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Reality TV Star Chloe Goodman Opens Aesthetic Clinic with No Medical Training…

Reality TV star Chloe Goodman has sent shockwaves through the medical aesthetic industry by setting up as an aesthetic practitioner offering Botox and Dermal Filler treatments without any prior experience in medicine. Despite her lack of medical training she has just launched her own aesthetic clinic in Leeds; Opiah Cosmetics.

So how has a young women of age 23, with no medical background, managed to train and practice in Botox and Dermal Fillers?

The answer? Regulatory loopholes…

The Ex on the Beach and Big Brother star is said to have trained with the highly controversial training centre; Cosmetic Couture. Cosmetic Couture came under scrutiny as it was revealed that they were training Beauty Therapists in Botox and Dermal Filler treatments, something that the industry as a whole disagrees with.

Botox is a prescription-only medicine which means it has to be prescribed by a Doctor or nurse prescriber by law. However the administration of Botox and Dermal Fillers can, by law, be performed by anyone who has trained to do so.

This is where the issue presents itself. Aesthetic insurance companies and established training providers like Cosmetic Courses have long been setting a minimum entry requirement for these non-surgical cosmetic injectables. We only offer our Botox and Dermal Filler training courses to medically qualified professionals, whether that be a doctor, dentist or nurse.

We do offer training to Beauty Therapists at NVQ Level 4 but this is in the still lucrative but less invasive skin treatments of microdermabrasion and superficial skin peels.

Why do we choose not to train non-medical professionals in Botox and Dermal Fillers?

The training that is taken by a Beauty Therapist or any other non-medical professional does not provide the level of knowledge in terms of facial anatomy, skin anatomy, anaphylaxis etc. that is experienced during a medical degree studying to be a Doctor, Dentist or Nurse.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) have labelled Chloe’s opening of a clinic as ‘worrying’, and expressed their concern for the members of the public that she may treat. Several professionals within the business are also speaking out against this contentious announcement, stating she does not know enough to deal with the complications that may arise.

Whilst a completely safe procedure in the hands of a trained and qualified Doctor, Dentist or Nurse, procedures such as Botox and fillers can be dangerous when not performed correctly, with the risk of infections and in severe cases necrosis or blindness. A lack of adequate training in this field can lead to many complications with the procedure and could potentially put the patients at risk.

Setting the Standards for Education

Earlier this year, Health Education England (HEE) published the final part of its report indicating standards of training and entry levels for individuals considering a career in aesthetics. The aim was to make it clearer about who should and shouldn’t perform treatments such as Botox and Dermal Fillers. The last report suggested anyone performing Botox or Dermal Fillers should be trained to a post-graduate degree level (Level 7) which indicates that no non-medical professional would be considered ‘qualified’ to perform these treatments.

A key area that we feel needs to be significantly addressed is informing the general public about the risks of being treated by someone who is deemed ‘unqualified’. The patient can lead the way on setting the standards but only if they fully understand the risks and complications that can arise. It is our duty as industry professionals to develop this awareness.

Although the Health Education England report is simply a recommendation, we are hopeful that this will provide a benchmark for standards of training in the non-surgical cosmetic industry.

Aesthetic Training at Cosmetic Courses

Cosmetic Courses have been training medically qualified doctors, dentists and nurses for the past 15 years in Botox and Dermal Filler techniques as well as a range of skin rejuvenation treatments. If you’re interested in finding out more on how to start your aesthetic career please feel free to contact our course co-ordinators for further information.

 

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How to set up Facebook for your Aesthetic Clinic

Since starting out in 2001, there are now over 1.65 billion active Facebook users across the world. Speak to your friends, your family or your colleagues and the chances are a lot of them will be using Facebook. So how does this apply to your aesthetic practice? We take a look at the importance of having a Facebook Business Page for your aesthetic clinic and outline some tips and tricks to maximise your efforts.

What is a Facebook Business Page?

A Facebook Business Page allows you to extend your clinic services to a wider audience as well as engage with your current clients. On your Facebook Business Page you can add your contact details, create a portfolio of before and after photographs, gather reviews from your clients and much more. It’s purpose may be slightly different depending on your circumstances:

  1. If you are just setting up your aesthetic practice and don’t have the money to invest in building your own website, a Facebook Business Page can act as a website on your behalf making it a great place to start connecting with potential clients.
  2. If you already have a website but are looking for ways to boost your marketing efforts and reach a wider audience, Facebook may be just what you’re looking for.

Benefits of a Facebook Business Page for your Aesthetic Clinic

In an industry obsessed with talking about our looks and the latest celebrity treatment Facebook becomes a fantastic platform to discuss, inform and advertise our services. The main benefits include:

  • Brand Awareness – Allowing your clinic to be discoverable on Facebook means you can build your brand and reach a wider audience
  • Engagement – Stay connected with your current clients by asking them to like you on Facebook. The people that like your Facebook Page are interested in the services you provide so it is an extremely targeted form of advertising
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – We won’t go into this in detail (we’ll leave that for another blog) but we do know that Google takes social signals into account. So if you are seen to be active on social media this will help your business rank in Google when someone is searching for your brand
  • Know your audience – Integrated into your Facebook Business Page is Facebook Insights so you can begin to understand what your customers are interested in, what they’re liking, sharing and talking about. This means you can adjust the content you’re posting so that people become more engaged over time.

