Join us on this episode of Referral Secrets, as Curtis interviews Dr. Phil Nguyen. A successful business owner, entrepreneur, marketer, actor, and artist.
After completing his residency in family practice, Dr. Phil Nguyen decided to walk a different path. He chose to move into the world of Botox and fillers, which led to the opening of the largest aesthetics clinic in Colorado… Happy Clinic.
After nearly 11 years in operation, and 3 Locations, Happy Clinic is Colorado’s largest purchaser of Botox, with the 10th largest account in the United States.
Approximately 50% of the clinic’s new clientele comes from earned referrals. When it comes to the psychology of earning referrals, Dr. Phil, brings a wealth of knowledge to the table.
Dr. Phil shares his passions, and their impact on his philosophies in his business, his life, and his approach to achieving balance between the two.
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How would you like to work four days and take 10 days off? In this incredible interview with Dr. Phil, he will share insight and wisdom of how he’s built one of the largest medical practices in the entire state of Colorado. Thank you for being here Dr. Phil. I hear nothing but amazing things about you and your clinic. If you don’t mind, would you share your story of how you got into the business you’re in.
Well, we are an aesthetic clinic. We do Botox and fillers, and we are going on our 11th year now. We have the biggest clinics in the Denver, Colorado area. We have three offices, one in Broomfield, one in Denver and one in Colorado Springs. I have a decent sized staff of 13 people. I have four doctors including me. We have a lot of fun every day. We treat anywhere from 50 to 70 patients a day in general. We have a great reputation in the industry here in Colorado. We’re number one, as far as amount of Botox and fillers that we do. We’ve been number one for seven, eight years.
Well, tell me if you don’t mind, what led you down this path? How did you get into this line of work?
I originally trained in Family Practice, and when I got out of residency, I just didn’t want to do it. One of the reasons I didn’t particularly like regular medicine was the fear of killing somebody, you know? It is such a huge responsibility to take care of someone’s health. If you miss something, you’d feel super, super guilty. It’s just my personality. So when I discovered aesthetic medicine like Botox and fillers I thought, “this is amazing. I’m not going to kill anybody. I get to make them look great”. If something were to go wrong, like with Botox, you get those motions back in three to four months. So if I did something and somebody didn’t like it, they’d go back to normal in three to four months. It wasn’t something that was permanent, that was going to stay in them for the rest of their lives or whatever. So to me, it was amazing and perfect, because I’m also an artist. I paint, I draw. So, it seemed the perfect path for me. I love it; it’s my passion. I love what I do.
Happy Clinic currently has 3 aesthetics clinics in operation in Colorado
If you didn’t catch it, the name of his clinic is Happy Clinic. Bridget Ayers connected us; she mentioned that the energy around you, your entire staff, all the doctors, and assistants is just amazing. She’s like, everybody there makes you feel good. It really is a Happy Clinic. I love going there. I love the way they make me feel.
Every clinic has their culture, you know, every clinic has something that they espouse and they believe in. My thing is always happiness. I’m here to make you happy and I’m here to make you feel better. We’re not Grumpy Clinic. I wanted something different besides the typical vibe of a snooty clinic. I just wanted a feel that makes you feel great when you come in, when you do the procedure and when you leave. So we’re selling happiness.
What are some of the things, the little tweaks, the things that you do, from when they come into the parking lot to meeting with you?
You have to stand out from the crowd, you can’t be like everybody else. A typical aesthetic clinic is going to have a beautiful blonde bombshell at the front desk working, right? We’re different. We have good-looking men at the front desk and that’s one of our secrets, because the majority of our patients are women. Maybe 75% are women, and 20, 25% are men. So when a woman comes to the front desk to check in or check out, it’s a new experience for her to do that with a man receptionist. So the man is in a little bit of an inferior position. Right? It gives the woman a sense of power too.
When a man compliments a woman after a procedure and asks how it was and how did you like it, I think it goes a little bit further than another woman complimenting a woman. It seems more genuine. So there’s a lot of psychology involved that I kind of have figured out, playing the contrast or doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing. It creates a unique experience when they come to our clinic. I know that 99% of other clinics are not going to have a male at the front desk. So what is it that sets you apart in your business? That’s what you need to highlight. That’s what you need to broadcast to your audience, because that gravitates to whatever it is that makes you special in your business.
