Tips and Tricks for Effortless, Profitable Events

Andrea (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins, and if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Eva (00:23):
Welcome back to Practiceland. I'm Eva Sheie, your sometimes host here on the show. Today we're talking about events and our guest is Aaron Toly. He's going to share some of his very best tips for events, some of his war stories, including how he gets people to line up all the way around the block for the events they hold at Savannah Facial Plastic Surgery and how you can get some of your event costs covered by your reps, including your beautiful PatientFi rep. So before we get to all of this, goodness, Aaron, welcome. Tell us about your practice and what you do there.

Aaron (00:54):
Yeah, thanks Eva. Thanks for having me on this podcast. I love this podcast. I think it's a great resource for a lot of people that have been under-resourced in the past, so appreciate the time. I am the COO of Savannah Facial Plastic Surgery.

Eva (01:09):
You have an unusual background though. You didn't come from practice management or something similar. Where were you before?

Aaron (01:16):
Yeah, so my career started in asset management. I was fortunate enough to start at one of the first ETF companies in finance for exchange traded funds and I launched ETFs, managed operations. We went going from 4 billion in assets to 500 billion in assets very fast and it was fun. It was exciting.

Eva (01:38):
When you joined the practice, I think you told me one of the first things you had to do was put on a big event. How long had you been there when that happened?

Aaron (01:46):
It wasn't long. It may have been maybe four, three to four months. This event, it was geared toward, we want an aesthetics driven event that we can redo every year, so let's build a template and we can have this every year. We had this plan for the whole event to be educational and not geared towards sales. We wanted everybody to go to every room. We had not only reps fill other rooms, but we had certain team members sit and talk about certain treatments and then of course there were specials that we wanted to offer to everybody if they came.

Eva (02:22):
What was the event's theme and what time of year was it?

Aaron (02:25):
I think the practice is calling it Beauty Spectacular and gearing it toward everyone's opportunity to either get probably the best specials of the year and also learn, hey, this is everything that we do in our practice. And so a lot of patients come in, they don't know that this is offered. Let's make sure everybody learns everything that we're doing. So there's, I mean it's educational to the point where there's a sign that everybody sees right when they walk in that most people read and just describing that, and I love doing this all the time, is just a sign that says this is an educational event. This is a no pressure environment type of sign that describes that to everybody.

Eva (03:00):
So are you just trying to disarm them on the way in so they don't feel like they're going to get sold to?

Aaron (03:04):
Yes,

Eva (03:05):
I think that's really smart. We're still going to help you find what you want, if that's what you want, but we're not, this is not a used car lot.

Aaron (03:15):
I think when we're asking them to go through every room that can feel like some pressure or why are you doing this? And so I think that that helps.

Eva (03:24):
How do you get them to go to every room?

Aaron (03:26):
They're incentivized. They're incentivized. So we print out a punch card where it's a description of every room and every rep or the team member that's in that room needs to be doing more of a five to 10 minute speech or educational time where if somebody comes in for part of it or most of it, all of it, they get their card punched and when they get this whole thing filled in with their name, they submit it at the end when they purchase something or when they're checking out.

Eva (03:55):
I want to take a little bit of a what not to do approach, partly because people love lists of what not to do, but also because we want to keep you from making mistakes that not necessarily that Aaron and his team have already made, but it's always good to learn from other people's mistakes and experiences. So we kind of colluded ahead of time to come up with this list of things not to do. So what's the first thing we do not want to do when we're planning a big event, Aaron?

Aaron (04:24):
So the first thing is, my suggestion is don't wait on the doctor to tell you when to start. And all these events really require, I say at least four months of planning and there's a lot to get ahead of and some of that planning is just really brainstorming. It's going through the lessons learned from last time, Hey, what experience did we like? What did we not like? What did we hear from patients? And so while four months from before an event, you may not be getting actual tasks done, you're planning, you're thinking through what the time of the year is going to be when you have this event and what's best during that time of year, have an initiative to get this started early on and get your team involved right away.

