Exposing the TRUTH about the UK aesthetics industry – Episode 2

A conversation exposing the truth about the Aesthetics industry with @dr.haroonashraf & HW Co Founder @samuelwarrington_hw 🚀

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people say a lot of the time the Market’s saturated I don’t know how I’m going to get clients how how do you be a top 1% practitioner in 2024 I remember seeing some stat during covid where they spent over2 billion pounds on out ofate PPE is a one-day course going to make you a good aesthetic practice oh hell no right Co not that controversial then cool I’m glad you mentioned that the NHS doesn’t always get the credit it deserves uh for example my sister when she was born she had a hole in her heart right she had to have like surgery have a Pac maker put in and the NHS for her have saved her life the most I’ve ever spent for a training course is 2 and a half Grand one day training course and I felt like I got my money’s worth I find that hilarious that people are doing advertisements for medical treatment saying that if you train with us you can drive a Lamborghini you can fly in helicopter I think it’s wild a bit controversial when we saying this but pharmaceutical companies don’t care who’s buying the product as long as someone’s buying bbl’s bazillion booty lifts the bad press around this treatment inside the last six months has been crazy do you think maybe like it’s just a treatment that shouldn’t be offered hey and welcome to another episode of the Harvey warranted media Aesthetics podcast now today we’ve got a very special guest a personal friend of mine a valued client and someone who’s absolutely smashing it in the Aesthetics industry he’s a trainer for one of the most prestigious cies in the world with seven locations Derma medical has a very successful practice of his own based in s Dr harun Ashraf how you doing my man very good thank you for having me you for coming on you know are you yeah I’m good man I’m good I’m always good always good a lot of exciting things happening and excited to have a fire conversation with you today amazing it’s funny because whenever we actually do talk on the phone we always say like bro we should just record this because it make a a great podcast in itself right so obviously you’ve been in the Aesthetics industry for a good number of years now you know you went through Medical School University and I know you’ve seen the industry change quite a lot in the last few years like what’s your experience been inside the last sort of six months with Aesthetics you know being a practitioner training for Derma medical what’s been your journey over the past 6 12 months yeah six to 12 months I’ll be honest not too different from the previous two to three years just on a slightly bigger scale so I think we started working together maybe two years ago two and a half years ago so we started incorporating some high level Marketing in with the a ICS as well so over the last I’d say yeah 6 to 12 months more of the same just a lot busier so I don’t really have much time off but doing lots of training doing lots of clinics just dayto day and then also trying to build the marketing side of things as well which you guys have helped me quite a lot with so I appreciate that of course I mean you being a great face of the brand always helps you know I’ve got to say for someone that’s in business your hairline is still hairline yeah you know what I’m blessed I’m blessed when it comes to the hairline yeah no hair transplants for me anytime soon my man my man it’s always a good day me and luk could go in man our hairlines going I actually booked in a transplant for next year serious yeah just the way the hair styled you can’t really see it if the wind blows it’s kind of you know have you tried PRP uh I’ve been recommended it actually by a couple of clients but I just thought you know I’ve got a client that’s a doctor up North I’m just going to get him to do it for me he’s sorting me out with yeah yeah yeah so let’s talk regulations okay I know that’s something that is huge within the industry right now everyone’s talking about regulations no one really knows quite what’s going to happen but regulations you know they are coming I’ve got some stats here you know let’s talk about the stats for regulations now if you actually look at the world of Aesthetics uh the USA is regulated the majority of Europe regulated the UAE duai regulated Canada’s regulated it seems like the UK is the only place that isn’t regulated why do you think this is and what’s your take on this I mean what you said is very interesting you go to pretty much any any other country in the world there’s at least an element of Regulation most countries only allow doctors dentists nurses um to do these aesthetic Medical Treatments unfortunately in the UK we’re in this very weird situation where anyone can do this treatment after this podcast you can do my Botox and there’s no law that’s stopping you from doing that which is quite wild um and you go down the rabbit hole of why why hasn’t the UK adopted some form of regul ulation and as I started going down this I guess Rabbit Hole you kind of realize who’s benefiting from their not being regulation um and I’m sure you’ll probably agree with me certainly the patients aren’t benefiting from people with minimal to no medical background doing these treatments so in the UK um as a medical professional you can obtain your um you can obtain your products from pharmaceutical companies but the same pharmaceutical companies are selling to non medical practitioners as well you don’t really need a qualification to buy any sort of Dalal fillers with botox is slightly different because it’s a prescription medication in order to administer it you need a prescriber doctor nurse dentist to administer um or sorry to uh order these products but then anyone can administer it which is a little bit strange in that regards so what I found is um bit controversial when we saying this but pharmaceutical companies don’t care who’s buying the product as long as someone’s buying so you see non-medical professionals buying you know quite a lot of these products um which is beneficial to the pharmaceutical company because they’re making more money they’re not really too fussed about who buys as long as someone’s buying and then again you go down other people that could regulate it because if the pharmaceutical companies wanted to regulate it they can just put a blanket rule only doctors dentists nurses or other medical professionals can buy these products and it fixes the problem of Regulation almost overnight um but the the other person or or organization that could regulate Aesthetics is the government so why hasn’t the government come in they always flirt with the idea every couple of years they say yeah there’s going to be some regulation and then it almost goes quiet and I’ve only been in the industry for about six years and even in this six years there’s probably been about two maybe three occasions where we really thought regulation was going to come I’m quite fortunate to be in contact with people that have been in the industry for decade decade and a half so 15 years and they say the same thing thing they flirt with the idea of Regulation and then it kind of falls on De is and no one speaks about it um so as medical professionals a lot of the treatments that we do are categorized as Medical Treatments therefore the tax around the treatments is slightly different for a medical treatment you are technically exempt of vat because it’s a medical treatment whereas someone who is not a medical professional can do exactly the same treatment and they now have to pay vat so the government’s getting that 20% they’re getting their 20% right so that’s why in my opinion