And you speak and train from what I understand. You’re one of the top 10 in the entire country, and a hot number one in the whole state of Colorado. When you train and teach other people to build their practices and stuff, what are some of the things that you share?
Everybody has a different angle of how they want to market to the world. You have to find your own niche. It’s what makes you special. It’s what’s unique to you that attracts your crowd or audience. The biggest thing is to be confident in yourself, you have what it takes to be successful. And when you have that confidence, confidence is the most attractive thing in any business, whether it’s your own business as an aesthetic injector or an actor or this or that. It’s that confidence in yourself that draws others to you. I think that’s the biggest part of any formula for success, having confidence in yourself.
What does your retention and referral business look like?
We have a ton of referrals. I would guess 50% of our new patients come from our patient referrals. The other 50% find us directly online. We’re listed very highly with Google; that takes time to do that. When you start a business and you put up a website, it typically takes you two, three years to get on the first page, if you do your website right. So it takes a lot of time and you have to be patient and keep on doing what you do, giving good service and good products. Then the more people search for your website, or the more they refer your website to others, the higher Google ranks you. So it takes time to build your business and your brand. It’s a marathon, not a sprint doing business. Obviously there are a few businesses that are successful overnight, but I find that the ones that are there for the long run, they go further.
I would imagine your retention is pretty high.
The aesthetics industry is a little fickle, because there are so many of us. I think there are as many of us as there are Starbucks. In Denver alone, there are probably over 200 aesthetic clinics that do Botox and fillers. A patient has the right to go to whomever they want. But it’s a personal relationship with that patient. It’s like getting your hair cut. You tend to go to the same person, to get your hair cut, because you know what they do, how they cut your hair and you like the way they cut your hair. Same thing with Botox; you go to the same person because you like how they did your Botox. So we’re all using the same pair of scissors, or in this case the Botox, but the results can be very different, according to the technique, the style, how they learned et cetera.
So, I try to keep the results very consistent inside my own clinic. When I teach my injectors to do things, I keep it very consistent so that one patient could go from one injector to another without a huge difference in results. That’s the biggest thing too with your business, is how do you standardize the product that you give out so that it can be replicable, every time?
As a business owner, I love what I do, but I’d like to work less so that I can have more time for myself. I’ve already started doing that in the past year and a half. I’ve gone from working five days a week to four days, and then I take 10 days off. So typically I work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then take the next 10 days off. Then I come back and work another Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
So you’re actually open on Sundays as well?
We’re open seven days a week.
Not too many practices do that.
Yeah. It makes it very convenient for our patients. They can come in on a Saturday or Sunday so that they don’t have to take time off during the business week.
Especially a mom running around, bringing kids here and there, the weekdays are so difficult. Hardly anybody works Sundays. That’s fantastic. You know, we talk a lot about it’s not what you do that’s most important, it’s how you show up in people’s lives. As you’ve already stated, you do many things differently to stand out from the crowd.
What does it look like going forward for you, other than getting more time for yourself to do things. How do you see expansion? Are you really happy where you’re at? Would you like to do more training and speaking?
I’ve kind of passed the torch to the second generation. My niece, Dr. Monroe, has taken over the business. I taught her to do 95% of what I have done. I’ve taken on more of a consulting role and I let her run things, everything from hiring to letting employees go or this or that. She’s kinda my personal assistant as well. She checks my emails every day. If there’s anything important, she sends me a text. So I am very fortunate to have a family member who is very quick to learn, very intelligent. She’s a go-getter, loves hard work, and she’s running my three clinics right now. I have taken a step back and given her freedom to grow the business as she wants.
I am just maintaining right now.
So it’s up to her if she wants to grow, but I’m also fine if she wants to take time off to just learn the process and learn how to run a business. She can take two or three years, whatever, to really learn it before she grows it. It’s in her hands, because I think you get to a point where you are comfortable, you know, with what you’ve made financially. I don’t have a big lifestyle. I don’t need $3 million houses or big cars or 10 cars or whatever. It’s not something that I take personal satisfaction in. One of the things I love about being financially stable is I can go to a restaurant and order whatever I want, but when you’re strapped for money and on a budget and go to a restaurant, you have to look at the price tag.
