Episode #771 - Dr. Chad Deal's Recipe For Success In Cosmetic Surgery

Welcome to this edition of the million dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Let's just go back to the. You start your cosmetic business and what year was that?

So that would have been 10. Yes, 2010.

But I'm looking at here you started, you know, you were finalists in the best of the best awards for best cosmetic surgeon and 211 every year since 2011, it sounds like pretty much, yeah. How did you get on the radar that quick? I mean, just because of sheer volume.

So again, this is a big blessing. Just imagine if you're in a field like plastics where you've got to be a master of everything. You got to do craniofacial abnormalities on children, you've got to do hand surgery, you've got to do major wound flap reconstruction, burn patients, and then you get just a little bit of training and aesthetics. It's very hard to get really good at body contouring. I like my name, Dr. Hydef. I'm actually obviously Dr. Chad Deal. But this brand because I'm able to literally, I can take a man and by the time I'm done with him in four hours, he looks like Hercules. I'm, she's shredded in between all of his muscles. No implants. Legitimately, I'm talking we have to be in some decent shape. Right? Some decent. And when, when I'm done, you look like you're ready for the front cover fitness magazine. Right. That comes from a lot of training and a lot of repetition, a lot of work. So I was able to compete in such a tremendous way at such a young age with my results on breast and tummies, etc, this branding, this high def and high definition, like everything that I was doing to some extent where most people were just barely beginning to learn how to even do the procedures well, four or five years into their practice because they're doing so few of them. So all of a sudden I come on the scene and everyone quickly in my town knew if you're getting your mommy makeover, your tummy tuck, you've had your two to three kids and you want your bikini body back. Dr. Deal's the one to go to it quickly. Word got out on the street and again, that was a blessing. I, I knew what I wanted to do. I found the busiest fellowship I could find in the country. He took one person, I got that fellowship. I went hard. It was all Part of the plan since 17 that defined this. I didn't know where, but I knew what I wanted and I didn't know where would land me and all the logistics, but that's how it worked out. And I, you know, if people get anything from my story, like, well, gosh, I'm not in medicine. Yeah, but there's still, I think, a lot to learn about planning. And I often when I try to motivate people and say, you say, well, how are you so good? Early on it was all planning. I didn't just wake up and it happened. This is what I try to tell people. You know, think about a four to five year old child, they don't even think about tonight. The cookie in front of their face. Living in the moment, truly. Yeah, yeah, maybe what, nine, ten. You start saying, what do you, what are we going to do tonight? Mom, dad? Yeah, okay, how old are you? Before you start thinking, what are we going to do this weekend? I don't know, right. 15, 16, something. But try to ask a 16 year old to plan a ski trip with her friends three months from now. Yeah, never going to happen. They can't plan three months ahead of time. What you find, if I find one single thing that has to do with both success and maturity, they're parallel maturity and success, is that you're able to think ahead of time. And that's why in fact insurance companies, they know via the data that they won't even let you rent a vehicle until the age of 25. And the reason for that is you don't. The average human does not begin to think about life and death. And if I speed and if I do this, I could die until about the age of 25. In fact, that's skewed because for women it's 24, men it's 26. So they average it to 25.

I see.

And what I find is whoever is able to shrink those planning years and bring the way you would be as a 30, 35, 40 year old into your 16 year old self somehow and you already begin thinking about the rest of your life at 16 and 17. That's the single number. When I said I think planning, what is the key to success planning? So you say to me, to start this conversation, you said, how did you just within one year, all of a sudden, planning. I got in this great fellowship, I had all the cases, I knew exactly where I was, I was focused, hyper on body and it was allowed me to just take off.

Yeah, it's a great concept to get in your mind that you can have, like, you can have two people in a business for 30 years and they don't have the same experience because one can have one year of experience and they live that 30 years, 30 times, whereas the other person is continuing to grow every year. And they got really, you know, theirs are compounding and multiplying, you know, and they're on another level, which shows how far down the road that you've been able to. It's a little bit of a way of looking at how you've been able to out, you know, outstrip your competition because, you know, you've been learning.

