The medical spas industry is booming. There are lots of services being introduced on a daily basis. This means you will likely enjoy lots of success if you manage to establish your med spa start up in this industry. However, for you to increase your chances of success, you need to have your basics right! Opening a medical spa business requires a lot of industry knowledge. You need to research and have a good idea about the operations of the spa and how everything functions. Read on to find out some of the things you need to know to run a successful med spa start up.
Come Up With Your Own Business Concept
You might think that med spa start up is as easy as visiting a few ones close to you, then you copy their business model. While that might be helpful, there’s more to it than that. Don’t try to provide every service that’s out there. Instead, you should decide on what you can specialize in and then find ways to do it better than everyone else. For instance, you can focus on dealing with ethnic skin and organic skincare products.
Another common mistake that you should avoid is not offering enough services. This will limit the number of people you can cater to, and eventually, your revenue won’t be as much as you need. If you are looking to join another practitioner to share office space, you must also ask yourself a number of questions. For instance, it’s important to figure out how the other practitioner compliments your own practice. On the other hand, you must also figure out a way to package your own services and include their treatment. The main idea should be to secure a sound business concept so you can generate enough revenue.
Come Up With a Well Calculated Business Plan
Once you have figured out your business concept, the next step should be coming up with a solid business plan for your med spa start up. It’s important to have a business plan even if you are financing the project on your own. It’s even more crucial to do so if you are thinking of getting some investors on board. Potential investors always want to go over the business plan before they can decide to invest their money into your business. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page and you all have the same expectations.
A business plan is also important so you can show your architecture and design. This will give them a visual plan of your ideas. You may also need to show it to your consultant and spa manager, so everyone knows who to hire and how to get the best from the available skill. Apart from showing the people, you plan to partner with, a business plan is also an important resource that you can refer to as you are developing your business. It will help to keep you on target and remind you of some aspects of running your spa that you can forget about over time.
You Need to Hire a Med Spa Development Team
This is where things will start getting interesting. Hiring a development team is the first step in making your med spa start up idea a reality. This is also the most expensive step. Apart from that, building the med spa is quite time-consuming, so you need people to help you figure things out. The development team is crucial to the success of your project. Even well-planned businesses can fail if the facility is not designed properly. A development team can help you figure out other professionals that you can combine your services with. For instance, you may need to combine the services of an oncologist and a plastic surgeon. That way, breast cancer patients can get the services of a plastic surgeon after recovery.
Apart from figuring out who you are working with, this team will help you figure out how people will move from one service provider to the other. With a strong development team by your side, you can foresee all movement-related problems and address them before they affect your patients. For instance, you may be advised to create separate entrances and patient-specific waiting rooms with carpets so there is no confusion about who is visiting who. Having a concept is great, but if you don’t have a development team to take a second look at it, you may fail to see some factors that will turn into problems later on.
It’s also important to hire all the professionals needed to make your venue beautiful. For instance, you need to work with roofers, solar power experts, and countertop installation contractors. These professionals will help you clear out any doubts that you might have regarding material options and designs. For instance, you may not be sure if a quartz kitchen countertop is a good option for your med spa counters. Apart from contractors who focus on the indoor appearance of your spa, you also need to hire contractors who can make the outdoors look good. For example, you may need to work with a land clearing contractor, a tree removal service, and an ornamental fence installation specialist.
Select an Ideal Location for Your Spa
It’s important to understand how to properly position your med spa. Unlike doctors’ offices, whose success is not location-dependent, the success of a med spa start up is largely dependent on where it is located. Before you can choose a corporate venue, you need to think about market feasibility and competition analysis. You must also go back to your concept and look at things like demographics, parking availability, and street frontage. You must also ensure that your local zoning laws are not restrictive when it comes to how you can locate your med spa. Please keep in mind that med spas are a relatively new business type. As a result, a lot of zoning boards are not fully sure of what they are. This means your area might still be experiencing some difficulties dealing with med spa zoning. The best way to ensure you don’t end up in the wrong location is to collect zoning information from other med spas near you.
Invest In Medical Insurance
When you are running a med spa, you will likely offer several practices and therapies under one roof. Whether you are acting as a separate entity or you have come together to create a panel so you can treat clients together, it’s important to protect yourself. Just like with medical coverage, you need to ensure that the basics of protection are in place. For instance, you should cover yourself from things like malpractice, general liability, and property damage.