Even if you don’t have a lot of money, get into the mindset of ordering whatever you want. Okay? That creates a mentality of prosperity, creates a mentality of wealth, that everything is a choice in this world. You can pick this one or you can pick that one. If you can get into that mindset of something simple like that, that doesn’t cost you a lot. So the highest priced item on the menu is 35 bucks. So what, it’s only 35 bucks. It’s not like a thousand dollars or something. But if you can get into that mindset of telling the universe, Hey, that sounds great; I want that in my life. Something small, like that, can translate into something much bigger, over time when you have that mindset.
Oh man, we’re so on the same wavelength. I love that. When I was in college, I was at a seminar, and a guy in the front of the room was saying: “freedom to me is being able to order off the left side of the menu and not the right, because the price is always on the right”. And it hit me; that’s what I want. I want to be able to order an appetizer, a meal and have a dessert. And I actually want to have a drink with dinner, because you know that the drinks are going to drastically increase the cost, but I want the experience.
.I can’t, but you can, you can, but you can. It’s something simple like that. It creates that mindset of prosperity. You can say: Hey, well, maybe I can do this with my business. Why not? You know, maybe I can grow 20% this year. Why not? I want that. You know, I’m exploring all avenues of my life. I don’t think Dr. Monroe has told you any of this, but I started taking acting classes two years ago.
That’s great.
Yeah, I have an agent in Denver and an agent in Los Angeles. I travel back and forth between my home in Denver and my home in Los Angeles. So that’s what I do in my 10 days off. I’m in Los Angeles. I take acting classes every week. I’ve been cast in a commercial recently with the Colorado lottery. In the past five months, I’ve had five different roles in indie films. I’ve played anything from a doctor to a scientist, to a dad, to a Buddhist monk. It’s been really fun to watch myself grow and learn this new thing, this new challenge. It’s like learning a new language.
There’re so many awesome things you’ve shared. You got into your business, you hustled, you worked really hard. You treated people well. You surrounded yourself with amazing people, which added to the process. You’ve built up such an amazing referral-based business. People are coming to you. You’ve leveraged your time because you’ve been able to attract and retain these customers, which is now affording you a lifestyle and a purpose. I can see you light up when you talk about painting and sculpting. I could see that acting is a passion of yours. You’ve built a business that funds a lifestyle that you’re passionate about.
Absolutely. I’m very passionate about acting because I never realized how creative it was. It’s just as creative as painting. It’s just as creative as sculpting. You have a hundred, a thousand different choices when you say the words, according to the emotions that are inside you and what you’re feeling at the time. Amazingly, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s harder than med school by far. So I have a huge respect for actors and the acting process now, after having gone through it.
I use AM Cards for acting. I use AM Cards for my aesthetic business. So, I love to talk about AM Cards and how I use it in all my businesses.
The purpose of this is Referral Secrets. I did want to bring you on, because I know that you send hundreds of boxes of brownies a month with your own artwork on them. I would love to hear what have been some of the responses that you’ve heard back, because you’re investing back into your business, investing back into your people. We teach that in Referral Secrets, and you’re actively doing it on a monthly basis.
So one of the ideas that I had just recently was, you know, with Botox. Every four months the Botox wears out, right? So they need to come in every three to four months. They need to come in for their next shots to look good, or else they just go back to normal. So my idea is retention, right? Every business wants retention and they want repeat customers. So it’s an automatic repeat customer for us, but the question is, how do we get them back on time for their regular maintenance? How do we remind them without reminding them? Normally what we do at three to four months, is we send out an email just to say, “Hey, you know, your Botox is probably wearing out. Come on back for your Botox again!”
So it’s just a quick email at three to four months. After six months, if they haven’t been in, we send them a card with brownies. It’s not a reminder as in, “Hey, your Botox is due”. It’s totally different. I want to send them happiness.
Cards are happiness or brownies are happiness.
