If You’re Not Doing This, You’re Already Behind

Written By TouchMD

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From the annual meeting of The Aesthetic Society, Dr. Grant Stevens recaps the highlights and shares where he sees aesthetics heading next. 

From the growth of non-surgical treatments to unexpected surprises in who’s walking through the door, the future is more inclusive, accessible, and innovation-driven.

Hear why Dr. Stevens believes aesthetics will become more affordable, why more men are joining the conversation, and why body contouring is here to stay.

Recorded live at The Aesthetic MEET in Austin, Texas.

About Dr. Grant Stevens

Dr. Grant Stevens is a renowned plastic surgeon and founder of Marina Plastic Surgery and The Institute in Marina Del Rey, CA. He is also Medical Director of Orange Twist and leads the USC Division of Aesthetic Surgery. Dr. Stevens sits on the Board of Directors of the Aesthetic Society, where he chairs both the Media Relations and Exhibits Committees. He hosts the podcast The Technology of Beauty, featuring expert interviews on cutting-edge aesthetic advancements. 

Guest

Grant Stevens, MD

Marina Plastic Surgery

Host

Tyler Terry, Director of Sales, MedSpa

Nextech

Transcript

Announcer (00:06):

You are listening to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech.

Tyler Terry (00:12):

Hey guys. Welcome back to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech. I'm your host, Tyler Terry, and we are coming at you live from the Aesthetic MEET in beautiful Austin, Texas. The Aesthetic MEET you will remember it as ASAPS. Today, I have an incredibly special guest on the show, somebody who I've always wanted to have on our show with us. He is the past president of ASAPS. He's also the host of the show that I believe is the best podcast in the industry, the Technology of Beauty. Dr. Grant Stevens. Dr. Stevens, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Stevens (00:45):

Thank you very much and thank you very much for having me. Although I need to correct you, if I may.

Tyler Terry (00:50):

Of course.

Dr. Stevens (00:51):

So we dropped the name ASAPS during my presidency, we are the Aesthetic Society, which includes surgery as well as medical aesthetics.

Tyler Terry (01:00):

Thank you.

Dr. Stevens (01:01):

And I can't stand the word ASAPS it sounds like as soon as possible.

Tyler Terry (01:05):

Yes.

Dr. Stevens (01:05):

And the public doesn't gravitate toward the word ASAPS except as soon as possible, right?

Tyler Terry (01:10):

Yeah.

Dr. Stevens (01:10):

And we are the Aesthetic Society, so we bring medical aesthetics as well as surgical aesthetics, and we're all inclusive. We also include derm, facial plastics, ocular plastics, and extenders would be PAs, NPs, and so forth, med spas. So we are all inclusive and we're all aesthetics.

Tyler Terry (01:30):

So Dr. Stevens, we're here at the Aesthetics Society, the Aesthetic MEET. What's been your favorite part of the show?

Dr. Stevens (01:37):

Oh my. The favorite part of the show, there have been so many favorites. I can't even, we started on Wednesday with AIS Aesthetic Innovation Summit, which was well attended more than ever before. We had more industry. It was so much fun. It was packed with stuff. We had two Shark Tank competitions with emerging companies.

Tyler Terry (01:59):

That's one of my favorite shows.

Dr. Stevens (02:00):

With four sharks. It was absolutely spectacular. We had all kinds of fun things and that kicked it off. And then that night we had a party, like a Western Party, and we had a great time, 200 people, and that's before we even started the Aesthetic MEET.

Tyler Terry (02:16):

Wow.

Dr. Stevens (02:17):

The Aesthetic MEET has been absolutely fantastic. You could probably hear the music in the background. I'm now the chairman of Industry Relations again, and we made some big changes in the aesthetic workplace or this exhibit hall. We've got rock and roll, as I say, we have lions and tigers and bears. We're making industry friendly. We're dragging people in. We're offering all kinds of fun stuff, and it's never been this busy, ever. We're welcoming people, industry's happy. I'm happy. The society's happy. So I'm enjoying this. We just came from our annual business meeting where Kia stepped down as the President and Tracy became the new president, and that was super exciting.

Tyler Terry (03:00):

Wow.

Dr. Stevens (03:00):

She's our third woman to be president of the Aesthetics Society, starting with Jennifer and then Mindy, and then Tracy and I couldn't be happier, women in positions of authority and power and so forth. Leadership, I should say. It's just so hard for me to tell you that there's one thing. It's just been probably the best meeting that I've ever been to, but I probably say that every year, but at least it's getting better next year in Boston.

