The Leadership Gap in Aesthetic Practices and What It’s Costing Your Team

00:00:05:20 - 00:00:13:07
Announcer
You're listening to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech.

00:00:13:09 - 00:00:39:19
Robin Ntoh
Welcome to the Nextech podcast. I am Robin Ntoh and I am the host for our podcast today. And we are live at the Medical Spa Show presented by AmSpa, and it is at the beautiful Wynn Hotel here in Las Vegas. And I am so excited this morning to have a special guest with us. Cheryl is here from ACG consulting, and I'm actually going to have Cheryl tell us a little bit about what she does, because it's a very interesting way to approach the way that you work with people.

00:00:39:19 - 00:00:44:08
Robin Ntoh
So she'll tell us a little bit about you, what you do and how you got into this business.

00:00:44:09 - 00:01:04:04
Cheryl Toth
Sure, absolutely. Well, I'm so pleased to be here. I'm glad to be talking with you today. And I'm a leadership coach and facilitator, and I work with ACG practice partners, as you mentioned, and we work exclusively with esthetic plastic surgery practices, helping them streamline operations and improved profitability.

00:01:04:04 - 00:01:33:17
Cheryl Toth
And to the point of what I do develop their teams, develop high performing teams. So my role as a leadership coach draws on 30 years of working with physicians of various specialties, all surgical specialties, as well as in healthcare technology in various leadership roles. And we help. We do two things. We work with teams to help them work better together, and we do that using the everything disc work style assessment tool.

00:01:33:17 - 00:01:53:00
Cheryl Toth
And that also is the underpinning of our leadership coaching, where we work with physicians and managers and maybe the manager of the Med Spa, and we help them be more effective leaders, help help them find clarity, help them manage, develop their own teams together.

00:01:53:00 - 00:02:02:17
Robin Ntoh
I am just amazed at this concept of a leadership coach, and I don't believe that this is this is not new in other industries, but in aesthetics,

00:02:02:17 - 00:02:33:14
Robin Ntoh
to really call that out is a service offering for ACG. Consulting is actually exceptional in so many ways. I'll share a personal experience just because I feel this is so critical in this space, but I was given the opportunity to have a coach and people wonder, well, a life coach? No, I think that this is more of a business coach, someone that was there to develop or help me develop my skills or my areas that I was not necessarily aware of, or areas of opportunity.

00:02:33:14 - 00:02:55:06
Robin Ntoh
And, you know, you can think of things like emotional intelligence is a big topic these days. Not everybody understands it or not. Everybody even has great emotional intelligence. But there's opportunity to develop your emotional intelligence, learn how to really coach yourself, or have a coach help you move into a different level of understanding. That, and I think of that is just one way.

00:02:55:06 - 00:03:21:07
Robin Ntoh
But I look at this is just a phenomenal offering that in that you're an expert in this area. Let's talk a little bit about where some of the nuances of leadership coaching really do apply in aesthetics.
And I know that you mentioned staff. So if we want to start there and think about where we cultivate staff into higher performing individuals in your practice, so many things that we can say about that.

00:03:21:08 - 00:03:24:15
Robin Ntoh
Let's talk a little bit about where you might even start from a baseline.

00:03:24:16 - 00:03:25:12
Cheryl Toth
Yeah. Well.

00:03:25:13 - 00:03:54:16
Cheryl Toth
I would say you mentioned something in in your sharing there about self-awareness. And I would say it starts with self-awareness. I mean, people have to be aware of their own strengths and stressors. And I think that leadership, coaching and all the coaching I've done with practice managers and physicians, but primarily practice managers, is getting them to see what drives them and what their behaviors, how their behaviors impact the rest of their team.

00:03:54:16 - 00:04:29:11
Cheryl Toth
And what good leaders do is create an environment where they can help their team reach their potential and grow, grow professionally, grow personally. So I think that helping, as we do with working with the leaders and honestly at ACG practice partners, what I've been finding is that it's not just managers that we're working with, but we're working with a lot of the surgeons because so many esthetic practices are solo as you know, and the doctors, we have a number of clients who are excellent leaders.