Yes. We send them brownies, and the card just simply says something heartwarming or uplifting or happy. Because that’s what I’m branding. I’m branding happiness. So, for example, the card may say, “Do something today that makes you feel fantastic”, or “Keep on doing what makes you unique or fantastic”. You know, it’s just one sentence. They sit back and think, okay, what makes me unique and fantastic? All right, I’ll do that. You know, it’s just to remind them that they are unique and they are fantastic and they are beautiful. They know that I’m sending that for patient retention. They know it’s marketing. I don’t have to tell them, I don’t have to say it. They feel happy when they read little words of inspiration or an Oprah quote or something like that, and they’re like, “Oh, wow, okay. I’m going to do something amazing and happy today. I need to make my Botox appointment”.
The “AM” in AM Cards stands for Appreciation Marketing, achieving greatness through gratitude. It is so cool what you’re doing, because you are doing it at the highest level. One of the things we share is don’t just ask for the referral, deserve it. And you’re doing the little things and touching them. That’s a whole different energy. Now, if you wrote “PS, make sure you give us a call to set your next Botox appointment”, it’s a different energy, isn’t it?
Oh yeah, totally. Yes.
Call us to schedule an appointment. It’s like, did he really care about me?
That’s the whole point, I’m just spreading happiness. If they come in, great, or they don’t, it’s okay. I just want them to have a good day, and it’s an easy, great reminder that I appreciate them; enjoy some brownies. My kids love the brownies. That’s what I hear all the time. My husband loves the brownies. I love the brownies. Thank you so much for sending those brownies and dah, dah, dah. So it works, you know, we hear it.
Yeah. That’s really cool. Really appreciate your business, big time. The comments that come back from it are awesome! I definitely have some connections for you there in LA too, you know, to help you pay it forward.
Too much. I mean, I’ve learned in life to do what makes me feel good. You know, if it makes me happy, go for it! The universe brings you the right people at the right time at the right place. And if a door starts opening, go through it. If it doesn’t happen the way you want it, that’s part of the adventure, that’s part of the fun. I had no idea where things would go when I opened my business, no idea that it would be so successful.
But you look back at all the trials, the tribulations, all the road bumps that we’ve had to endure to create a successful business. We’re still having road bumps. It’s not like we don’t have them anymore, but having that experience of road bumps in the past makes me believe that this is just a molehill compared to what I’ve been through.
I’m teaching that to my niece, Dr. Monroe. Cause at first, when she was taking care of the business, she would kind of freak out when we hit a little road bump, and I’m like, “Oh, we’ve already been through something like this. It’s no big deal”. It’s the same thing with acting. I learned that you cannot act if you’re nervous. So I have a Fitbit that measures heart rate. So when I was in my acting class, my heart rate shot up to 80 when it was my time to perform.
And I couldn’t act, I couldn’t do anything. Everything came out fake because my heart rate was so high that all I could think about was my heart jumping out of my body. You know?
But now after a year and a half of doing the same thing, and training my brain and my mind to relax and let the emotions come freely, and remember the lines, because you can’t remember lines, if your heart races to 80, you know, you can’t do anything when you’re nervous. You have to be calm when you’re facing a storm or else that storm is just going to sweep you away. So I think that’s my biggest advice to anyone who’s in business, is stay calm in the middle of the storm and you’ll figure it out. The lines will come to you. The emotions will come to you and everything else will come to you, even if there’s a storm raging around you.
Because it’s when you’re centered that everything radiates around you, and you start centering as well. You can create the world that you want to live in. What does your morning routine look like? Well, when I wake up, if I’m not working, I think, what do I want to do today? That is the most amazing sense of freedom you can have, right? That’s me, every morning I wake up. I think, what do I want to do today? Do I want to take a bike ride in the park? Do I want to take a walk around the neighborhood? Do I want to go to one of my favorite restaurants to get breakfast?
It’s those little things that make you super happy. So my partner, when he’s out here with me, he’ll make my coffee every morning, because he knows how to make it just right. Oh my gosh, he makes it just right. You know, it feels good to have someone love you like that. My love language is acts of service, and we all have love languages of how we feel appreciated and loved. So if someone does something for me, that person really loves me. It’s an act of service that makes me feel that love for them, you know? So, he makes my coffee, he puts a croissant in the oven and puts the butter on the tray. Sometimes he brings me breakfast in bed, or we’re out on the couch sitting and talking. It’s those things that really start your day off wonderfully.