the government hasn’t rushed to regulate it because there are a lot of non-m Medics that are doing these treatments they’re buying these products they have to pay VAT on the products when they do the treatments as long as they’re above the threshold then they have to pay 20% to the government so they’re the two main entities that can quite easily regulate it I don’t think it would be that difficult but I’m assuming the reason behind why regulation hasn’t come in so quick is because of profit profit Financial benefits it’s a really interesting View and it’s a view that I haven’t ever had a conversation with anybody about before but it makes so much sense like it’s not the first time Pharmaceuticals have been profit focused over health and safety focused right so I guess the question would be if the rest of the world see this as something that should be regulated what’s different about the UK do you feel it’s just simply you know Tories at a pharmaceutical company that are just focusing on the profit like you think that’s the main thing here because it makes a lot of sense yeah I I think that’s certainly one of the biggest factors I’ll be honest I think it’s just one of these things that were overlooked initially and then people started to realize oh we can make a decent amount of tax money from this or pharmaceutical companies are selling a lot more product in the UK than some other countries maybe but I think it was something that just wasn’t regulated in the past and then it’s just being pushed back and back and back and back I I think the other thing which is almost somewhat of a benefit is these treatments are Medical Treatments they can have some consequences but a lot of the consequences from these treatments aren’t life-threatening not all of them there have been cases where it can be I don’t want to say deadly but definitely adverse to health if these treatments were done incorrectly but generally speaking no one’s died from my understanding of aesthetic treatments um which is a good thing because it lets you know that these treatments are quite safe e even in untrained hands however I think from cosmetic outcomes patients do suffer um you know if someone has been doing let’s just say te triller for a month versus someone who’s been doing it for 10 years the Cosmetic outcome is going to be wildly different even though both the treatments were carried out relatively safely so yeah my understanding is that it was just overlooked because no one’s died from it because no one’s had serious serious complications and it depends what you consider as serious you know there there have been some pretty bad complications that have Arisen but it’s sad for me to say this I don’t know if the government’s going to step in until something really bad happens yeah yeah of course it makes a lot of sense I was having an interesting conversation with hany at Derma medical a few weeks ago about regulations he had an interesting take on it he doesn’t think that the regulations will ever be for Medics only to inject because if that happens his view is that’s going to take all of the Medics out the NHS that’s already massively struggling I mean you used to work in the NHS full time as a doctor I know you still do occasionally because of your duty of care right um what’s your take on that do you think if Medics only are able to inject do you think that’s going to take more doctors out of the NHS which is going to [ __ ] the UK more yeah that that’s actually a really interesting take and I don’t disagree with that I feel like if only doctors dentists nurses were able to do aesthetic treatments um I believe that there would be more people that go from the NHS and start working in Aesthetics um I don’t think it will be something that will collapse the NHS I feel like a lot of people that work in the NHS they know that they’re not doing it for wild Financial gains right they do it because they’re very um admirable they’re there to help people they love their jobs most of the people that I speak to in NHS um the parts that they don’t like of their jobs is um mainly to do with the paperwork around it the red tape litigation and trying to you know do a workload that not one person is meant to do but the actual job itself and I can speak from my own experience I I’ve spent you know two two and a half years working in the NHS a good portion of that I was working in a& and if you speak to my friends I I they will say that harun used to love working in A&E it’s a very interesting job you never get bored you’re helping people all the time there’s loads of variety but it’s the workload which is quite difficult and the lack of flexibility so I was working one in two weekends so I didn’t really you have that many weekends and a lot of the time you have a weekend off you’re struggling from the previous five days that you were working right so I think it’s the workload that people don’t like um but the day-to-day job I feel like most people enjoy it and a lot of doctors that go into the NHS they almost know what they’re signing up for of course um yes I think they should be paid more which is why you see all of these strikes happening at the moment and they should be and I mean my take on it is even if the government were to give them I believe it’s a 33% pay increase I I still don’t think they’re being paid enough if you think about what a doctor actually does in that situation right if they were to get paid from £4 to 19 an hour for someone to save your life1 19 an hour I think that’s wild right I mean I think the extra6 P worth it you know life or death yeah absolutely people have a lot of like mixed views on the NHS um you know you turn on the news you see how the NHS is really struggling which like no doubt it is because of underfunding but then I also feel like the NHS doesn’t always get the credit it deserves uh for example my sister when she was born she had a hole in her heart right so she had to have like surgery have a Pac maker put in and the NHS for her have saved her life every seven or eight years she gets the harman you know fixed um I think I don’t think fixed is the right word I think they replace it okay um and they’ve been fantastic to her right uh but then I feel like because of the the situation where it is massively underfunded like do you see as someone who’s worked in the HS do you think it’s going to get better or do you think it’s going to gradually continuously decline yeah I mean I I reflect what you say as well right I feel like the NHS is amazing it’s one of the best Health Care Systems in the world now there are of course better healthare systems but it’s free so you can have the most weird wonderful disease that you know super rare and you will get treated and you’ll get treated good it might not be world class there might be better providers if you go over the pond to America fair enough there might be shorter weit times I mean almost certainly there will be shorter weight times right and the treatment that you get might be a little bit better okay but you’re getting treated for free and pretty good now with non-life-threatening things I feel like the weight time is quite extensive but I feel like where the NHS does really well is when it comes to emergencies now you know generally speaking if you had an emergency heart attack stroke car accident you know you look at the way that doctors deal with that it’s excellent it’s excellent you know life-saving treatments I do agree when it comes to the I don’t want to call them mundane but the non-life-threatening issues I feel like there is room for improvement the question is is over the next couple of years is it going to get better or worse hard for me to answer that I don’t see it getting much better though that’s the unfortunate truth um the way that I