00:04:29:11 - 00:05:03:01
Cheryl Toth
They're doing things with their staff to develop the staff. We've got one who sends a Friday email with things he's read or musings or things to develop his team. We have another who is just very interested in assigning books to people. And, you know, these are just sort of natural surgeon leaders that we've got. But as far as helping leaders in our leadership coaching, we help them then come up with ways that they can work with the staff.

00:05:03:01 - 00:05:15:07
Cheryl Toth
As you mentioned, how does the staff impact get impacted with leadership? So that's our hope is to help the physicians and the managers cultivate their team and more effectively.

00:05:15:07 - 00:05:38:12
Robin Ntoh
We know that about 70% of plastic surgeons are solo well-known statistic and for probably good reason. They're aesthetics they're artists. There's so many things about them that really make them unique. And sometimes their egos don't share well. And so we know that that is a common part of their business. But we do know that they're first and foremost M.D.s or D.O.s.

00:05:38:12 - 00:06:10:05
Robin Ntoh
And they didn't necessarily. And I won't say this is always, but generally a lot of them haven't built their foundation around business understandings or business acumen or developing people. They're surgeons. They spend a good decade of their life understanding the human body and and then developing into that role of being the surgeon and more specifically, plastic surgery. And I think that that's something that we can apply to almost any type of medical provider we can think about.

00:06:10:06 - 00:06:38:16
Robin Ntoh
You know, we're here at the med spa show, we can think about those nurse injectors or P.A.s or N.P.s that are doing injectables. They're providers that are experts in providing those medical services. But at managing people and understanding how people work, how to build a strong culture, how to build a good business. A lot of times they don't understand even where that self-awareness is critical.

00:06:38:18 - 00:06:51:12
Robin Ntoh
And again, I applaud that this is an offering within this, within your business that you're offering this. But I think that those small nuances are critical because they don't start there.

00:06:51:13 - 00:07:15:12
Cheryl Toth
No they don't. And in fact, I'm thinking of one particular surgeon that that we're working with. And like you say, he's focused on, he's focused on surgery. That's what he knows. He's been having trouble with a manager. It really, at the end of the day was communication and behavioral work style. So working with him and doing the everything disc assessment was a starting point.

00:07:15:12 - 00:07:34:18
Cheryl Toth
And then some coaching as well. Got him to realize, well, if I do this differently, this unlocks this person, this thing in this person. And if I if I try this. So he tried some things. That's part of the leadership coaching is that I get them to they have homework, you know in between sessions. So they've got to try things out.

00:07:34:19 - 00:07:54:15
Cheryl Toth
We don't it's not just like talk therapy. You know there's things to do. And I've been really surprised and pleased how he's come back and said, you know, I did not realize this because I was you know, this isn't my thing. Just as to your point. But now when I did this, she said that and she said, oh, I feel so much better, you know?

00:07:54:16 - 00:08:29:13
Cheryl Toth
And so what I really love about leadership coaching is, I think so often busy professional doctors, managers, these are driven people, right. So often there's burnout. There's people have poor boundaries because they're just trying to do it all or they're just driven people. They want to reach goals and all of that's good. But as a coach, I often get to look at things objectively and help them do things like set better boundaries so they have can have some self-care, or give them permission to say no to things or to just say, you know, you don't have to do that right now.

00:08:29:14 - 00:08:48:21
Cheryl Toth
You don't have to do that in one month. That's a six month goal. Okay, let's let's do that. And so I think then that that learning gets passed on through them to the staff. So it hopefully is a it's not just about working with the manager and the doctor or the med spa manager. It also filters down to the whole practice.

00:08:48:21 - 00:08:57:21
Robin Ntoh
So let's start with the beginning. If someone were to say, I want to sign up for leadership, coaching is the first step the disc analysis?

00:08:57:23 - 00:09:21:21
Cheryl Toth
Most of the time it is because that is such a great starting point. Again, as I said earlier, the first step of being a good leader is self-awareness, and the everything disc is the platform we use for for for disc. I've been using some form of disc platform assessment since the 90s, and with doctors, and in one consulting firm, I worked with every single client that we consulted with.

