A Letter From The Author
This book represents the compilation of practical, valuable and professional experience my team and I at beautiful forever (www.beautifulforever.com) have gathered over several decades.
We have helped countless physicians, surgeons, med-spa owners and others create, launch and grow successful aesthetic Medical Practices and related businesses, and that experience provided the solid practical grounding for this book.
My professional background as an educator has uniquely suited me for the role of helping my clients to not just succeed – but also to learn how to succeed. And that is what this book is about – it is a guide which will help you succeed in growing your practice or aesthetics business, and also to learn how to succeed.
It’s my version of “give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”
As part of my commitment to education, I have recently created the beautiful forever university, an informational resource, ongoing practice-building education and training tool available to those in the aesthetics industry, and the information is often applicable to any Medical Practice as well.
You can learn more about that, and the services my firm offers, in the final appendix to this book.
Along the way, as both an educator and as a practice consultant, I have given hundreds of talks at professional conferences, authored dozens of articles in professional journals, blogs, white papers, case studies, webinars and other social networking efforts.
I have done this, all while focusing on my primary role, helping people manage and market their aesthetic businesses.
In addition, I have created a hands-on workbook, The Aesthetic Medical Success System – A Complete Education Guide to Building, Managing and Marketing Your Cosmetic Practice or Medical Spa, which is a practical, step-by-step guide. This book, published in 2009, became the only aesthetic educational manual offered by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons® to its members.
No longer available from ASPS®, this eminently practical step by step guide is still available from beautiful forever on our website, (www.beautifulforever.com).
However, most of what we do at beautiful forever is guide and support aesthetic and cosmetic physicians and surgeons – as well as med-spa owners and managers – as they dream up and create new businesses. Then we help them launch successfully and, finally, we continue working with them to help their businesses profitably grow.
We do it all, from evaluating the nuts-and-bolts of the business side of their endeavors to helping them to market themselves and their operations. It is the marketing and promotion aspect of the business that is the focus of this book.
A quick glance at the Table of Contents will demonstrate what this book covers – from strategic planning, to writing a blog or a press release … and everything in between. Each of the chapters is based on our years of experience assisting doctors and business owners.
The advice we share in this book will be eminently practical to your own business.
This book is based largely on a compilation of material I have created and published in a variety of trade and professional journal articles, webinars and speaking engagements over the past half-decade and edited to provide a strong flow of continuity.
I would like to acknowledge the publishers who graciously returned to me the rights to use and adapt material I had created for their initial use, especially Inga Hansen at MedEsthetics, who was also the inspiration for many of those articles.
I would also like to acknowledge Debbie Taylor of TaylorMade Printing Services as well as writing and marketing expert Ned Barnett, who worked on a tight deadline to pull this together. I would also like to thank my staff, who has helped to make beautiful forever what it is today.
Finally, I’d like to dedicate this book to my husband, my kids and my extended family and friends, including Dr. Janet Brill – she’s been a major inspiration – and all who have put up with my crazy schedule and the demands of running a business designed to serve the needs of a very demanding clientele.
Without their love and support, none of this could have happened.
Cheryl Whitman
January, 2014