look at the NHS is it’s great for patients but in order for it to be great for patience it has to be terrible for the people that are working in there so I feel like in the NHS you’re almost if you’re working in there you’re not getting paid that well you’re being overworked you’re probably doing the job of two or three people um in order for you to provide a decent service to patients because it’s free now the big question comes is what is the government going to do about this right do you think the government can probably spare a little bit more money for the NHS I mean we know what the government spends their money on right you know funding certain things we won’t go into too much detail about that but they they probably waste a lot of money right right I remember seeing some stat during covid where they spent over2 billion on out ofd PPE so they ordered a bunch of PPE it came they spent two bill on it and it was out of date so they can spend two billion on out ofd PPE right not just simple check right just is what’s what’s the sell by date for this PP so it wasn’t used it was just you know can’t be used if they can for them to deliver um that pay rise that the doctors are asking asking for um they have to spend roughly a billion extra a year roughly so if they spend wasted two billion on outof Dat PPE could they spare another billion for you know doctors for them to be happy with their jobs for them to feel like they’re not you know right next to broke working most definitely I think the biggest problem is though like the people who are in charge of the NHS have never had an NHS appointment in their life they’ve always had the Private health sector they’ve had the luxury of that so I feel like sometimes they’re just out of touch with daytoday people day-to-day lives right uh going back to the training academy stuff okay so looking at the training academy space um the the prices of these courses for aestheticians to you know learn the trade now has reduced massively so you know I I speak to some of my clients five 10 years ago if you want to train in Aesthetics it costs I couldn’t tell you the exact amount but some of my clients have said they spent over 10K 15K just to get properly trained whereas now a lot ofies a lot of reputable cies they’ve had to reduce their prices just to compete with the market average so you can now get trained in Aesthetics for as little as 12250 for some courses 15500 2,000 um where do you think this is going right because a lot of my clients are literally saying they they can’t do it any cheaper they want to get it back to where it was and what they paid to train so do you feel that regulations are going to help kind of bring the high ticket back to the academy space where it’s going to be more expensive again for people to train or do you think it’s going to stay at this reduced amount yeah I mean it’s a really interesting point I I mean I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about the pricing strategy when it comes to when it comes to training courses but I mean we can work through it I’ll tell you how much I’ve spent over the years anywhere between to 20 to 25 Grand on all the courses that I’ve gone either online courses or physical courses it it’s interesting right because again slightly controver but is a one day course going to make you a good aesthetic practi right not that controversial then I’m glad you mentioned that so yeah a one day training course is not going to make you into a world-class aesthetic trainer right I think people need to understand that it takes years of kind of focused effort the training courses have to happen but then you have to do your own work in your own spare time right so you have to spend a lot of money and time in order to be good in this industry what I hope doesn’t happen it becomes like a um conveyor belt where okay okay we just want to get as many people in we just want them to pay the money we’ll teach them really rudimentary stuff basic stuff and then at the door you’re off on your bike basically I hope it doesn’t become like that if regulation were to come in I mean I would see the prices probably going up actually um it I don’t know if that would mean more people would end up doing courses I mean the way that I think of it you know I’ll be completely Frank I feel like you have medical train tring organizations and then you have non-medical training organizations and I feel like for some reason the medical training organizations are trying to compete on price with non-medical training organizations so if you go to a uh non-medical training organization they’re usually not charging that close to what a medical training organization would do um it might be because there’s a discrepancy in quality that you’re delivering it might be because the clientele that you’re targeting are deemed to be high paid you the assumption is you know a hairdresser doesn’t get paid as much as a dentist for example therefore if we’re doing a medical training course we can charge a little bit higher so I mean I think if regulation comes in the prices are probably going to go up I can’t say that for sure but I I think so right um but I think overall the quality shouldn’t be hampered just because the price is going down it doesn’t you know if you used to charge three grand for a training course the most I’ve ever spent for a training course is 2 and a half Grand one day training course um what was that cause for good question it was called the artistic facial transformation um and it was delivered by Zach ali um who um we both know and he’s an excellent the big dog right he’s an excellent injector world class um and I felt like I got my money’s worth during that course it’s essentially a course where it takes all the treatments that um you have available to you and artistically you assess someone’s face and decide how you’re going to you know improve the way that they look it’s essentially a patient coming in saying I’ve got an unlimited B do whatever you think is going to make me look its best um I’m not fussed about how much it’s going to cost so that kind of really allows you to one be creative and also they’re the kind of clients that you do make a lot of money from but also the patient satisfaction is easily the highest if you can imagine if someone comes in you know there’s some treatments that I feel like are single areas they have high patient satisfaction tear troughs noses these type of things um I’ve only had about five patients that cry on me after the treatment um and four of them were noses one of them was a full face treatment so I feel like noses people have like a connection to with their nose right if they don’t oh yeah yeah big time with the full facial transformation I feel like patient satisfaction is super high because you know sometimes the results compete with surgery without surgery minimal downtime they kind of walk out with a result on the day you know 45 minute procedure so yeah yeah from what I’ve seen as well the non-surgical rinoplasti the before and afters I I see it and I’m like wow this is crazy the transformation it makes is just so no would you says from you know that like that emotional type of feedback yeah absolutely I mean nose is I feel like it’s such a big game changer it took me a while to get good at them but I feel like once you get good at him now like I’m pretty confident that any nose that I see I’m more than happy to at least you know give a decent change to even if they don’t fill the perfect criteria of who makes a good candidate I I’m you know quite confident and you you can probably see on my Instagram page I do a ton of noses so um it’s quite nice that people come to me and trust me with this kind of delicate area of their face um almost from a I guess it is I guess somewhat of