00:09:21:21 - 00:09:50:18
Cheryl Toth
All the doctors had their disc assessment and the manager, and it was frighteningly accurate. I have more than one surgeon say to me, did you call my wife? It was it was so accurate. So we start with that and we have a coaching session around it so they understand their strengths, their stressors, what drives them, how interacting with other styles, what they need to do to sort of temper their style or understand other styles.

00:09:50:20 - 00:10:18:20
Cheryl Toth
But it is not just disc training in that first session. We're also talking about all kinds of other things. They they typically come to us with some goal, some friction their having or some uncertainty or some boundary There's two things I find in all the coaching I've done over the years. Clarity is the number one thing people seem to take away from coaching, because our lives are so busy and things swirl around.

00:10:18:20 - 00:10:40:19
Cheryl Toth
But when people get clear about what they want. Why, where they need to go, it's like a light switch. And the other thing that I find really is helps is boundary setting is people. I find that so many driven people have poor boundaries and that leads to so many things. They're not exercising their eating well, they're working too much.

00:10:40:20 - 00:10:42:03
Cheryl Toth
Burnout may happen.

00:10:42:03 - 00:11:09:09
Robin Ntoh
So like there's noise in a practice because of friction that's created a lot of times because they can't understand why someone's reacting the way that they're reacting or not responding, or there's friction between just two people and not necessarily the surgeon and a staff member, but that noise it creates in a business that break down. And then ultimately the patients do see this.

00:11:09:10 - 00:11:30:16
Robin Ntoh
If they don't, they'll feel at first, but then they'll see it. And that, to me, is one of those areas of opportunity where you can really make an impactful difference and just in your presence, just how it feels, the environment when someone walks in the door. Because call it whatever you want, but people feel (yes) when something's off.

00:11:30:17 - 00:12:09:03
Cheryl Toth
Yes. Well, when there's friction between staff and each other or between the doctor and the staff or, you know, whether the nurse and the doctor are having a bad day together, and when they're doing the consult, that's patients feel it. And so I think you're right having and that's really I go back to the disc because it's always extraordinary to me when people have their disc assessment run and we go through even just a 60 minute coaching session, they feel like they've like light bulbs have gone on not only about themselves, but how they can work better with others.

00:12:09:03 - 00:12:28:20
Cheryl Toth
And so many times they'll say, you know, I just really didn't think about it that way. So that friction that you're talking about so frequently can be alleviated with some simple tools, some simple new understandings, clarity. I go back to clarity is all these forms of clarity. And then, you know, you can move forward from there.

00:12:28:21 - 00:12:54:23
Robin Ntoh
Clarity doesn't automatically the mean a 100% immediate success. It just means now there's good self-awareness. (Yes) Self-awareness is seeing that there is a problem, but it also gives you visibility into, well, there's an opportunity in how to improve this. (Yep.) And those exercises that you were talking about, I think are a way that you drive them to see where they can make small changes.

00:12:54:23 - 00:12:55:23
Robin Ntoh
But a big impact.

00:12:56:00 - 00:13:19:16
Cheryl Toth
Yes, yes. And even in the disc coaching session, which we do typically it's often it's a group because it's the doctor or two doctor, two doctors maybe in the practice and the manager, sometimes the med spa manager too so there may be 2 to 4 people. And part of what I do is get people talking about, you know, they'll they'll share their list of, of priorities or stressors or strengths.

00:13:19:16 - 00:13:46:18
Cheryl Toth
And then I'll throw it back to them and say, so, you know, based on that list of five, what two resonate with you most. And they'll say, and then I say, so based on that, what would you say to your colleagues are two tips for working better with you. You know, so that clarity from their perspective of how to define what works better for them as well as whoever else is in the session, knowing, oh, you know, this is how they relate, because we can guess at what other people want all day long.

00:13:46:18 - 00:13:50:18
Cheryl Toth
But the truth is, when they tell us, then we actually know.