Eva (05:04):
If you have a doctor who really likes a lot of detail and likes to be in the weeds making decisions about small things, how would you suggest managing their part of the event?

Aaron (05:17):
One kind of training thing I give to employees is, and this is again, my experience in a prior world is don't come to the doctor with anything that's not nearly finished.

Eva (05:27):
We talked about having a plan and I want to expand on what the plan should look like, but also you got to have a budget and I wonder if you can give us some background on what a reasonable budget is or how to think about the budget even if you can't put actual numbers in it.

Aaron (05:43):
I mean it all comes down to the total financials of the practice. I mean there are lots of different things we end up spending money on, but the bulk of it is if you decide to cater your food or not or if you're going to provide alcohol,

Eva (05:55):
It's expensive for anyone who's ever gotten married. We all know that the food is where you're going to lose your most money, but I also know that's where you can get a lot of help from reps, right?

Aaron (06:05):
Yeah, reps are here to help and they're motivated because the more people that you have, the happier those people are during that event, then reps are able to talk to more people, get their name out there as well. So definitely talk to the reps, try and set your budget and decide, okay, how can I whittle this down with some food budget or other items. Sometimes reps can even pay for the printing or any other items you've got around the office that you need for advertising or just specific for the event.

Eva (06:38):
How important is food? Do you have to have food?

Aaron (06:41):
I don't think it's extremely important. Maybe I harp on too much, but if you're going back to your strategic approach and there are spots in your flow, your guest flow around the office and how they go and you have a spot where, Hey, I want some people to hang out here by the raffle table. I want 'em to see this. I want 'em to spend time here, then that might be a good spot for some food and drinks.

Eva (07:03):
I think it'd be easy to get hung up on what the food's going to be too. You could really lose a lot of time and resources trying to do something that you don't necessarily really need.

Aaron (07:11):
Yeah, no, that's true.

Eva (07:13):
Line out what goes into the budget. What kinds of things are we including in the budget when we get started?

Aaron (07:18):
I'd probably think through amount of people that I expect and based on the goals and then food and drinks decide if you're going to do that, a printing budget because there are a lot of printing items. If I'm going to slip in one of my don't dos, don't let patients be in there empty handed. I love to give them something that they can use during the event, something they can take notes with and I love to print the maps of the office.

Eva (07:46):
It occurred to me when you're saying that when we don't have something to do with our hands and we feel awkward, I go to a lot of these events by myself. What is the first thing I do when I feel uncomfortable? I pick up my phone and I start looking at other stuff and I've immediately left the building in my mind I'm not there

Aaron (08:01):
Anymore. That's a great point.

Eva (08:04):
I also want them to do something on social with their phone too, so take a photo while you're here and tag us to win another raffle entry.

Aaron (08:13):
Yeah, yeah,

Eva (08:13):
Just show it to me and I'll give you another raffle ticket.

Aaron (08:16):
Yeah. I actually have the light shining on me right now is our neon sign we built for that grand opening event and put it in my wall because it wasn't going to stay there permanently, but it was an opportunity to control the flow of patients was having those pictures taken and if you could take it with the doctor, that would be their first thing that they needed to do. So to get a raffle ticket and also to help kind of control the flow in the rest of the rooms.

Eva (08:43):
So we are in the weeds of the budget. We've talked about food and drink. What about what else goes into that budget? Advertising anything, what are we missing?

Aaron (08:56):
You're probably going to have two to $300 in Amazon purchases at the end toward the end that you're thinking, wow, we're going to have to get this now or Well, we made this decision and now it's going to involve this, and those could be just what's going to hold those raffle tickets and are you going to put signs up for every single raffle item and how are you going to print those? And then are you going to do balloons? Are you going to sprinkle some gold confetti underneath every item on the table tablecloths, those nice stretchy tablecloths. You might be able to borrow your plastic tables from family or friends or employees, but all of those things are going to be items that you're probably going to get in your first event and most of that you can keep for next time. Outside of that, the other budget item with something here when we talk about the team and we don't want to overwhelm the team, I'd say when we're talking about budget, you need to think through ways to pay the team and it's not a great experience to consistently ask your team to be here once a year through the evening and spend that time be excited about this event and not have some type of compensation for it.