an ego point of view not many people do nose as well so the fact that I’m able to do them well almost you know like tap myself on the shoulder right so maybe there is an element of an ego there but also the um the response that you get from patients most of them you know say it’s a life-changing treatment for them you go back 10 years you had to have a 3-hour operation for the nose I still get clients to this day that have had a surgical rhinoplastic and they regret it and they come to me in order for me to almost try and give them their old nose back so I think patient satisfaction Wise from a surgical versus non-surgical it’s significantly higher with non-surgical now you can’t treat everyone if someone’s got a really deviated septum you can’t get any functional benefit from adding filler to the nose but from a cosmetic point of view you know the gap between surgery and non-surgical results I think it’s getting smaller and smaller and I’d argue to say with noses I think the results are better yeah you touched on something really interesting earlier about getting good at certain treatments we’ll come on to that in a second because I’ve got a couple of interesting questions to ask you right but let’s talk about that in terms of how to actually get good within Aesthetics I’ve got some more stats here I’ve came prepared for some stats I like it so out of every 100 people students that train within Aesthetics the statistically only 10 actually ever start a business okay now out of those 10 people the stat is 50% of all startups fail within the first five years is we know business is tough okay so that means for every 100 students that train only five of them will ever make it past five years within the Aesthetics industry so what do you actually think it takes to be successful within the Aesthetics industry what’s your take on that yeah I mean those stats are really interesting because I would probably reflect I’ve been a trainer for coming up to three years I’d say um and it’s unfortunate but you know the stats don’t lie right every hundred people that you train um there’s only a few of them that you know even after a year they’re still asking me questions I follow a lot of my students online as well so I can see them progressing in their aesthetic careers or you know unfortunately sometimes not progressing right um it’s a big question but I think there’s a few factors that we can kind of dissolve it down I think the Hallmark of every good aesthetic practitioner is based based on their training so and that can be broken down into loads of segments as well so courses I don’t know anyone personally that’s just done a foundation and advanced course and become really successful in this I think everyone starts there I started there you do the basic courses but then you have to almost progress and do the more advanced treatments as well and not only do the more advanced treatments but really nail them down so for example teer TRS I can say personally it probably took me about two to 300 treatments before I started to think oh I’m actually good at this um it you know NOS is probably a couple hundred as well until I started to think oh I’m really good at this in a training course how many do you do right two three four if it’s a really busy training course so what the training course teaches you is how to be safe and a general structure of how you should approach a treatment however a training course is not going to make you world class whereas you leave the training course and then you apply what you’ve learned again and again and again so there’s a saying that I say to my students I say even if you’re an idiot and you do a thousand treatments you’re going to be better than a genius who does 10 treatments right so people if you just get the numbers in and dentists know this really well right they actually track how many procedures they’ve done surgeons as well so the more procedures you do just by the nature of you know learning a little bit here little bit there experience you just get good at it so I think in order to be good you just have to do the training courses which you know is almost the entry fee I guess in order to do these treatments and then you you have to go away and you just have to figure out ways to practice the one thing that helped me is especially in my kind of early couple of years doing these treatments because um you know don’t trust what you see in social media the first year you’re not busy right I don’t care who you are in the first year two years you’re not inundated with clients I haven’t seen someone who’s been super busy in the first year it’s good you say that right because most people won’t ever talk about that or the vulnerabilities so you know building for the first one to two years what what what does that look like it’s hard man it’s hard um I mean I was quite fortunate as soon as I came out of medical school um I did my first training course and the same as most people doing Aesthetics you think ah yeah I’m going to nail it in the first year I’m going to be super successful after 12 months of starting this company right um and yeah the truth is um is very different right in the first year it’s difficult it feels like you’re putting a lot of effort in and you’re not getting anything back that’s what it feels like in the first year in my first six months I probably treat um outside of the training courses maybe 10 people so there was I remember a two-month period where I was trying hard to get clients and it just it was just very quiet and I took loads of different approaches so I went to all the dental practices I went to 30 different Dental practices in I’d say a 10 or 15 mile radius and I said look I’m a doctor I’ve done these training courses can you give me some clients and we can do some sort of a profit share um one of those got back to me and to this day I would still go to that dental practice probably once every 3 months and just do a day there right um I’d go to salons in the local area and I’d say look if you give me clients I will bring all the products I will do the treatments at your vicinity and you take a profit share from that they don’t have to do much just have to find me the clients essentially so you have to do loads of I guess yeah difficult things it’s not easy walking into a bunch of Salon saying yeah look I’m a doctor I do these treatments do you want to spark up a deal right but I think in the early stages you just have to do a lot more and not expect much in return um and we were having this conversation earlier on there’s definitely a Tipping Point where in the first year two years sometimes three years you feel like you’re chasing after clients like I want to get this practice let me do these treatments on people right whether it be family members whether it be friends within your Social Circle people in the local area but then there’s definitely a Tipping Point where people will start finding you people will start searching for you and the honest truth is is clients are looking for high level aesthetic practitioners there is a demand for good aesthetic work so if you position yourself correctly then people will come and find you um so yeah I think the first one two three years is essential but it’s difficult don’t expect to make I mean I said to myself I’m making you know you know after a couple of months I realize yeah I’m not going to become uh this world-class aesthetic practitioner after a year so I kind of said to myself look I’m not even focused on the money side of things I just want to get really good at Aesthetics so so then my focus shifted a little bit and it shifted towards just being excellent at the treatments um so yeah that’s that was definitely the first couple of years other things that make people good and this definitely