Tyler Terry (03:25):

Okay, love Boston.

Dr. Stevens (03:26):

Yeah. Last year, as you know, it was in Vancouver and we're happy to be here in Austin. What a great city. I've been here, I've had the good fortune to lecture here and be here. And there's a lot of plastic surgeons here.

Tyler Terry (03:39):

So tell us a little bit about what you saw at this show. We are launching our new CRM. It's not officially launched, but can you talk to us about the importance of a CRM for your practice?

Dr. Stevens (03:51):

Well, first of all, Nextech is state of the art, right? But with a CRM, it's going to be unbelievable, track leads, to bring people in to keep track of the people that contact us, contact the practices, be it a med spa portion or the surgical portion or whatever. The CRM is going to add a huge dimension to Nextech, and I couldn't be happier that Enrique is doing that. Now, I worked with Enrique years ago when he first started MyMed Leads, and that was very effective. It helped my practice immeasurably. And when MyMed Leads was acquired by Nextech, that was a great move for Nextech. And now with Enrique in charge and bringing the CRM, it's going to make Nextech even more valuable.

Tyler Terry (04:35):

Yes.

Dr. Stevens (04:35):

And more importantly, it's going to make the practices grow, track their leads, follow up on their leads, their conversion rates will go up, their revenue will go up. It's going to be highly accretive to both the surgical as well as the non-surgical portion of their practice.

Tyler Terry (04:52):

I want to just shift gears a little bit because I only have a few more minutes with you, but you're somebody that I've genuinely admired and respected my entire career. When I first started, I saw your name all over the place and I'm like, I would love to meet him one day. And I was fortunate enough to be on your podcast, which again, favorite podcast in the industry, Technology of Beauty. If you're not listening to it, you have to listen to it. It'll be in the show notes. But Dr. Stevens, I want to know from your vantage point, from your view point, where do you see the future of aesthetics over the next five to 10 years? We have AI, we have all these things. Where do you think we're going?

Dr. Stevens (05:25):

Before I answer that, I just want to thank you for that plug, and that's the Technology of Beauty. And you can find it on YouTube, the Technology of Beauty where I interview the movers and shakers of the beauty business.

Tyler Terry (05:38):

He really does, guys, it is the best.

Dr. Stevens (05:40):

Today is no exception, and I'd love for you to go onto it and then subscribe the future of aesthetics. I remember when I was a newbie in my first five years and I break it down in first, third, second, third, third, third, I can remember introducing certain concepts and taking a few arrows. I've always been kind of ahead of the curve. I love it and it's not always been the most pleasant place to be. But as I look forward and I ask my guests, what do you see in your crystal ball? Certainly there's no question the nonsurgical part of the business is not going to slow down.

(06:18):

People want to have effective results. They don't really want recovery time. They don't really want anesthesia. Now, I'm not saying that surgery won't be done, surgeries will still be done, and we'll get to that in a minute. But nonsurgical alternatives that are safe and effective, people are tired of being sold ineffective baloney, and that's the best I can call it. But they really want to come in, get the procedure and leave, and hopefully over the ensuing days or weeks, they'll see the improvement and there'll be value in their investment. So non-surgical is not slowing down. It's growing 20 times faster and it's going to continue to grow. So I don't care if it's body contouring, if it's neuromodulators, if it's fillers, laser hair removal, or things we don't even know about yet, and it all kinds of technologies are going to continue. That's number one. Number two, it's going to be more affordable. And one of the ways it's going to be more affordable is through either financing or subscription. And subscription is a form of financing.

(07:23):

People have an aesthetic wallet. They have an aesthetic budget. They will pay monthly payments, not these big payments every three or four or six months. They'll pay monthly payments just like their health club, their car payment, their house payment, and various other things. Subscription is here to stay and it is only going to grow. And places like PatientFi will make it easier for the consumer. There'll also be increasing number of men. Men want to look better. They don't want to look weird. They don't want pain. Number one thing that keeps 'em out is pain. In every focus group I've done, the reason I started Marina Man Land, where a man can feel good about looking great, is that I interviewed 200 men. I took written interviews in oral and I learned what they liked, what they didn't like, and it was very, very fascinating.

(08:14):

And they're very different than the aesthetic female consumer. They don't like couches. They want chairs. I could go into it the different things they want, but in any event, the male market is going to continue expanding, especially as we keep pain to a minimum, and we don't make 'em look weird. They don't want people to know they've been done. They want to look natural but better. They want to get those brown spots and red spots gone. They want to get their wrinkles gone. They want to have their skin look better. They don't want a 6o year-old man, doesn't want to look 20, but he wants to look really good for 60. Maybe he looks 10 years younger, but it's not about looking younger. It's about looking the best you can. You know what I mean?