00:13:50:20 - 00:14:16:14
Robin Ntoh
That's true. It's a good point. How responsive or accepting do you find these staff are? For example, is there sometimes where it's visible that there's someone that's not accepting of this new learning or coaching, and they might even reveal themselves as what we call the bad apple that we need to weed out of a practice. Where do you find that?

00:14:16:14 - 00:14:18:06
Robin Ntoh
That happens sometimes.

00:14:18:07 - 00:14:43:04
Cheryl Toth
I haven't found the bad apple yet, per se, but what where you're going with this reminds me that there have been several times where I can tell that this person isn't going to stay. They’re not a bad apple, but the job is not a right fit, or they're just too burned out, or the friction between them and the doctor is kind of insurmountable.

00:14:43:05 - 00:15:15:06
Cheryl Toth
I mean, when you start getting down to things like they talk about lack of trust or they talk about the the staff not respecting them, or maybe the manager doesn't respect the doctor or, you know, so those things do come out. I mean, the coaching sessions are confidential. And just to be clear, this is not a lot of people confuse coaching with counseling or disciplinary counseling, like they'll have a performance review with their manager and they'll maybe be some issues and they want it to improve their management skills or what have you.

00:15:15:06 - 00:15:34:23
Cheryl Toth
And they think, oh, well, I'll get them some coaching. That's not what this kind of coaching is about. So we get into the coaching sessions and by the way, I never I make sure the AI is turned off. You know we're not I don't record them. These are just private sessions that once they're over, there's no record of them.

00:15:34:23 - 00:15:38:18
Cheryl Toth
Because I just think people need to have a safe environment to really share.

00:15:38:20 - 00:16:08:07
Robin Ntoh
But you're also a third party. You're outside of that normal business unit. (Yes.) Which gives them a feeling. I mean, I found that with my coach is that they didn't work in my office, they didn't work in my company. They only knew what they knew about me or my business only because I shared it. But it helped me feel comfortable to share things with them and really feel comfortable with the feedback and the direction that I could get from them.

00:16:08:07 - 00:16:20:07
Robin Ntoh
Because I felt I felt like I trusted them. I felt like I was trusted, I felt comfortable in that environment, which I appreciate that you say that about AI, because I think that is a real thing or a real worry that people have.

00:16:20:08 - 00:16:39:21
Cheryl Toth
That is really important to me. The confidence, I, I mean, I'm a coach, I believe in coaching, I have coaches, I've had several coaches over the years. My favorite coach that I've worked with most and taken his courses as well as done one on one coaching and listen to his podcast and read all of his things. And he has books and all of that.

00:16:39:21 - 00:16:55:18
Cheryl Toth
But, you know, I remember what that or those early coaching sessions back in, I guess 2010 maybe is when I first found coaching with him. Yeah. You want to trust, you want to feel this connection with the person. And I like too that, he wasn’t even in my industry.

00:16:55:19 - 00:16:56:06
Robin Ntoh
Right.

00:16:56:07 - 00:17:19:05
Cheryl Toth
And you know, to have that feeling of connection and support, I have to say too and this is actually something this is a quote from him, but I use it a lot, which is for coaches into coaching session. Presence is more important than coaching techniques, because one of the things I find over and over is that people want to be heard.

00:17:19:07 - 00:17:42:15
Cheryl Toth
They just want someone to listen, listen deeply without judgment. You know, as coaches, we don't fix anything. Not about fixing, not an expert at fixing you. I'm not going to give you advice. That's not what it's about. You people sort of kind of guide them selves to their own decision. And as a coach, you you impart wisdom from experiences.

00:17:42:15 - 00:17:51:00
Cheryl Toth
Maybe. But yeah, you you, the listening and the presence is what a lot of people really appreciate that when breakthroughs happen.

00:17:51:05 - 00:17:54:17
Robin Ntoh
But I think going back to your earlier point, you helped them become self-aware.