helped with me is gaining as much um learning from each one of your experiences so it might sound a little bit nerdy me saying this but before every training course I would go over all the course material and I would basically answer my own questions before I even went to the training course so there would be certain questions that I had what is Botox can you treat this area with botox what is dermal filler can you do this what are the risks Etc so I’d go through I’d know the training manual before I’d even go bearing in mind I was a broke F1 and I was spending a lot of my money for these training courses so I was going to learn the maximum amount I wasn’t going to go there and just sit there not ask any questions and leave 100% got to get your value for that’s it that’s it so I probably annoyed some of the trainers that trained me cuz I was just chewing their rears off right um but that’s what I would do and then I would leave there and every every nugget of information that I got I remember Zach Ali once told me off because I was just there with my notepad and pen and writing because I stop writing pay attention right I’m like I’m going to forget if I don’t write this down right um so I would go home and then I’d have documents that I would just write of things that they said that aren’t in the courses because they they dropped gems and Nuggets that I know I’m going to forget in a week’s time right so then I’d go home i’ write all these documents I still got these documents to this day you know I’d say yeah dozens of pages so that was me gaining the maximum amount from each training experience and then when I would see clients I would reflect on each client physically reflect I would go away cuz I would only have a client a month right so I need to gain some learning out 100% so then I would go back and be like Oh my consultation could have been better because of XY z Oh I shouldn’t explain risks like this I should explain risks like that oh these injections I maybe could have done better because of x y and Zed so I’m trying to learn as much possible as much as I possibly can from each one of those experiences and then you notice you get better quicker and I was doing that for the first I’d say two to three years easily and then it got to a point where it’s like this isn’t efficient anymore I’m quite busy now so I can’t just go away and write a document every time it’s interesting to hear your take on that because that’s really good advice so hopefully whoever listens to this who is in the training process you know they can take that on board because it’s really it’s I find it fascinating because although we’re in different fields it’s like when I first got into marketing I would when I invested in a trainer right I’d absorb everything in their office I’d write stuff down that they didn’t even tell me to write down and sometimes people looked at me funny like bro what you even what you even doing I’m just thinking I’ve paid a lot of money and when I first started I was skin as well right I was like I am going to get as much value as possible and success leaves tracks as well abolutely you know if you can learn from the top 1% of your industry it’s like you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel you can just pick up little pieces from everybody who does things well and amalgamate and merge them into your own style yeah you know no matter what industry you’re in uh just staying on this slightly right so the industry saturated in Aesthetics okay um there’s more practitioners today than there’s ever been before the industry is growing in Revenue it’s worth billions and billions of pounds to the UK economy annually how do you actually stand out to be a top 1% injector because people say a lot of the time the Market’s saturated I don’t know how I’m going to get clients how how do you be a top 1% practitioner in 20 24 yeah great great question um the the whole saturation narrative it’s an interesting one right I do agree with you there are more practitioners now than there ever has been I don’t know if that’s I would agree I would um assume that it’s worldwide but certainly in the UK there’s more people doing Aesthetics than there ever has been however if you look at the way that the actual industry is growing there’s more people doing aesthetic treatments than there ever has been I think it’s growing I think 12 to 13% year on you don’t quote me on the exacts but it’s growing year on year right and you’re right it’s you know worth billions of dollars at this point and it’s not slowing up the treatments are getting better people are being um people are more confident to go and get these treatments right um across the age board by the way you you might have someone who’s in their 60s getting their first aesthetic treatment you might have someone in their 20s getting their first aesthetic treatment so I think people are getting more and more confident to have these treatments and I think social media is a Big Driver of that you know people see these things online it looks straightforward it looks simple these are the results that I like it looks like a safe treatment so I think the industry is growing not just the practitioners but also the people that are seeking these treatments as well um and the analogy that I gave earlier on today is the way that you separate yourself is by becoming the best in your area it’s as simple as that right and um if there’s you know 10 Barbers on your street it seems saturated from the outside but the person who’s the best on that street the best barber it’s not saturated for them because they’re the best everyone goes to the best right so if you position yourself to be a really high level aesthetic practitioner you’re really good at what you do you produce excellent results people will naturally gravitate towards you so my kind of advice for people that are trying to get into Aesthetics and trying to separate themselves um results talk right we’re in a very visual industry where you can just put out your before and afters and you can let everyone else judge them um so if you are putting out good before and afters if you’re work is genuinely good then people will naturally gravitate towards you um so that’s the way that I get over the saturated thing so we’ve talked about Zack Ali A few times today it’s never been saturated for Zack Ali right everyone you know he has people flying him from all over the world to see for the viewers right yeah who might not know obviously he’s a top G who is Zack Ali yeah so Zack Ali fine I I’ll tell you my first experience of Zach Ali right he actually I mean I ow him a lot because if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing Aesthetics right now maybe maybe um so I was in my third year of medical school and I started to have doubts about working in the NHS for those that of you that don’t know how the medical school kind of process works in the third year you start spending more and more time on the ward so you start interacting with doctors consults people that you know in 20 years time you’re going to be in their position and I’ll be completely honest I didn’t really love what I saw even the people that were excellent at their jobs they didn’t have the life that I could kind of think oh yeah what a great life they’re overworked they’re helping tons of people which is fantastic but they’re overworked they’re underpaid they don’t spend that much time with their family they’re always at work they’re always staying late you have people in their 50s that have a couple of kids young kids and they’re staying until 7:00 when they finish at 5:00 so I just thought you know what this isn’t something that I love so I actually took some time out of medical school which is where we actually met um so I I 12 years ago I say 