I'm learning, I've been learning, and I've never read that. You could say, well, this is a negative and positive. And I will accept either criticism. I've never read a business book. I've never read an inspirational Tony Robbins. None of just came from watching. I talk a lot with people and watch them and for instance, it blows my mind when, like other doctors want to be successful in a med spa, they will listen to the famous academic head of Harvard. Guy's never run a business in life. It's all academic idol. Or the person who wrote all these volumes of books. They've never been operating. They're too busy writing novels of books. So you're trying to make a successful business and you're talking to famous academic people. No, you want to find the guy who doesn't even want to lecture because he's on a yacht, right? He's killed it. And you want to get his number somehow meet him somewhere, maybe follow where all the rich people go. Art Basel in Miami. Go, go to Formula One, find these successful people who don't want to spend the time to teach. Right. A lot of times they'll share with you if you're hungry enough and come find them. They, they get a kick out of they that mentoring is fine, fun, it's exciting. But the ones that are outwardly pushing themselves on you to inspire you constantly, they've got something to sell, right?

And you've made a great case for this podcast, because that's the whole reason I do this, is to give people exposure to the people that know what they're talking about and. But otherwise they wouldn't have access, you know, they wouldn't have access, you know, the chance to have this conversation. That's why I'm always so very appreciative when a person at your level will take the time to talk and share things. Because of the way I look at it, I'm sure you do too. It's a way of giving back because it's, you know, it is fun to succeed yourself, but beyond that, it's nice to be able to pass, pass the baton on to the next generation. And you can have kids without really having kids. You know, it is.

You can. Oh, what? I've never heard that said before. You can have kids without that. I love that. You can have kids without having kids. That is a beautiful way to say it. It is chicken soup for the soul. For me to take someone who was struggling and, and, and I would even have people say, why are you in teaching other people even close to you in competition how to have a successful med spa. You're shooting yourself in the foot. I'm like, there's enough business for everyone. And honestly, boy, that makes you feel good. Yeah, right. Maybe I didn't go cure blindness, you know, and, and, and, and give a lot of time, but I did change a lot of people's lives. And now look, we've got over 70 employees. Gosh, almost 80. I think at this point, if you look at our med spas and I'm legitimately, I look back and go, wow, I have been responsible for feeding that many families.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And you know, we have our yearly, we do a big Christmas party every year. We get everyone together and their spouses. And I look, we've already, we overdo the occupancy of this one wonderful restaurant every year because we've gotten so big. And I look around, I'm like, I cannot believe that we did this.

Yeah.

And I'm like, and all these families that count on us. And I'm like, wow, that's one of those what's. Where I stop and kind of go, okay, look at that, that rung in the ladder and go, wow.

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You know, people tell you you need to smell the roses. You know, on some of these stuff that's smelling the roses right there is, you know, where you can see and you can measure it. You know, you see from one year to the next and look them, look them in the eyes. And it's not that you're at a special place, you're having a great time, but other people, the impact's being made in their lives. And so when you grow, one of the things in business is the relentless necessity for marketing. You know, it's like no one, you know, we're not guaranteed our place in the marketplace, and we've got to get out there and earn it like everybody else. So talk about your social media.

What.

What. What you've learned about social media and why that's such. Become such a priority for you.