00:17:54:19 - 00:18:16:12
Cheryl Toth
Yes, exactly. That is what happens when you're self-aware of a sudden you're like, oh, I mean, in more than one session, I think listen to them and saying, now I see why that did not work with that person. You know, I was trying to get this staff person to see this or that or the other, but I see now now it combining it now with the disc used to be the coaching I did.

00:18:16:12 - 00:18:36:21
Cheryl Toth
I didn't combine it with disc. Now I think it's so powerful. At ACG we combine it with disc because you get both sides of it. So you get that awareness through the disc assessment and the awareness from the leadership coaching, and you understand others and what makes them tick, I guess, if you will. And that just makes the leadership stronger.

00:18:36:23 - 00:18:54:20
Robin Ntoh
It's so freeing, though, to feel aware, but then it's up to the individual to discern what they're going to do about it. Yes, and I love that you share that you impart wisdom because part of this is, yes, you can be aware, but then how do I how do I get through it? How do I learn from it?

00:18:54:21 - 00:19:16:02
Robin Ntoh
How do I upskill? You know, my emotional intelligence. And I think what you've shared is key, that you have to start with self-awareness, and then you have to move on to then how do I get to the next step? Exactly? How do I move through this or move beyond it? Because they have to be paired together. It's not just one, it's one and the other.

00:19:16:03 - 00:19:38:21
Cheryl Toth
Yeah. And what happens in each coaching session is that I get them to set intentions after at the end, or commit to some kind of intentional action based on what we talked about, what they learned about themselves in that session, what particular issue that we're dealing with. Then they say, well, you know, this is something I can commit to in the next couple of weeks or month.

00:19:38:21 - 00:19:59:21
Cheryl Toth
We set challenges. We do. There's all kinds of things that we do. I mean, that's the neat thing about coaching is that it takes so many directions. Some people need more self-care practice. They need breathwork. They need to meditate. They need to do maybe stream of consciousness writing to work through issues. Other people need to read a book, you know, and then talk about that.

00:20:00:02 - 00:20:22:17
Cheryl Toth
Other people just need to practice setting boundaries with certain people that they work with. So you're right. We go from awareness to intention to a commitment to some kind of action, because otherwise, I mean, let's face it, we, the physician in our client is paying for the manager sometimes. I mean, you know, there has to be an outcome of some kind.

00:20:22:18 - 00:20:25:08
Cheryl Toth
So we are action oriented at the end of the day.

00:20:25:09 - 00:20:49:03
Robin Ntoh
Well, when you think how this directly applies back into aesthetics, because that's where a big area of focus is for you. I love that this presents itself as a potential solution to the problems we see in a lot of practices where high energy, dealing with very demanding patients, believe it or not. I mean, you've got people that are generally, for the most part, healthy, and they want to make a change to their parents.

00:20:49:03 - 00:21:10:01
Robin Ntoh
They want to augment it to some degree. And so normal, healthy person that you're making a change to, they're going to have a different level of demands and which can be very stressful on staff. And you're always on you're always on you. You don't get to turn it off. You've got to be on. Because first and foremost it's it is sales.

00:21:10:01 - 00:21:31:16
Robin Ntoh
You are selling services, albeit you're educating them along the way, but you're still a medical practice. So you've got these two worlds that are just hitting heads. On one hand, I've got to follow the guidelines of what a medical practice is required and should be doing to care for this patient, and sometimes it means telling a patient no because you need to qualify the patients.

00:21:31:16 - 00:21:54:23
Robin Ntoh
But then you've got this patient that has these high expectations and they want this exceptional experience. And that's part of the competition in the industry. Yes. But as a staff member that's extremely stressful. And we find them constantly trying to manage what the patient expects or wants so that you can sell, convert, etc., and or you're dealing with.

00:21:54:23 - 00:22:16:02
Robin Ntoh
But it's still medical. I still have to fulfill the black and white criteria of a medical business. And so I look at where that creates so much frustration, where I believe that developing some of those skills, emotional intelligence keeps coming up in my mind is where I think that's where a lot of the opportunities. How do you react to situations?