12 years ago man oh stop stop it that makes me feel old during that time I went to a talk called medicine Stay or Leave cuz I was in this weird place where I was like I don’t know if I’m going to go back to Medicine I only had two years left of studying but there was this talk that was essentially a bunch of doctors that had finished their degrees and instead of saying in the NHS they started doing um other things whether that be going into property development whether that be going into um kind of medical technology like it Solutions these type of things and there was a bunch of different people speaking on that and one of the speakers on that was Zack Ali and he came out and he just blew me away for 45 minutes he talked and I promise you at the end of that talk I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about but I just thought you know what I want to do what he’s doing very charismatic guy he talked about Aesthetics he talked about dermal fillers he talked about Botox and I’ll be honest I didn’t really know what any of that was I’ve never heard of dermal fillers I somewhat knew about Botox but not really in a lot of detail but at the end of it I was like okay this guy seems really successful he’s kind of gone the same route that I have been in the past where he’s gone through the medical schooling system and instead of working in the NHS he’s decided to do this um and he seems really passionate seems like he’s quite successful as well so yeah after that we kind of spoke in a lot of detail even after the training course um and I said you know what this is something that I’m going to do when I finish so then that was one of the main reasons that I went back into Aesthetics uh went back into Medical School finished off my Medical School degree and the plan was as soon as I finish I just start doing this um and the first training course that I went to um it was his company um now Zach is um yeah I guess a worldclass aesthetic injector he’s been doing it for ages um I want to say like 12 to 15 years um excellent injector knows his stuff inside out but he’s also built um a fantastic training company as well which he’s now sold um and he’s kind of taken a bit of a back step but um I owe a lot to him he he kind of taught me not only only that Aesthetics is a um is a real career route for people it’s not just something you can do on the side it’s something that you can build a business from and you can kind of not only become financially successful but also a lot less stress um there’s definitely stress right everything has stressed but a lot less stressed than a busy a&u department for example um and also there is a skill element I’ll be completely honest when I first started I thought you’re just putting FID in people’s faces you’re just injecting a face right there’s no Artistry behind it but he really made me realize oh there is a skill behind it and the better you become at that skill in turn that will mean that you will become successful and you will kind of build a career around it so so he was like your Mr Mogi for Aesthetics yeah I’m very blessed actually I’ve had loads of Mr mogis to be fair I’ve had loads of people to be fair that have kind of yeah added little bits and pieces but he was probably the first person that got me into Aesthetics certainly um and also yeah I’ve been to a lot of training courses that he’s delivered um I’d say yeah there’s been a handful of people that have kind of really shaped my career he’s one of them AMR Tiara who you know quite well as well he is the CEO of Derma medical at the moment great guy right so he’s another person not only from a technical point of view has helped me out a lot he he he was kind of the one that really helped me understand how to treat the underwrite area also noses as well he’s kind of really helped me just add a layer on top of Aesthetics right just becoming better and better just going among the differences of non-m Medics and Medics Medics see all of these treatments as uh Medical Treatments and just the general premise of medical treatment is is someone suitable for this treatment will they benefit why am I doing this treatment whereas with a non-med it might be more business related oh I’m doing this many mills therefore I’m going to make this much money whether they’re suitable or not now I’m I’m generalizing a little bit right but I think the backing of a medical professional they generally speaking shouldn’t or wouldn’t do treatments that patients might not be suitable for whereas with non-m Medics you might have anyone that comes in through the door wanting a BBL and the thought process might be oh I’m making a grand from this hour and a half procedure potentially so I think that might be one of the reasons there’s a handful of people in the UK that are doctors that are doing bbl’s and I think they’re doing it at a very high level um so I’ll shout out one person I don’t know him personally but his name is Dr Dooku uh one of my friends Works closely with him um and he is a doctor he’s got loads of experience in BBL he loads of bbls um and his results look great they don’t look overfilled unnatural he’s got loads of reviews so I think with most things if it’s done correctly it can be done in a safe manner um but unfortunately because the UK is unregulated I feel like the complications that you get from injecting one mil versus injecting hundreds of Ms is usually more severe oh of course yeah yeah that that’s my guess like some of the complications have been lifethreatening like they from what I’ve read some of them have been bad you know um you don’t really see that as much with it’s like you said dermal filler or facial Rejuvenation packages I want to get your take on something K uh a lot of my clients have been talking to me about certain things within the industry recently and I feel that there’s quite a lot of misinformation within the Aesthetics industry when it comes to the training academy side of things um you know not all training academies are very small percentage but they promote the good life right like for example there’s certain adverts that you’ll have people chucking money out of helicopters driving the Lamborghini spraying champagne having money showers you know and that that’s spreading the narrative where if you train in Aesthetics this is going to be your life I work with like 45 Clinic owners some of them have nice cars right but you know like you they’ve been in the industry six years 10 years 15 20 years and it’s not really in my opinion what it seems but I want to get your take on it because of course it’s a great industry you can make a lot of money but what’s your take on this yeah I mean I find that hilarious that people are doing advertisements for medical treatment saying that if you train with us you can drive a Lamborghini you can fly a helicopter I think it’s wild um so yeah I mean as you mentioned in this industry you can make good money right um but it takes a long time it takes years to even make a living for me my first goal was make the same amount of money that I do from my NHS career once I’ve done that okay I want to double the amount of that I make from the NHS career and at that point where I’ve doubled it then I’m going to leave the NHS so for me it probably I mean I can talk figures I’m quite happy to talk figures if if you’re happy for me to talk figures so in the first year I wouldn’t even say I made any money I mean in the first year I I almost certainly made a loss because I spent a lot of money on courses so even when I did a handful of treatments made a couple hundred quid here and there I would pump all of that money back into training in my first year basically didn’t make any money in my second year I was very um uh lucky that through uh a social contact um I ended up