Our team requested a short testimonial from one of our clients on Long Island, NY, expecting just a couple of sentences in reply. What we received back from Dr. Lynnea Villanova was a story that we feel compelled to share. Our team is so thankful that she outlined her comprehensive experience in working with us, and believe many other physicians and medspa owner/operators will relate to Dr. Villanova’s story as they launch their practices.
Lynnea Villanova MD – 7/5/2018
I can honestly say that without the invaluable support and mentoring I’ve received from Fran Acunzo and the Acara Partners team in creating, launching and operating a small medspa in Long Island, NY, we wouldn’t be celebrating our 1-year anniversary today!
After many years of cash-based, solo practice (family medicine, acupuncture, and Chinese herbal medicine), I found myself past mid-career and needing to increase the margin on the procedures I performed.
Knowing I wanted a scalable, cash-based practice, and having recently received my first aesthetic procedures (laser hair removal), I developed an interest in non-invasive aesthetic medicine.
Acara initially scrutinized a couple of medspa-for-purchase opportunities. Their detailed analysis of the existing practices’ revenue, overhead, and liabilities, combined with profound industry knowledge and cross-practice standards/norms, proved extremely accurate, and likely prevented me from making costly, irrevocable errors.
Eventually, a start-up opportunity materialized, and Acara really made sure I could make it happen. As a new practitioner to this field, it would have been impossible for me to accurately predict new practice productivity. Acara applied its deep institutional knowledge to produce a very reasonable pro forma, which formed the basis of a business plan. All who vetted the pro forma agreed that the projections seemed very reasonable for the proposed services and for my region. Additionally, Acara proved flexible with the scope of services it provided, thus creating a partnership in the truest sense of the word.
Being able to access a trusted source regarding vendor recommendations saved me hours selecting everything from costly aesthetic equipment to an electronic health records system to skin care product lines.
What has proven even more astounding is Acara Partners’ ongoing practice support services. While I was already quite familiar with cash-based medical practice, Robbi Grayson, consultant extraordinaire with years of medspa experience, proved an invaluable resource. She not only helped us negotiate with vendors, but also spent days with us onsite, leading a comprehensive staff training that covered everything from credit card processing to phone etiquette to in-house marketing. As a result, our office has provided superlative customer service since inception, allowing us to attract and retain clients since our first day of operation.
Join us next week for part 2 of Dr. Villanova’s success story, where she shares her experience with our sister company, Reach Beyond Marketing.
Continue the story, read part two.