Collaboration across our (Cosmetic) Nation

By James Vivian

I recently attended the 2023 Non-Surgical Symposium (NSS) on the Gold Coast in July and had the pleasure of presenting the topic of working together across our industry.

The theme of collaboration is one very close to my heart as, as Dermal Clinicians, without a community of skilled specialists around us to refer to, we simply are not doing our jobs properly.

Take a clinic like ours, for example. To allow us to become experts in what we do, we have refined the way in which we help our clients achieve their results as:

- Customer service

- Performing Dermal Therapy treatments to the face, neck, and chest

- Recommending and retailing cosmeceutical skincare

- Providing supplementary advice e.g., lifestyle, diet etc.

Whilst we can do fabulous work within this offering, this does not even touch the sides when it comes to the varied concerns and requirements that our clients discuss with us so referring on to other practitioners is therefore a huge part of how we still assist our clients achieve their results.

As a baby Dermal Clinician, I learnt many years ago that you cannot be everything to everyone, and despite your best efforts, you will never make everyone happy. And it’s often in an effort to try to make everyone happy, or offer a service for everyone, or attempt to fix everyone’s skin, that you end up letting both yourself and your client down.

When we think about why a client walks through our doors, or books in a consultation with us, they are looking for the best clinical outcome, they are wanting the best experience and most importantly, they want to know if we are the right person for the gig.

What they are not wanting is subpar results, disappointment, and regret, and they most certainly don’t want to hear that there was probably someone better out there for the job after all.

As therapists, none of us wants to be in this situation. We want positive experiences for both us and our clients and one way to ensure this is to (something I say daily in our clinic)…stay in our lane.

For some of us, our lane is narrow. We do the same thing day in and day out and because of this we are experts, and we have clients that travel from far and wide to see us.

For others, our lane is wider to accommodate the varied passions that we have honed, and we have a loyal clientele who share our passions and love us for it.

Regardless of what you specialise in, do you know who is out there doing equally great work in other areas? Do you know who to send your clients to for a skin cancer check before you blast away their pigment? Do you know who to send a client to who is expecting the effects of a facelift from a skin needling procedure? Do you know who to send a client to when you genuinely have no idea what is going on with a client's skin?

I truly believe that you are as smart as the people around you. This goes for both the people you work with but also the community you build around you.

Just like the importance that we place on the selection of a treatment for a specific condition or the recommendation of a product for a skin type, it’s essential you place equal importance on the people you are referring to. Find them on social media and strike up a conversation, even go into visit them. Ask your clients who they are seeing and loving, ask your colleagues or even be a curious client yourself and seek out the type of services your clients are needing.

Whilst you can look at the referral process as giving clients away, in my experience, it only confirms to our clients how much we care about them and can easily turn a client who needed a prescription for Roaccutane into a client who, once their acne is cleared, returns to you as a loyal, grateful client for life.

I also believe in referring karma but to further encourage referrals back to you, ensure that you are collaborating and referring to other practitioners who respect what you do and who are aware of your specialities. Perhaps get them in for a treatment, offer their clients a discount upon their first appointment, or simply be the bloody best at what you do so they have no one else to refer to.

This year, I was honoured to sit amongst the NSS scientific committee as the first Dermal Clinician to join the committee. Having a seat at the table is a giant leap forward for our beauty and dermal industries as it proves that the wider cosmetic community sees the amazing work we are achieving with our clients and understands that by working together we are only enhancing our client outcomes and making our industry the best and safest it can be.