Eva (10:11):
What's the difference between the patient spending behavior in the fall versus the spring?

Aaron (10:16):
In my mind, in the spring, you're having patients who are, or guests who are really already planning their spring break already planning their summer vacations and know what their plans are. And so I think after a new Year's where you're trying to figure out, you're either trying to lose weight or you're trying to figure out your budget, your personal budget, you're a little more conscious I think, and then as you get into the fall, I think you have guests who are before the holidays thinking about gifts, thinking about what they can maybe get before all of this gift purchasing happens in the holidays. So I think mindsets are different.

Eva (10:55):
Yeah, for sure. I'd throw in, that's one of the big mistakes that in one practice where I've worked for a very long time, and I'm not taking the blame for this, I just send out the emails. Historically, we moved the winter event from the middle of December, the second week of December to the second week of November, both to get more people to show up, but also because by the second week of December they were already tired of spending money and so they weren't really spending a lot on themselves at that point and I think we doubled the revenue by moving it up a month.

Aaron (11:35):
That's big. I mean timing is a big decision.

Eva (11:38):
Okay. Talk to me about the flow. So we started this conversation with the teas that you've been able to line people up around the block. What are you doing

Aaron (11:50):
When we have them lined up? We have the gifts already there. They know that the first 25 are getting these amazing gifts and I think and they're really valuable gifts and that is just a good opportunity to control the flow in the office because you've got to line them up. I make sure to have number cards for everyone because you're going to have a race to that door to line up, and I don't want anybody saving spots for anybody. Once they line up and they've got their one through 25, their 26 through 50, then they're coming in and I'm handing them at the door as they walk in their gifts, it kind of lets things slow down a little bit. Then there's a controlled flow when you're letting in the first 25, then you're letting in the next 25 and you're just watching after that. I think it just happens naturally because the best thing to help with flow at checkout is to check them in right at the line and get them in your systems. So if you haven't already from the RSVP, gotten them in your system, get them in now,

Eva (12:52):
Go back a step and tell me if you can, what are the gifts that you're giving them?

Aaron (12:57):
Yeah, I mean this is another opportunity to have conversations with your reps about what they're offering, but there's also a cost to the practice here. Sometimes I want to step up the value. I've had $500 gift bags and then the next set is lower at maybe 250 to $300 valued gift bags, and you don't want to give them just that sample size product. You want to give them that full size product. This is something they're going to talk about when they go home and then next year they're going to come back and say, I want that one. I mean, people are going to be shocked that there's a line, but next year they're going to be there early.

Eva (13:35):
So there's people lined up out the door, you're out there being the boss, giving them their number, giving them. What else? Are you giving them anything? Are you telling 'em what's going to happen when they get in?

Aaron (13:46):
Well, for us, I mean I like to give them opportunities to earn raffle tickets before they come in. So if they have done some of those things, if they have tagged and followed us or things like that, so we can have that documented before they come in and then I've got their name and we can hand 'em a raffle ticket. So we'll get into roles. A lot of what the team does is all defined beforehand and in the planning sessions roles and who's going to be what that looks like. My role is typically because of the line. I don't want people standing in line not knowing what's going on, and so I'll walk all the way down that line and talk to 10 to 15 people at a time while somebody's sitting at the front table before people walk in, checking people in. Then I've got team members who do this greeting in the lobby or depending on your flow, if you're just coming straight into the lobby, there's a greeting, there's a way to direct them and tell 'em, Hey, so you're here.

(14:40):
So first you have this photo ops station and then we have these educational rooms here for you to learn more about our treatments and then direct 'em that way. And I always have somebody at the raffle, always somebody at the raffle to explain, somebody's going to ask about what is this raffle item? What do you think they're going to ask? Should I do this one or this one? Then you're there to just help 'em and maybe I'd like that to be an esthetician sometimes because they're going to say, should I do this microneedling raffle? I don't know what if I should even if I need this. So you

Eva (15:08):
Have all your items in different raffles and they can put however many tickets they want in each one.