To get the best insurance package, you must sit with a reliable insurance agent and have them help you to come up with a plan specific to your facility. It’s important to note that when it comes to insurance, regulations differ from state to state. Apart from that, each facility has different needs. That’s why you should take time to consider the different aspects of your facility and how you can best insure yourself.
Hire Your Staff Wisely
If you want your med spa to start up to be successful, you need to ensure that you are staffed with professionals who have a lot of experience. Ideally, you should get people who have worked in a medical setting before. For instance, you can work with estheticians who have furthered their education to obtain more certifications. You should also get a few registered nurses, depending on the size of your med spa. It’s important to keep in mind that the med spa industry is a high-turnover niche. In conjunction with fair treatment of staff, you must also create a work environment that is friendly and positive. These are some of the best ways to ensure that your staff members stick around. Apart from that, you can also offer opportunities like continuous learning and fair compensation.
Advertising andamp; Promotion
This is another crucial area of running a med spa. You will only get a lot of customers if people discover that your business exists. As such, you need to familiarize yourself with tools used in marketing and promoting businesses. When it comes to marketing your business, you need to pay particular attention to marketing costs. This can add up quite quickly if you are not careful, so you should have a sound budget in place. Items that you may need to budget for include social media, Google ads, television, radio, and other marketing materials like business cards, menus, direct mail, and client entertainment.
Whenever you are investing in marketing, you must consider if there are any tangible returns. Therefore, you should prioritize marketing methods where you can effectively track the return on investment. For instance, if you place a display ad on the yellow pages, will you be able to monitor the results? If not, then there won’t be any way to know if the investment is wise or not. One of the strongest forms of marketing is word of mouth. Fortunately, it’s also one of the cheapest. Therefore, the best way to build your customer base is to encourage your existing patients to post reviews and refer new clients to you.
Create a Strong Menu
There are a lot of similarities between a med spa start up and a traditional spa. The only difference between the two is the types of treatments offered. While the treatments are a bit similar, there are some that you will exclude and several that are added to a med spa menu. Since a med spa is basically a mixture of a traditional spa and a medical clinic, the treatments offered a mixture of conventional medicine and complementary therapies. For instance, you will obviously offer services like massages, and manicures pedicures. In addition, you will also offer services like
- Botox
- Hair removal
- Medical peels
- Wrinkle treatments
- Body sculpting
- Natural dermal fillers
Figure Out the Type of Equipment Required
Having all the required equipment will ensure that you can provide all the necessary treatments efficiently. Each treatment on your list requires a particular set of devices that make it deliverable. Without these devices, some treatments are impossible, and some are doable, but there will be several shortcuts and compromises.
There are a lot of equipment sellers that you can work with. It’s important to find a reliable seller who offers a wide range of equipment that suits medical spa requirements. Since the spa industry is moving at a fast pace, you should be able to find a number of sources who can provide you with what you need. This will enable you to offer the best treatments and thus grow your med spa at an impressive pace.
Here are some of the most important pieces of equipment that you will need for your med spa:
- Multifunctional units
- Spa massage andamp; facial tables
- Facial steamers
- Carts and Trolleys
- Stools for beauty technicians
- Hot towel cabinets and sterilizers
- Microdermabrasion machines
- Electrocardiogram
- Intense pulse light and laser
- Magnifying lamps
- Ultraviolet sterile cab
- Digital imaging
Figure Out The Legal Requirements
Every kind of business has a set of legal requirements that should be adhered to. Figuring out what these legal requirements are will enable you to run your spa business without breaking any rules and facing penalties.
You will find that when you are running a med spa, legal requirements are quite important, and the risk is very high. Your clients will depend on you to take care of their clinical issues. At the same time, they will expect an unwinding experience. Since, as a med spa, you will also have different medical conditions, you must ensure that you hire qualified and licensed individuals only. Having experienced employees is not enough. You will need employees who understand clinical medications.
If you are running a med spa, here are some requirements that you must satisfy:
- Licensed employees
- Qualified and registered medical professionals
- Expert supervisors
- Intact healthcare system
By working with such people, you will ensure that everyone you have on your team understands the information needed to kickstart your medical spa.
These are some of the things you need to figure out so you can run a successful med spa. It’s important to take your time and not rush because the success of your business depends on your fully understanding everything that’s needed.