.
Emily Porter: Here's a pointer for you. My web guys told me that if people have to put a name in there, you're going to get about at least less than half of what you'll get if they just have to put an e-mail in. If people like they have to put a name in, you don't get as many ... I put it in the questions right there under questions, so click on it there.
Charles Runels: Okay, yeah. Okay.
Emily Porter: If you just ask for an e-mail and a phone number, people will generally give you an accurate phone number and they'll give you an e-mail, and then you can put it in there. The virtual consult is usually at the bottom. There you go. Click on that, say virtual consultation, and you can just [inaudible 00:46:53] where you have to put your information in.
Charles Runels: Uh-huh. So let me add to this the-
Emily Porter: My first website cost $500, so I didn't start out with this.
Charles Runels: ... I agree completely. If you ask for full name, you're not going to get much. You do need to get an e-mail. If you're going to ask for ... I think they'll usually give you a first name, but I would never ask for first and last name for someone just to do something on my website. Here's the process that takes place, and this is why this is critical for a website. Let's say that sister Sue talks to her sister Jane and says, "Jane, you got to go see Dr. Porter. She's going to make you have amazing sex. Your marriage is going to get better. It's just wonderful. And you'll be more beautiful and happy and live forever." Now Jane is working on her computer and goes to this website, but the phone's ringing because she's a busy, smart woman or she's ... Wherever. She's busy. Everybody's busy these days. So she doesn't make the call and tomorrow, she's not even thinking about this. It's off her plate.
Charles Runels: If you have something to offer for free, it can be a consult, it can be a news letter, it can be a download of a PDF file, but there should be something for free on your website in exchange for an e-mail address plus either, I like to get a first name, but it could be an e-mail address and a phone number. Something so that you can now follow up with them, and then they get an e-mail every two weeks or so. If you do that, you will wind up capturing somewhere between another 30-60% of the people of those sister Janes who show up, and they may wind up coming in next week, next month, next year, but that's how you build the list for people that know your patients much more easily than if you don't do that.
Charles Runels: My first website, which is still out there, is just my last name. And there's a little form that offers something free for their first name and e-mail address. I call it my weight loss secret; it's basically all the benefits of walking. It's an audio file for walking. So whether you ask for the ... You give them a free consult or you give them a free download, either way, they wind up on your news letter and that becomes a way that you engage them and keep telling them about your stuff. And of course, that e-mail has a whole strategy of its own, some of which is covered right there on the website that I just showed you.
Emily Porter: You do have to have a website. You can't just have a Facebook page. I want to throw that out there. Even if you have a $500 website, you need a domain name, because otherwise people are like, "What, you don't even have domain?" And the other thing I didn't do was I didn't early on have my e-mail at info@wrinklefreemedspa.com. It was still a Gmail account. I don't know about you, but if you're still using a Gmail account, I think you look like you're a freshman, and I don't want a freshman in my vagina. I want a senior, you know? So I changed, it costs five dollars a month to have Google Suite, G Suite or whatever ... It's still Gmail, but manage your website, but give your e-mail at your domain name. So now we have info@wrinklefreemedspa.com and DrPorter@wrinklefreemedspa.com and all my estheticians and my nurse, everybody has a business card that I got cheap on Vista Print.
Emily Porter: And I've noticed, Dr. Runels, that you give out your business cards like candy, too. Whenever you send a book to somebody, you send them like three business cards. They float out there and even though we're in a very virtual age where everyone shares contacts and puts things on their phone, people still take business cards and they look at them, and they give them to people.
Charles Runels: So, mentioning that ... This guy right here, Joe Girard ... Did I put that in there right? Joe Girard, spelled it wrong ... This guy, last I checked, still has the world record for the most car sales ever. He's got one called How to Sell Yourself. This is an old one; it's probably out of print now. He talks about cards and how most people don't give out enough of them. He would literally just ... Like if it was a football game or something and somebody did something, he would throw them out like confetti at parades and give them out stacks at a time. Most people completely, totally under utilize their card.
Charles Runels: The thing about it is though, with our procedures, you're exactly right. Those cards need to be going out. The other thing that you're doing right though is that for something that's difficult to understand ... The more difficult to understand and the more expensive, the more information they need. So if you're just handing out a card, it just has to bring them back to a website where you have a video where they can absorb a lot of information instead of having to read it. Or it needs to be one of the books, as you said, because they have a lot information. It's a hard thing to understand, drawing your blood and getting a shot in the genitals, for the layperson and it's not cheap.
Emily Porter: Yeah, and another thing I do is I send everyone a handwritten thank you card. I don't care if they didn't spend any money with me or not. If they came in and gave me 30 minutes or an hour of their time, I thank them, and I send them all a handwritten thank you card with my clinic's address on it, with my clinic name on it, I write them, I sign them, my estheticians send their own cards, and we stamp them. Like last night, I was up until 3:00 in the morning, I sent 63 Christmas gifts to ... Harry & David® pears, right? So I sent $30 boxes of pears to anyone who spent more than several thousand dollars with me.
Emily Porter: Nobody does that. I want to be the Nordstrom. I don't want to be the Wal-Mart. And that shit matters. It matters. We went down to Hall's Chophouse for our wedding anniversary in Charleston. I'd never been to Charleston ... and talked to them. It was our anniversary and they made us feel really nice, and the guy made me feel really ... Like he knew me, right? Yeah, we went there for lunch and for dinner. We probably dropped $600 or $700 on the two meals, but it was worth every penny. A month later, our waiter had sent us a handwritten thank you card saying, "It was so great meeting you. I love Austin. Thanks for celebrating your anniversary with us."
Emily Porter: You don't think that the next time that I go back to Charleston, or every single time somebody tells me that they're going to Charleston, that I don't tell them to go to Hall's Chophouse? Of course I do! And that stuff matters, because nobody does it anymore, and it takes no time.
Charles Runels: Okay, so we need to shut this thing down. Someone asked me for a link. I moved that into a Dropbox and put the link, you can also download it if you can click the right button on the little ... Click on the little orange flower, and then it should open a little sidebar where you can actually download the PDF file. Also, I put a link in the chat box where you can download that research about the hair. And I put a link to this book about Girard, where he talks about how he used his cards to sell 3000 and something cars in one year. That's belly to belly. That's without people helping him. So if anybody knows how to use a business card, it'd be this guy.
Charles Runels: Emily, we all want to see our babies doing happy dances, so thank you for sharing your story. I know you motivate a lot of people. Dr. Porter does a wonderful class. You'll see her classes posted at the [ACC and A 00:54:58] website, and so here's the ... Things are coming up, looks like January 12th. Is that one full?
Emily Porter: I've go one or two spots left.
Charles Runels: Okay. Alright, cool. If that's still in your schedule, I'm putting the link right there. She teaches GAINSWave as well all the PRP procedures, so I highly recommend her class. And you guys have a wonderful night! Thank you for tuning in. I hope this was helpful. Have a goodnight. Goodbye.
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