Aaron (15:14):
So I like to spread it out into different items rather than just one bowl where we raffle for different,

Eva (15:21):
I like to let 'em choose. Then do they have to stay for the drawing and be present to win?

Aaron (15:24):
Sometimes people have stayed some events, I've tested different time of the evening to do this, but most of the time it's just on Instagram live afterwards.

Eva (15:36):
That's fun. So they're all waiting for you to go live at the end of the

Aaron (15:38):
Night

Eva (15:39):
Even if they're gone. Oh, I like that. What's the doctor's job then? Is it just being friendly or are they doing consults? What are they responsible for?

Aaron (15:49):
It's really a moment that they get to enjoy. Hey, wow, I really do have an amazing team. I have a beautiful opportunity of a lot of patients and guests that are interested in what I do. Wow, that's kind of amazing. And so they've really had a good opportunity to just sit back.

Eva (16:10):
What would you say could go wrong that would lead to the team or the doctor being overwhelmed in these situations?

Aaron (16:17):
I don't know if I've had an event where there isn't something overwhelming, there's going to be some portion of the flow that doesn't work quite like you planned and there's going to be some part of the team, and a lot of times it's going to be checkout where there's just too much going on at certain times.

Eva (16:35):
When they're logistically speaking at checkout, are they scheduling appointments and taking payments at the same time? Are they doing a truncated checkout process so that they can move faster? What are they actually doing?

Aaron (16:48):
Yeah, so depending on your software, this is where you can plan ahead if you can get everybody in your system beforehand, because most of these places like ours will be using an EMR and with a point of sale system built in, and so you can't check people out without them being a patient and you can't be a patient without certain information, and I haven't allowed any appointment scheduling at these events. So there's a way to document interest, there's a way to schedule a follow-up if somebody's interested, but the event is all about the items of specials and the sales for checkout, no appointments.

Eva (17:26):
Do you let people take advantage of the specials if they're not physically present at the event?

Aaron (17:32):
Definitely the answer is yes. There's always going to be some of those exceptions. Now, I wouldn't make it a rule, I wouldn't advertise it. I'm a little hesitant to say it on this, but that people think that they don't have to show up to get the specials, but I think it's a good thing.

Eva (17:45):
I agree. Actually, I have a secret trick, and maybe you already thought of this one, but I always include in every event invitation email, a way for us to call you

(17:58):
Because inevitably you're going to get a ton of phone calls and you're not going to be able to take them all in real time and you don't want to be returning calls and chasing people to get them to buy the special. So I do a request to call back and it's a secret form that is only visible in these emails, and then the staff get a whole list of people to call back who can't make it to the event, and they can do that the day after or the day of when they have a moment, and that has worked beautifully to take some of the pressure off the phones.

Aaron (18:28):
Interesting. So over email, for the email marketing that's in there,

Eva (18:33):
The main button in an email would be like RSVP and then kind of small below it. I would say something like, can't make it request a call back here.

Aaron (18:41):
I love that.

Eva (18:41):
And we'll get in touch with you when the specials are live or whatever day I decide that I want.

Aaron (18:46):
Oh, I love that. That's a great idea.

Eva (18:48):
Oh, thank you. I have learned a few things over the years. I like solving big problems. It's fun. Okay, let's go to the fifth. Don't forget thing, which is don't forget to lean on your reps and your partners. So let's start with Patient Fi. I wasn't aware until recently that they were such a great event partner and I don't think a lot of people are aware that that's someone you can lean on for your event. So have you explored that with them at all?

Aaron (19:18):
We had several calls with them, talked through our event. We were able to discuss, Hey, talk about our strategic goals here, but also go through, okay, what can we do together to prepare for this event? And that was discussing our specials that we're offering, and also they're able to do some print. Then what we talked about in our calls was where would they like to be? We actually combined it with our patient PHI rep, our Galderma rep, and our nurse injector, and that was two different rooms, and so they were integral in being part of that conversation with all the guests and helping them move from our injector to the Galderma rep and also understanding, hey, whatever the injector suggested for you or talked about maybe what packages you'd be interested in, this is what a payment plan might look like.