Creating a Facebook Business Page is a cheap and easy way of marketing your services to potential customers. If you’re not tech-savvy then don’t panic because Facebook has a fantastic support network meaning you’ll be able to get your page set up in a matter of minutes.

Click here to see Facebook’s guide to setting up your business page

So you’ve set up your Facebook Business Page, you’ve entered in your clinic information, now what?

Build your Audience

As we said, Facebook allows you to reach a wider audience but most importantly, it allows you to reach the people who are actually interested in having cosmetic treatments.

Your first step is to like your business page yourself and share it on your personal Facebook account (if you have one). This means if your friends are interested in having non-surgical treatments they can like your business page and stay up to date with what’s on offer.

The second thing to do is invite your current customers:

  • Add links from your website to your Facebook page
  • Include your Facebook page in email correspondence with clients
  • Include your Facebook url on all print advertising
  • Basically just shout about it!

Top Tip

If you have a list of clients’ email addresses you can actually upload these into your Facebook Business Page so that they get notified that you are now on Facebook. Nifty, eh? Find out more here.

Now for the fun part…

Start Posting!

Start posting updates, before and after photos, client testimonials, treatment videos, upcoming events, offers, news articles, anything you can think of! Just test a few different types of posts and see what works and engages your customers. We’d recommend posting a couple of times a day so you’re consistently reaching out to your audience.

Importantly, it’s not purely about the content that you post. The aim of your Facebook posts is to engage your audience and start a conversation. That means you need to make sure you get notified when someone comments on a post or sends you a direct message. We recommend downloading the Facebook Pages app on your mobile device and turn on push notifications so no matter where you are, you can respond to your clients.

Top Tip

Use the 80:20 rule. You don’t want to bombard your potential clients with information about you. You want to be informing them about treatments, the benefits they can get, any informative blogs you have and industry news: ‘What’s Kim Kardashian had done this month?’, ‘Has Katie Price had any more procedures?’ This is what people are actually interested in. So try and keep 80% of your content informing your patients and 20% of your content about your clinic directly and the services you provide.

Facebook Advertising

If you notice that a particular post you’ve sent out is receiving a lot of engagement you can do something called ‘Boosting a Post’. This means you pay a set amount of money to reach a larger audience such as friends of those who liked your page. It’s inexpensive, extremely targeted and you can turn it on and off with the click of a button.

Facebook advertising is an amazing tool to reach a specific client base. You can create targeted adverts that reach people based on things like gender, age, location and interests. Let’s go through an example. Say I wanted to advertise that my Birmingham-based clinic now does the 8 Point Facelift.

First thing I would do is choose my objective which in this case I want to be clicks to my 8 Point Facelift website page. I would then work out my audience, let’s say:

  • Gender: Female
  • Age: 35 – 60
  • Location: Birmingham + 40km radius
  • Interests: Beauty Treatments, Skincare, Facial, Anti-Ageing

I would then set a budget and a timeframe for my advert. So I want to spend a maximum of £3 per day and just run it continuously until I decide to turn it off. (You can adjust all of these settings at any time so they’re not set in stone).

You will then need:

  • A compelling image – in this case it could be a before and after photograph
  • Some text describing the treatment
  • The url of the page you want them to click on to

Then voila! You now have an advert that will appear in the Facebook newsfeed of potential clients who fit your 8 Point Facelift profile in your local area. And hopefully that will start generating traffic to your website! Easy as that!

Important

With Facebook there are a few things to be careful of. If you are posting Facebook adverts, they will decline your ad if you can see the injection in the picture. Also be careful when advertising the word Botox. As it is a POM you can get reported for discounting and advertising Botox treatments. So just be vigilant.

We hope if you’re considering setting up a Facebook Business Page this has offered you some insight into how it can benefit your aesthetic clinic and some tips on how to maximise these benefits. If you have any questions on setting up your page or any other elements of marketing your practice please don’t hesitate to contact us.

P.S If you’d like updates on what we’re up to here at Cosmetic Courses you can like our Facebook Page here!

 

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Apprentice winner Dr Leah Totton opens first cosmetic clinic

Winner of last year’s The Apprentice, Dr Leah Totton, this week launched the first of her cosmetic clinic ‘Dr. Leah’, joined by businesswoman and The Apprentice star Karren Brady. They will be offering various treatments, including cosmetic procedures such as Botox and liposuction.

Dr Totton came under fire with her business plan, which won her £250,000 of Lord Sugar’s investment, as she has not previously worked in aesthetic medicine, despite having trained in the techniques.

Her business idea came at the same time as the government-initiated Keogh review looked in to practices within the medical beauty sector, including who can administer such procedures and what medical and aesthetic training ought to be required. At the time previous BAAPS Chairman Nigel Mercer likened Dr Totton’s offering such procedures as putting “a hairdresser in charge of cosmetic surgery”.

Despite this controversy the planned clinics are going ahead, with the first on London’s Harley Street. Although Dr Totton, from Londonderry in Ireland, has decreed she will not administer Botox to the under-18s there are still question marks over how much publicity such clinics should receive, and whether services such as Botox and liposuction should be performed in a beauty therapy rather than in medical surroundings.

Runner up on the show, Luisa Zissman is currently appearing on Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother.

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