That’s amazing. So when you do your four days on and 10 days off, are you typically out in the LA area?
Yeah, my 10 days off are in the LA area. That’s where I do my acting and my fun stuff, my relaxation, and then I’m in Denver for 4 days of work. I work really hard when I work. So it’s a nice balance in my life. We all work super hard to get where we are. I think if you do what you love, you’re going to make money. Prosperity is going to come no matter what.
My best acting gig was the Colorado state lottery commercial. That paid $1350, and I got like four seconds out of a 32 second commercial. My acting teacher was like, “Well, you know, it’s $300 a second. That was pretty good, Phil”.
That is really good. You know, it’s all about your perspective, right? $1,350 for 10 hours worth of work, compared to what I do with Botox, maybe it’s not a lot, but if I think about $300 a second, that’s good money. So it’s all about your perspective and your appreciation for what the universe gives you. Once you appreciate what you’ve got, the universe gives you more. It’s a universal law. So few people realize that. I wish people would understand that the more you appreciate things, the more the universe appreciates you.
Do you have a book that you recommend, a favorite book?
The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz
The Pumpkin Plan, by Mike Mike Michalowicz, is one of my favorite books about business. And your book is a basic tool.
I haven’t heard of The Pumpkin Plan. I’m excited to get it.
The basic premise of The Pumpkin Plan is, how do you grow a 2000 pound pumpkin? You know, those huge, giant pumpkins that you see at fairs? You start with giant pumpkin seeds, you start with a good business plan, okay. Then you plant it in the ground, water, it, give it sunlight, you let it grow. You do what you’re supposed to do, fertilizer, sunlight, whatever. As it starts growing and flowering and creating pumpkins, you have to actually cut it back. So you pick the biggest pumpkin that’s growing. Then you cut back all the other pumpkins, so that all the sunlight, all the water, all that energy goes to that one giant pumpkin. You’re not distracted by all these other small little pumpkins around it.
So, at the beginning of your business, you do everything you can to put food on the table. Right? I said yes to everything, and as my business started growing and growing and growing, I started weeding things out and cutting things back. I focused on what I love to do, and what made me the most money too. It has to be both, because if you don’t love it and it doesn’t make you good money, you’re not going to want to do it. You have to find a balance there, focus on what you love to do the most, and what makes you the most money, then everything else just kind of falls by the wayside.
It’s a choice not to take or not to do those other procedures; not to do those other services, because maybe they don’t make a lot of money. Maybe they’re not fun to do, so you don’t like doing them. So focus on what you love to do and what makes you good money. Suddenly things start happening and you keep growing that big, giant pumpkin. Wow. You become specialized in that and it becomes your niche. That’s what makes you special. That’s what makes you able to charge a little bit more than everybody else, give better service than everybody else, and give a better quality product than everybody else, because you’re specialized in that. You can’t be a Jack- of- all-trades, you have to focus on what makes you strong, keep growing that and love that.
I think we can wrap up on that, because that was perfect. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I’d love to have a copy of this and put it on my YouTube channel.
I would be honored. So we’re going to get it edited up nicely and this will be great. This is really great. I really appreciate your taking the time. I know that you are a busy guy, even with your 10 days off, you’re here. You’re doing a lot. So, thank you very much for taking the time. I really do appreciate it. Can’t wait to get this edited and get it posted.
Thank you so much. You take care and you have an awesome day.
Important Links:
Website: https://www.happyclinicdenver.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happyclinicdenver/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philhongnguyenmd/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-nguyen-11387925/
Book Recommendation: The Pumpkin Plan
About Dr. Phil Nguyen:
Dr. Phil Nguyen is an experienced owner with a demonstrated history of working in the health wellness and aesthetic medicine industry. Strong entrepreneurship professional skilled in Customer Service, Sales, Laser Resurfacing, Marketing Strategy, and Medicine. He has built the Happy Clinic, a thriving aesthetics clinic with 3 current locations in Colorado. Happy Clinic is Colorado’s Largest Purchaser of Botox, and the 10th Largest Account in the United States.
He is living life by his own design through appreciation and gratitude. He is not only an MD, he also works as an actor, and expresses himself through his art.