Eva (20:13):
I came up with this kind of cool hack where if you want the patient to have the calculator, you can get your own calculator link. I think you go on the portal and grab the link to your practices payment calculator, and then you put it on your own phone as a bookmark, like the way that you save a website to the home screen, you put your calculator there, and then if the patient says, how do I figure out what I can pay? Well, you just open that and text it to 'em or airdrop it to 'em from your own phone, so you'd never have to go looking for that link if it's just sitting there, your pocket on your phone.

Aaron (20:48):
I think that's a great idea. One surprise to me was the laser technician. So if you have a third party support person for your laser, they might be really good talking about the lasers, what they can do, how they're used, and it may not be the company that built that laser, it could just be technical support. That's been a surprise for me.

Eva (21:13):
That's the person I would probably talk to the most.

Aaron (21:16):
Yeah,

Eva (21:17):
I love that science stuff. I wrote this down, I remembered it while you were talking about the raffle that 12 years ago I went to an event at a plastic surgery practice and I won three BBLs and Halo. How much that's worth?

Aaron (21:33):
That's a great package right there.

Eva (21:36):
Do you know how long I've been going to that practice now?

Aaron (21:38):
Wow, so 12 years still.

Eva (21:42):
Do you know how many more of those I've bought since I won them? Probably. It's in the dozens, I'm sure.

Aaron (21:49):
Yeah, and it's such a good point to bring up about the long-term value of these, and you have to just realize some of this is not measurable, and that's a great one.

Eva (21:58):
That day that I won the BBLB, the BL Halo package, I think they probably had 15 and they had them all on one big table and you had to walk around and you kind of had to lean in and read what each one was, and so it really doubled as education too. They had probably too many, but I don't think it mattered. Would I actually have to learn what the thing was that you were sticking your ticket in? So that was even one more opportunity for education. If you want to win this thing, you should probably know what it is.

Aaron (22:26):
Yeah, yeah, explain it. You reminded me about just now talking about that BL package, and this comes down to kind of your management approach or your clarity to your team and is there are going to be some conversations that need to be had about free services with anybody that receives commission, and so part of your planning process, you're need to sit down and say, look, these services are going to be free. If somebody wins this, do you know that this free patient could turn into this many following patients? And so don't get too focused on the one and a half hour session you're going to have with this person who won the raffle. Think about what could come out of this and the opportunities we're giving you with this,

Eva (23:09):
They're still getting paid for their time. You're not asking them to donate their presence and their expertise, but are they making commission on that one? No,

Aaron (23:18):
No, not usually.

Eva (23:20):
Alright, we have reached our final thing, but let's not forget that the event is not over at the end of the night. What is their left to do once the evening has ended?

Aaron (23:31):
Immediately? I mean, just talking about the end of the night, it's make sure the team knows that we're going to be cleaning up afterwards.

Eva (23:38):
You can't just go home,

Aaron (23:41):
But afterwards, this is where, hey, you do get to relax that moment. This was a huge success, I think whether you had some stressful moments or not or whether something went well or not basking that for a moment, but then you've got lessons learned and there's a time where you need to get feedback so that people don't forget what happened. They were in different parts of the office during different times, and you can gather that feedback through a survey, set up a survey beforehand so that you've got it ready to send to the team and they can fill it out and survey patients. I think that's a great opportunity to get guest feedback as well and make that next event better. Then after that you're going to be going through the numbers, pull up the numbers, look at how many people you had show up, and then look through the revenue from that night. And then sometimes what you're going to do is you may offer some of those specials and say, Hey, this was a great event and everybody loved it, and there were some people that didn't have an opportunity. They did have somebody come up to me two or three weeks later and say, I stood in line for so long and then you offered the specials the next day. And so there's some lessons learned there too.