Tyler Terry (08:57):

I've never heard that take a lot of people focus so much on looking younger. It's just focus on looking the best you can today.

Dr. Stevens (09:03):

Yes, that's what it is. If they don't come in and say, doc, I'm dating a hot young chick and I want to look 40. I mean, there are some, but for me, that's a red flag, frankly. And I tell 'em, I can't guarantee what age you're going to look, but how about I start with improving the quality of your skin?

Tyler Terry (09:19):

Yes.

Dr. Stevens (09:19):

How about I start you on medications to get that beer belly gone and lose weight? That'll get me to my next thing. I mean, these pharmacologic interventions to lose weight are not going away. But people have the mistaken notion that somehow body contouring is going away because of Ozempic and all the other ones. That's not true. These weight reduction pills or shots and medications, they're not smart. You lose weight because you consume less and so forth. But you still have recalcitrant bulges. Bulges, like men still have love handles. And then in addition to that, because of the massive weight loss, they have skin tone issues, they have extra skin. So if we can offer localized targeted fat reduction in the areas where you didn't lose the fat, we can help you in your overall body contouring at the same time, if we offer skin tightening, then that's a home run.

(10:15):

But we also are losing muscle mass. People that aren't going to the gym and aren't pushing weights or aren't taking protein, and even if they do to a certain point, they're losing some muscle mass. And so anything we could do to increase muscle tone, so fat reduction, targeted skin tightening, this is all non-surgical and increasing muscle tone. And we have such technologies. Ulvera is one of them. It's a hot new technology out of Tel Aviv, Israel, and there are others. And you ask the future, the future will remain body contouring, skin tightening, and muscle tone in addition to pharmacologic weight loss. People are healthier. They're losing 10 to 20% of their body weight fat average 15%. So a 200 pound guy is losing 30 pounds. He's showing up and weighing 170 on average. And women are doing it. You've heard it. You've seen it.

Tyler Terry (11:06):

Oh yeah.

Dr. Stevens (11:06):

Pre-diabetes is going down.

Tyler Terry (11:08):

It's everywhere. It's almost on every other street I'm on.

Dr. Stevens (11:10):

It's unbelievable.

Tyler Terry (11:12):

I've never seen this since it was like Botox of course. Then CoolSculpting had a buzz and then, whoa, Ozempic GLP-1s. It's crazy.

Dr. Stevens (11:20):

Yeah, there's no question. The drug intervention to lose weight is not going away.

Tyler Terry (11:25):

Wow. That was amazing. I just want to thank you again for taking time to be on the show. I'd love to have you on again where we can have you on longer, but I know that so many people in this hall want your time, so I need to be respectful to that.

Dr. Stevens (11:38):

Well, it's an absolute pleasure to be here, and I look forward to being on your show.

Tyler Terry (11:42):

Yes.

Dr. Stevens (11:42):

And I got to get you back down to Manhattan Beach and be on my show.

Tyler Terry (11:44):

Yes, sir. I'll take the girls this time. I'll take you up on the Boogie Boards

Dr. Stevens (11:48):

Yeah.

Tyler Terry (11:48):

Go hang with the girls next time.

Dr. Stevens (11:49):

A hundred percent. I can't wait to see you back down in the bubble, as we know, Manhattan Beach.

Tyler Terry (11:53):

Yes. Dr. Stevens, I just want to tell you thank you again and appreciate all that you've done for our industry, for our practices.

Dr. Stevens (12:00):

It's an absolute pleasure. It's delight. I love it.

Tyler Terry (12:02):

So thank you.

Dr. Stevens (12:03):

Yeah, my pleasure. Take care. Good luck to you.

Tyler Terry (12:05):

And again, for those

Dr. Stevens (12:06):

And thank you to Nextech,

Tyler Terry (12:07):

Yes.

Dr. Stevens (12:08):

For allowing this and helping us with Aesthetically Speaking.

Tyler Terry (12:11):

Yes, of course.

Dr. Stevens (12:12):

I love your podcast.

Tyler Terry (12:12):

Again, for those of you listening, be sure to check out the links in the show notes below to follow Dr. Stevens to also listen to and subscribe to the podcast also on YouTube, the Technology of Beauty. And again, thank you, Dr. Stevens. Have a great day.

Dr. Stevens (12:25):

Thank you.

Announcer (12:31):

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. Aesthetically Speaking is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.

TouchMD
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