working at a clinic in Birmingham um the clinic is called secret Aesthetics I still work there to this day and that allowed me to um not only make more money but get more practice as well so it’s it was a game Cher for me because when I started working for this Clinic they were giving me 10 patients in a day so I was getting for me it was more the practice I was like okay instead of me doing one patient a month I’m now seeing 10 patients in a clinic day and I might do four clinics in a month getting like nearly for a whole year exactly one day yeah so for me that personally was a game changer and I encourage a lot of newbie practitioners to try and affiliate themselves with an established Clinic because not only are you making significantly more money you’re also getting significantly more practice and sometimes the person can have a mentor role as well where he kind of helps you up your game as well so for me that was like a game changer and I started to realize doing two to three days at secret Aesthetics I was making the same money in a month and the NHS so for me that was a game changer but to get to that point it took two years I was in the hole when it comes to money at this point I probably spent you know I’d say seven or eight grand on training courses maybe even more than that in the first year year and a half and then after that um I started working for um Derma medical so as a training organization which they pay well I’m not going to lie it’s good I do it more than just for money cuz I think training you know you almost want to give back to the people and I feel it makes your game better as well when you’re training it almost makes you better I feel like it makes you have to stay sharp 100% 100% you have to stay on top of your game and another thing is bit of a side point it makes you question everything you do why is my hand here why am I stretching here why am I going in at this angle not this angle and you almost have to justify everything so it really kind of makes you take a step back and assess your own treatments because P um uh trainees will ask you these questions oh why are you going in like that why not this I saw this on YouTube why aren’t you doing this so I have to be able to justify why I’m doing everything and put a rationale behind it so you know I always give the analogy of driving right when we first did our driving test we would be on job we would have our both our hands on the steering wheel we’d look you know you know in all the right places and then eventually you kind of I don’t want to say slack but eventually you find your habits one on back talk for yourself up I’m joking I’m joking um so yeah so for me I I was quite lucky that I was a trainer quite early on in my career so it made me not develop any bad habits whereas if you see someone who’s been doing it for 10 years but they haven’t had the opportunity to train they might have these bad habits that they’ve just developed over the years and not realized it but I was quite lucky early on in my career I was able to um rationalize everything that I was doing and being in a training environment you’re around a lot of other high-end injectors as well so it almost indirectly makes you bump up your game as well because there’s all these other great injectors that have got significantly more experience than me why are they doing it like that and I’m an inquisitive person I’ll ask a bunch of questions so I think that was really helpful and financially it works out quite well um so where were we so yeah second year uh that for me that was like my transition year it’s called an F3 for those doctors that are watching where a lot of people take time out of their NHS career and do a lot of looming which means that they make a lot of money a lot more money than what they would kind of in a standard day job and then they might consider going into training for me that was a year where I was going to try and make Aesthetics my career essentially so that year I was doing a lot more Aesthetics um a lot more marketing I was doing a lot of videos content creation just to try and get my name out there um and um that year I was doing a decent amount of locom shifts as well and every time I would do a locom shift it would be tough I’d do you know 12 hours in A&E and it would be quite quite hectic and then I’d see two patients in clinic super nice conversations really relaxing and I’d end up making more significantly more with those two patients than I would with you know 12 hours in the an shift so there came a point where I was like okay I’m you know I don’t really enjoy it I don’t love it the same way I used to it’s very stressful it’s very hard for me to do both I remember hearing this saying you can’t chase two rats right you have to chase one rat so for me Aesthetics was that rat so I started doing a lot more training I started doing a lot more clinics um I started working a clinic in Brighton um I started doing more in London um and then it it the better you get I feel like the more money you end up making as simple as that right the better you are in Aesthetics the the more money you end up making so you know to throw some figures out there after about two and a half years three years of being in Aesthetics um I was making five figures which is quite you know if you come from you know a med five figures a month five figures a month yeah so yeah over 10 grand a month which in the NHS if you were to give 20 years to the NHS or let’s say 15 years to the NHS and you become a consultant um you might not even make that you know most Consultants they run anywhere between 80 grand to about 120 Grand on the top end now they can supplement their income through other ways but generally speaking they’re given 40 hours a week to make around a 100 Grand and 100 grand after tax is about five grand six grand I think a month something like that oh I I don’t when it comes to py is but wild me too me too yeah yeah I’m making a big assumption but yeah um I know that the tax is 45% 40 or 45% after after 45k everything’s I think it’s 45% that’s crazy so I mean if you do the math 100K a year salary you don’t pay 40% on the whole thing it’s what you after the 40 price to that it’s 20% yeah so you’re not left with much no you’re not with much at all this is the thing right and again the benefits of having a limited company right but yeah for me that was like oh okay so after three years of giving a lot of time and effort and you know people watching I don’t want them to think oh yeah three years just do a little bit here and there and then you know I can make five figures a month right for me it wased your life dedicating everything right every spare moment I had I was just doing the sets I was either watching vide online of other aesthetic practitioners I paid for a bunch of courses I was constantly learning about Anatomy um and we’re quite fortunate in this day and age of the internet where you can just go and research stuff now you have to be a bit sensible you can’t just watch anyone um but yeah I was either watching a video online I was reflecting from the treatments that I did I bought anatomy books I bought specific aesthetic books as well that I’d read about I’d learn about beauty structures um proportions of people faces so I I kind of did everything I possibly could to be good quickly and I was you know I was quite lucky during those times as well where only after two years of doing Aesthetics I worked as a trainer only after a year of doing athetics I got picked up by an established clinic so there was elements of luck right but um I I believe that I I heard this from somebody I don’t know who said this but it really hit home for me luck is when preparation meets opportunity so you met someone they put you on but do you think if you weren’t