Eva (24:49):
Is there anything we missed? What else do we need to not forget about doing events? Well,

Aaron (24:55):
I think what you don't want to forget is that the secret to a great event is your team. And so when you start planning and you get them involved, don't put all the weight on yourself. Let your team get in on this and get excited about it. It's really amazing at the end. I mean, as you get toward that event, you're in the last week and they just start to come up with things that need to happen before you even thought of them. They're getting things ordered. People love to get ready for this and they love to be involved, and whether I've done X many events or not, it's really the team that's the secret here.

Eva (25:34):
Thank you. Erin, do you know about She did What? Did we talk about this?

Aaron (25:37):
Yes. Yeah.

Eva (25:38):
Alright.

Aaron (25:39):
Yeah.

Eva (25:39):
Okay. So on this podcast we always end with a story about something somebody did, whether crazy off the rails, surprising, wonderful. It could be anything. So did you have a story for us in the She did what category?

Aaron (25:56):
I do, yes. I was looking forward to this very much because it's actually the first thing I thought of was event related and there was this one event where this woman who we had not seen before, not a patient as well, and so they lined up and got the gift really excited and very kind of talkative in the beginning and I'd be out there, make sure I'd say, how'd you hear about us? How'd you hear the event? And so I was kind of excited about this person being at this event. She looked ready and throughout the event we're always wondering where is she? And the team's wondering where she is. She's kind of popped in the bathroom and then out. We had separated one section of our office that had a hallway that went a different direction. It wasn't going to be good for flow to have anybody go that way. So we decided this is where we're going to have the catering and all the food that's is going to come out of there. And this one room. And she had found a spot, a seat in that room and was just eating and she was just eating our food and didn't purchase a thing, ended up not going through any of the rooms and somehow dodged us throughout the event and the caterers didn't say anything.

(27:23):
So weird. And so since then I've gotten security and this was actually a benefit of the doctor always knows the patients and what they do, and at this time the doctor was like, Hey, we've got a patient who's an officer and just asked if she'd be willing to park outside and walk around.

Eva (27:44):
Genius. I have one more tip to add because we've talked about the line a few times, but I just want to say it because I learned it at church and I come back to it all the time. Our church does a lot of fun kid events and they bring the snow cone truck to church a couple times a year.

(28:02):
Well, it's Austin and it's hot, and the snow cone line is long. And so our church has three different buildings and in each building there's a umbrella stand with 10 or 12 umbrellas in each one. And so when the kids are all standing in the snow cone line, somebody goes and gets the umbrellas and brings them out and holds them over the kids so they don't have to stand in the sun. So I thought of that for your line, that you could actually get branded umbrellas and make them a giveaway. And if it's hot and they're standing in line too long, just bring out those umbrellas and start giving them away.

Aaron (28:39):
That's a great idea. I am going to look into that right away. I think that awesome. I actually, this past event felt bad for the heat at the time and being new to Savannah in this past year, I think I wasn't too, it was a fall event. Thought it'd be a little cooler, but it was hot and sunny

Eva (28:59):
On your team now.

Aaron (28:59):
Okay.

Eva (29:00):
It's official.

Aaron (29:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I'll remember that.

Eva (29:03):
Thank you, Aaron. It was such a treat, hearing all your pearls. I'm so excited that we got to have you for this long and learn all of this amazing stuff from you and so you're going to have to come back.

Aaron (29:12):
I'd love to. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for inviting me. This was a treat

Eva (29:17):
Where, can we follow your practice online and see what you're up to?

Aaron (29:20):
Yeah, so we're at Savannah Facial Plastic Surgery or Dr. Tim Minton is our handle. And then Savannah facial plastic surgery.com.

Eva (29:31):
We will follow you immediately.

Aaron (29:34):
Love it. Well thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Blake (29:36):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation. Send us a message or voicemail if your tail makes it into our "She did what?" segment We'll send a thank you gift. You'll actually love Promise no cheap swag here.

Andrea (29:48):
Are you one of us. Subscribe for new episode notifications and more@practicelandpodcast.com. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and everywhere you can listen to the podcasts.