00:22:16:03 - 00:22:24:04
Robin Ntoh
How do you manage situations like that? And some of that comes back to where your coaching really provides that opportunity. And I think this markets ripe for it.

00:22:24:09 - 00:22:52:02
Cheryl Toth
I think so. And it's interesting you talk about I think of the word equanimity because that is such an important word to your point. How do we have composure in those situations. How do we stay calm when everything is so chaotic and stressful? And we've got these demanding patients? And what is one of the sessions that I'm doing at this conference is stop bossing, start coaching and helping leaders understand how to help their staff develop.

00:22:52:02 - 00:23:14:00
Cheryl Toth
And in this, in this way, I could imagine that there's there's specific things that the leaders could be doing with their staff in the practice. It is something could be simple as sending around a newsletter, an email that talks about emotional intelligence, or maybe they read Carol Dweck Growth Mindset book and they talk about it. I was at a session yesterday.

00:23:14:01 - 00:23:33:06
Cheryl Toth
It was a med spa owner who almost bailed and sold her practice. After she opened one location. She ended up not doing that and growing it to four. And they doing all this, all this coaching and one of the things they do as a book club, you know, and they they have a book club in the practice and everyone's involved, all the providers, all the staff.

00:23:33:06 - 00:24:01:00
Cheryl Toth
So there are a lot of small things that leaders can do and the surgeons can do to help the staff deal with all of these pressures and learn those skills, emotional intelligence and things like equanimity and how to how to, you know, with the composure thing. Sometimes it's just sitting back and doing 478 breathing for a minute, or being allowed to step away from the front desk or a difficult patient and go outside for a walk.

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:12:11
Cheryl Toth
You know that that takes some guts for the doctor to allow that to happen, or the med spa owner to allow it, but these are good changes that can grow the staff, can develop the staff.

00:24:12:11 - 00:24:37:08
Robin Ntoh
But it's an investment. And staff should look at this as this is an investment that is a forever thing for me. This is something I can take to any job and apply it in almost any circumstance, because they're learning to manage with people, to deal with people and almost any circumstance. And I find that practices that do this build a very strong culture.

00:24:37:09 - 00:25:02:13
Cheryl Toth
Yes. And resilience. There's another word that is coaching and emotional intelligence and resilience because we all face difficulties, whether it's the difficult patient or, you know, the fact that we're just not getting as many consoles, we're not closing, we're not following as many leads or closing as many surgeries as we want to. That's stressful too. How do we combat that?

00:25:02:13 - 00:25:15:21
Cheryl Toth
How do we still get up in the morning, go to work, put a smile on her face, you know, how do we just keep going? And that's something that is important for leaders to cultivate in the practice.

00:25:15:23 - 00:25:38:01
Robin Ntoh
Well, Cheryl, I have enjoyed this conversation so much. I find that what a unique offering and to make it available for any type of aesthetic practice. What a great way to really invest in practices so that they've got these long term growth options. I go back to a saying that was something shared with me. Culture eats strategy for lunch.

00:25:38:01 - 00:25:47:16
Robin Ntoh
Yes. And you can have the best strategy in the world. But if you don't have the right people with the right mindset and the right intention, your practice is not going to survive.

00:25:47:17 - 00:25:49:14
Cheryl Toth
That's right. Sounds right.

00:25:49:18 - 00:25:51:23
Robin Ntoh
Tell people how they can find you.

00:25:52:01 - 00:26:02:03
Cheryl Toth
You can find us at ACGPracticePartners.com is the website and on social media as well. Instagram and YouTube.

00:26:02:05 - 00:26:04:07
Robin Ntoh
Thank you so much for joining us today I appreciate it.

00:26:04:07 - 00:26:08:19
Cheryl Toth
Thank you for having me.

00:26:08:21 - 00:26:31:11
Announcer
Thanks for listening to Aesthetically Speaking, the podcast Where Beauty Meets Business presented by Nextech. Follow and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Links to the resources mentioned on this podcast or available in your show notes. For more information about Nextech, visit Nextech.com or to learn more about TouchMD, go to TouchMD.com.