All right, you. You're going to love this. I'm telling you, you can look it up. This is all the truth. It's going to seem like I, I made. Made this stuff up. I never had. Everyone's going to think, oh, you grew up with all this stuff. I never had a MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. I had none of it. I had none of it. I never took a single picture of my food or a picture of me. A selfie. Someone never done it. Never. In fact, I was always like, you know, like, that's ridiculous. I never did. Well, we did all the traditional forms of marketing, right? And they would change everything all the way back to the Yellow Pages a long time ago. And of course, getting on billboards, tv, radio, ad spots, all this all over the place. Well, there was a. I did have a mentor with this, for sure. Dr. Mark Loney, known as Dr. Feel Good, of all things. Yeah, how's that for a name? Dr. Feel, right? You got to get a name on Instagram. And, you know, his first name, I think first started on Snapchat. But anyway, he told me because I, I trained him a lot. He was already, what he. Maybe 10 years ahead of me and had a wonderful career as OBGYN later on in life, did a lot of the cosmetic training and was an incredible surgeon. And I would even fly up to Providence, Rhode island, to help train him. He's in Fall River, Massachusetts, but I just remember always finding the Providence. But he was telling me, he's like, chad, you've got to do this social media thing. It's the wave of the future. And he was telling me that, I don't know, seven, eight years ago, maybe almost even longer. It seems like this is the way to go. This is how you can get to your Patients, I'm telling you, I was like, like, come on, Dr. Feel Good. You really came up with the name Doctor. I mean, come on. And you know, all these funny little skits and all these things again, it felt like maybe even longer, maybe nine years ago, I don't know. And I refused now, right? I charged at the time, three, four years ago, only $6,000 for a gummy breast dog. That is cheap, right? When most people are getting like nine. Okay? I had a. I'm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is only two hours north of Atlanta. All right? I had a lady from Atlanta, he called me up, she flew over me when she could have drove all the way to Providence, had him do the surgery because he's Dr. Feel Good, spent $9,000 with him and still had to pay the flight in the hotel, etc. So now you're up over 10, 11,000, whatever. Because she had her surgery done with Dr. Feelgood. I trained him and I've been doing this for way longer. He'd only be doing it for a year or two. And I'm only $6,000 in a two hour drive, okay? And I said, that's it, that's it. It's on. Okay, I'm wrong. I'm clearly wrong about this. And I said, all right, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go hard to the paint like everything else. I remember sitting there with my youngest son. Remember how old he was at the time? I don't know, gosh, what would he have been like 11, 12? And I told him, I said, all right, Christian, here's the deal. I've decided to become famous. And he's like, dad, you don't decide to become famous. I was like, no, I've decided just like anything else in life. I've been studying all this stuff. It's not really hard. It's just an algorithm like anything else. I've decided I'm going to be famous. And he's like, dad, it just. You are because you're a famous sport or athlete or something. You don't just get to be famous. I said, I've studied it. Just like medical school and residency of thing. I've studied and studied it. I know exactly what I need to do to become famous. So anyway, I go, I go hard. 50,000 followers Instagram. I ask him on my phone to say, I want you record and tell her to say that I'm famous now. He said, dad, you're not famous. You're not famous unless you got a hundred thousand I get a hundred thousand. He still refused to tell me I'm famous. He ultimately said something like, okay, well, when you hit half a million, I hit a half a million. Then he said, oh, well, you have to be verified to be famous. I got that blue check mark back in the day, the old way before. You can just pay for it now, right? Put it on my hat. So I went up to him, and then he said, no, no, no. Everyone's famous has a million followers. We got a million followers and the blue check. And then finally he said to me, okay, look, dad, until we go out somewhere traveling, and someone says, you know, aren't you Dr. High Def or whatever, whatever, then you are not famous, because famous people get recognized. I said, all right, this is it. You've changed the goalpost so many times on me. So when I get recognized now, we were in Miami at a restaurant. I think it was Komodo. His name was Great Sushi Place in Miami. And I were walking to our table. It's me and my girlfriend, my two boys. And I walk past this table with these three ladies, right? And I saw them whispering and pointing and this. And I was like, oh, I. It. I knew it. They recognized me. So I went over there and like, aren't you that dancing doctor, that crazy? I was like, oh, well, you know. You know, and I. I'm yoking it up with them, and I point over at my son, hey, would you wave at my son over there? And so they're waving at him. And I went back to the table, and I was like, well, there you go, Christian. They knew Dr. High Def. And I got recording on my phone that I'm going to cherish forever, where I got him to say at the dinner, okay, dad, you're, like, a little bit famous or something like that. So long story to tell you that. What I recognize is that social media at now is kind of the wave, and things could always change. And I've learned that marketing is a moving target on what works today doesn't work tomorrow. But I realized the outreach is unbelievable. And the way I've tried to describe it to people is right now I have a free network where I get to run free shows, where I get to run free commercials. So, like, your network is like Instagram, for instance, right? Okay. And my channel on that network is Dr. High Def. And my shows on that channel are maybe before and afters. Maybe it's a comedy skit, maybe it's a trending skit, et cetera, et cetera. And then while I'm doing all that entertaining on that channel with that show, I can then run ads before and after a percentage off, et cetera, et cetera. So just like you do with a network like Turner Broadcasting has T and tbs, they've got different channels. And those channels have shows, maybe Family Guy or whatever. And then on those shows, they have 23 minutes of entertainment and seven minutes of commercials. You're doing the same thing. And I learned the problem that people have with social media is they're all commercials all the time. They're nothing. But who wants to watch a show called All Commercials?

Yeah.

