Combination Services for Optimal Results

Taking the extra time to show a client highlighting and contouring makeup techniques, as well as how to conceal blemishes or accentuate the eyes, will provide them with a remarkable service.
Taking the extra time to show a client highlighting and contouring makeup techniques, as well as how to conceal blemishes or accentuate the eyes, will provide them with a remarkable service.

Often, a client presents a variety of issues that makes it challenging to find that one perfect treatment to address all her concerns. By combining a variety of services and home-care products for a variety of concerns, clients are more likely to be satisfied with the overall results of their experience at your skin care facility. As always, take care when combining treatments to make sure that they will work in a positive—not negative—way to improve a client’s overall appearance. Following is information from a physician and esthetician on how to accomplish this, as well as advice from a marketing professional on how to make these services relevant to your clientele.

A Physician’s Perspective: Steven H. Dayan, MD, FACS

Cosmetic enhancement is more than just science; it is an art form. Minor differences on the face can be made that give off a different first impression. With this subliminal difference approach, there may be several areas with very little change as opposed to accentuating one area dramatically. Where subtle or subliminal changes can make a person look more attractive and youthful, too dramatic of a change in one area can send the opposite message. Subliminal difference is a technique using multiple treatments to enhance overall results without making a client look over-done. (See 5 Nonsurgical Procedures That Create a Subliminal Difference.)

For the past two decades, wrinkles and folds have been targeted with minimal regard to the context within which those characterizing features are viewed. By setting sights more globally on augmenting a face based on the evolutionary forces that have shaped, developed and composed beauty and attraction, skin care professionals are able to deliver a more natural appearance. The subliminal difference method works because it enhances in a very subtle, natural way to ensure that beauty is still the focus, and not the intervention or the procedure. In its purest form, beauty serves as a subconscious communicator of health and vitality. When facial enhancement is made obvious and overt, beauty is being brought to the conscious level, and its effects are diminished. Gone are the days of windblown face-lifts, duck lips and joker faces. Cosmetic enhancement should be natural and within the context of a person’s own face.

An Esthetician’s Prospective: Terri A. Wojak

Combining services is not only for cosmetic medicine, but also for the application of skin care. Everyone has the ability to get caught up in a routine and perform the specific service that a client has scheduled. However, the goal should be always to enhance the client’s overall appearance instead of just one aspect of it. It is well-known that to be a successful esthetician, you must make your client’s not only look good but, more importantly, feel good. You can pull, plump and tighten, but if the skin is not up to par, then clients may still feel as if they are not putting their best faces forward. In order to be physically healthy, exercise and nutrition go hand-in-hand; one without the other will not provide significant results. When the goal is a more youthful appearance, the same idea applies: Treatments are more effective when combined with professional skin care products.

The face—especially the eyes—is the focal point of a first impression. Whether working in a skin care facility or a medical practice, there are many resources available for estheticians to use in order to accentuate different areas of the face. It can be as simple as adding an eyebrow wax to a facial or for a patient of the physician who receives neurotoxin. Eyebrows are often referred to as the frame of the eyes; shaping them properly gives a more inviting appearance. Makeup is another tool that is learned in esthetic school, but is often thought of as a separate service. Not all estheticians need to be masters in the art of makeup; everyone has their niche, but taking the extra time to show a client highlighting and contouring techniques, as well as how to conceal blemishes or accentuate the eyes will provide them with a remarkable service. Besides making clients happy, this builds skin care sales and client retention. Surgical procedures, injectables and laser treatments serve great purposes in medical esthetics, but the recipients must be educated on how to protect their investment at home. Part of the job of a skin care professional is to ensure that clients achieve the best possible results. Without home care, it would be like a dentist who tells his patient to come in for regular cleanings without explaining the benefits of teeth brushing and flossing.

Improving the appearance of a client is an overall look with the goal of enhancing the natural beauty every client has. It is not completely adapting the way a client looks; only making subtle changes so that she gives off a natural, youthful appearance.

A Marketer’s Perspective: Tracy L. Drumm

No matter how great a promotion or bundled a package is, you still have to promote it. TOIB is a formula developed through trial and error to help spas seamlessly create effective marketing campaigns. Use the TOIB formula below on all of your fliers, Web specials or social media promotions.

Teaser. Look at the cover of any magazine, and you will quickly learn how to master the teaser. This marketing tactic is a way to generate interest by offering a glimpse of exciting information, such as “10 Tricks to Defy Your Age” or “7 Secrets to Beauty.” A teaser is an effective way to pull the consumer deeper into your promotion. Every piece of mail or ad should have a teaser that encourages the reader to take further action. It can go on an envelope, such as “Free Gift Certificate Inside” or in an ad, such as “Breakthrough New Treatment With Results You Need to See to Believe.”

Offer. Everyone loves a free gift! An offer on your promotion engages response from the reader. It doesn’t matter if your offer is small or large; rather, that it is of value and interest to your market, such as “Free eyebrow wax with a medical treatment,” or “Mention this newsletter and receive a $50 gift certificate toward a facial treatment.”

Immediacy. Today’s society moves fast and, to get a consumer to slow down, you have to create a sense of urgency. Your offer should have an expiration date to encourage the person to put down what they are doing and contact you. If your offer is valuable enough, it won’t want to be missed by your target audience. An effective way to create immediacy is to say: “Limited appointments! Space fills fast!”

Brand. Your advertisement is your real estate. Your logo, name, colors, contact information and overall message should be visible on everything, especially direct mail pieces or advertisements. Your clients will recognize and even look for your image to have a presence. By putting your logo on your ads, you are creating value for your brand and, ultimately, enhancing your business.

Every time consumers open a marketing piece, see a commercial or read a piece of mail, their first thought is “What’s in it for me?” They don’t care if you say you opened a new 40,000-square-foot building. They want to know exactly how what you are telling them makes their life better. Now, if you tell them that your new building means they will get treated faster and has an on-site day care to watch their kids—bingo! That is going to appeal to their concerns. It clearly defines what is in it for them.

Steven H. Dayan, MD, FACS, is a recognized expert in the field of facial plastic surgery and is a member of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. His passion for education led him to open True University in Chicago, a training center that teaches estheticians how to appropriately work with physicians. Dayan is a 2011–2012 member of the Skin Inc. magazine editorial advisory board.

Tracy L. Drumm manages the day-to-day operations of IF Marketing, a Chicago firm specializing in aesthetic medicine. She co-authored Keys to Success: Marketing & Practice Management (College of Cosmetic Medicine Press, 2007) and Thrive: Pearls to Prosper in Any Economy (College of Cosmetic Medicine Press, 2009).

Terri A. Wojak is a licensed esthetician with more than 14 years of experience. She has knowledge in all aspects of the skin care industry, including education, sales, medical esthetics, management and ownership, and she is the director, as well as an educator, at True University in Chicago.

The authors can be contacted at 312-335-2070 or via e-mail at [email protected].

 

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