You know, if I focused more on the entertainment and much less on trying to be commercial, then I could grow. And if I stay real and organic and relevant and then watch the trends and really treat this all in. And that's how, that's how it happened. We, we. I have a team of three social media members here in my office. Three. And they're all excellent at what they do, and they're all very hardworking and they all truly. They'll tell you they work seven days a week because you got to keep up with all this stuff. And whether it's a skit, whether it's a dance, whether it's something, I will look at any. My mind is now trained that if I see anything in the news, if I see anything relevant at all going on in the world, I will somehow morph that into a really funny cosmetic surgery skit. Be entertaining. And I will try to do way less showing my before and afters, because most people know the results are great. They can go to the website and see that they. They don't need it. And I'll get more consults and more business off doing a silly skit than I would ever get with the most incredible before and after.

Wow, now when you started, or, or let's just say for right now. Now, which. Which platforms are you pushing the most? The Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.

Instagram has really been the juggernaut, but I will tell you, it's going to be replaced by TikTok. TikTok's already been moving much quicker. In fact, when I go live, the, the TikTok live is what I would say, tenfold more popular. And there's, there's reasons for that. If you go Tik tok live, people that don't even follow you can. Can see you. You'll come up. So TikTok is really the next wave. But it doesn't hurt to also always be on Facebook. You're Going to get a different group of people. Also be on YouTube, you're going to get a different group of people. So I would say YouTube, Facebook, kind of in the third and fourth. And right now Instagram's still first, but I will bet you very soon it'll be TikTok will be first.

Yeah. Now, when you started, you didn't know nothing about nothing other than you were going to do it. And so talk about your transition into it in terms of content.

Will I study it?

Three people working for you at the time?

Yes. Well, I did in the beginning. I studied and I studied. I got an Instagram for the first time and I studied. And what worked and what was getting views, what, what was getting the quote, engagement. I had to start learning all these words, the comments and what was real, what were bots, all these things. And after really studying, I said, you know, there's no way I'm going to be able to be a surgeon and run this practice and do this. I'm going to have to have someone that does this full time to be able to help me. And so we reached out, we had a couple people in the beginning that were good, decent, help us kind of get started. And then I found someone who was really good at it. Excellent. And then he needed help and then he started building a team around.

How did you find him?

Well, he had already done a lot of media stuff for major concerts like these EDC style concerts and drones and footage and editing arts himself. And one of my favorite things to do early on was you can still recruit, you can still, you can use normal recruiting sites for, for any sort of, you know, indeed, etc. Right. You get people to apply to the job and give them a bunch of B roll footage at lunch, tell them to go to lunch, even pay for their lunch, tell them to take a long 2 hour, 3 hour if they have to lunch and come back after lunch and give you a video. And whichever one gave you the most interesting less than 60 seconds clip with the best etc, that's the one I would hire. Because I didn't want someone who could make a masterpiece in a week. I wanted someone who could produce something that was an 8 out of 10 in an hour. Right? Because we have 19 channels. Every provider, every surgeon, every nurse, injector, every esthetician, they have a channel and they have a name. You want to have a name. It sounds silly, but you want to have a name and you got to produce.

So all of the. Everyone who works for you has their.

Own channel and they're if they're a provider, if there's support apprehensive. But if they're actually someone injecting or. Right. Or actually providing the service to the patients, they do. And there was a study done, I wish I could reference it for you. Maybe you could look it up. That showed what was the number one thing that determined whether or not patients had confidence that you were the best. And it wasn't what school you went to, how many years of experience, how many board certifications, what people said about you, believe it or not, it was your name. And if, if, let's say you live in New York, if you name yourself Dr. Lipo New York and that's your name, Dr. Lipo New York, everyone's going to think that you're the best liposurgeon in New York. That is so petty and so true. So here you can have all these board certifications and all this training, yet someone who didn't have any experience comes in, it's Dr. Lipo New York and they're taking all the business. And I thought, okay, this is silly, but I'm going to play the game now. I knew it all my high def stuff. So I took the name Dr. High Def and my work matched the name and every single one of our providers, I give them a name that really matches what they do and what they do well. And with these three media and I'll tell you, my three media folks would already tell you they want a force. They're probably already overwhelmed. But isn't that crazy that in one surgery, practice and med spa, three employees that do nothing but social media.

Wow.

They do other, they do some other marketing and events, etc. I shouldn't say that, but that's the focus.

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