knocking on 20 30 dentist doors a day making those cold calls asking for collaboration studying harder than anyone else do you think you would have got those opportunities I guess we’ll never know but you know when you think about it that might be probably in my opinion it’s definitely why you are where you are today you should put in more work than the majority so you should be proud of yourself man really well thank you man appreciate that but yeah there’s there’s always an element of luck but you’re absolutely right I think if I let’s say if you know I got the call to become a trainer and my anatomy knowledge was rubbish right or my results were rubbish and I didn’t know my stuff then I wouldn’t be a trainer for very long right there’s decent amount of turnover as well so I I feel like yeah absolutely but for me the big changer was okay I’m making five figures a month this is really good how did that change your life how did from earning zero to five figures a month like how did that change your life so I mean no Rolexes no Lamborghinis no Ferraris nothing like that right yeah nothing like that right I wasn’t throwing money around um it just gives you an element of security and freedom I think that’s for me what it was right right um for me I want to kind of take my family on holiday when they want to go on holiday I want to take a couple of weeks off when I want to take a couple of weeks off I never want to have that inkling in my head where oh are we going to be able to pay for x y and Zed so that was the main thing for me um and how did that like how did that feel from never having that to finally having that yeah what kind of huge man yeah I mean it was um yeah it’s interesting right I feel like me and you are both quite similar in the sense where once you hit a goal it’s like all right what’s the next goal what’s next yeah what’s next right where sometimes you’re right you should kind of sit down and say okay I’ve done all right I’ve hit my goal I should almost enjoy it to some extent um I recently went to um holiday after ages I mean I was just working non-stop and then my wife my mom and me went to antalia only for 5 days it wasn’t a long trip but those five days it was like okay cool out where we’re living okay right we’re doing okay we can kind of do the nicer things in life I don’t think we’re on the level of you know every time I go on holiday I’ll rent out a Lamborghini not not there yet right but I think it’s nice that okay cool we can go to most restaurants that we want to we can eat whatever we want to we can um you know do activities where we’re not too fussed about the financial implications now we we’re all you know in my family we’re all quite sensible we’re not crazy people where we just want to buy you know you know gold Rolexes watches all of this right so we’re all quite sensible but it’s nice just having that security for me it was was always that it was always secur it was never um yeah I want to be the richest person in the room it’s like no if I can look after my family if I can look after you know my future kids everyone’s okay no one’s really worrying about money that’s cool that’s the most important thing you know I feel like materialism is so pointless in a way because there’s always something better to buy there’s been times where I’ve bought nice things for myself it’s really nice right for a couple of minutes maybe a couple of days and then you just forget about it so true read something and it said um whatever you can buy from the mall will not mean anything in 10 years it won’t mean anything to you nothing at all yeah and that really hit home for me an interesting thing for me right and again I feel like you have these experiences and you know again it might be lucky or it might just be putting yourself in that situation but my cousin um if he’s watching this how you doing U you okay um he very close to me and he’s very successful in the financial industry he’s a little bit older than me but he um couple years ago bought a McLaren beautiful car I think it was a 720s really nice McLaren and growing up when I was younger I was always like oh I really want a super car it’s like the top goal right I want to drive around in a super car um and it was a beautiful car and I would sit in it he would drive me around and then he went on holiday one day and he said look I need to park my car in your house um he was flying from Gatwick and he was like look you can drive the car if anything anything happens to it you’re paying for it I was like okay I’m probably not going to drive it because if anything happens to it I can’t afford you know a couple of thousand um this is when I just graduated from med school um and for about two days I was like I’m not touching it and then on the third day I was like you know what there’s a there’s a McLaren parked on my drive I might as well right I was like I drive cars what’s so different about this guy it’s just a car right and then for about another five days I was just driving this McLaren to the gym to the shops it was my car for five days like the guy honestly for the first I’d say couple of days it was like yeah I’m the man young guy in this you know beautiful car but it gets to the point where it’s like is this it hon I swear to God after about a week I was like I’m so glad that I had that experience because now I know this is not the be all and end all this is not some like this huge goal that once I achieve I’m going to be so happy and fulfilled um so it was a really nice experience for me to basically drive this car and pretend like it was mine you know people take photos people say what do you do and I have to lie because it’s not my car um but yeah after that experience I was like this is nice and I hope in the future I I get to experience this again with my own as my own car but it’s not it’s not this it’s not life it’s nice but it’s not life like you’re quite similar to me I had to learn the hard way you know the industry I used to be in I had a Rolex financed Mercedes financed and I done that because that’s what I thought I had to do because that’s what people were telling me to do in that industry including my managers but I actually realized that it doesn’t bring happiness it can help like having money is is is good but I think it’s a toll right so I’m similar to you what I love is looking after my mom my girlfriend making sure that you know if I stop her earning money today I’m I’m all right I’m all right not forever but for a while I’m going be okay and I can look after my people absolutely that’s like the most Alpha feeling of always being able to look after your family 100% for example my mom she’s always struggled for money she’s like she’s never without but you know she makes enough to survive when it comes to holidays she finds it hard and all of her friends are going to I beeer in July she goes I be Legend and um she was like it was tight for her to to pay for it and I saw she was just breaking her back trying to work extra shifts in her job yeah and um just asked her how much is it she tell show me how much it was and I was like wait here went upstairs got the cash out yeah there’s your iby for money yeah that’s I want you to have it and my mom’s a very tough woman the only time I ever see her emot is when I give back to her because she still thinks you’re my little boy I should be looking after you I said you did for 18 years I’m nearly 30 now it’s my time to look after you and that feeling oh my God man beautiful isn’t it it’s beautiful it really is and I don’t know if there’s a slight selfish kind of meaning there because it makes me feel good but you know she’s happy doing it um yeah it’s just the best feeling in the world absolutely man and I think nothing beats that and you were just going back to what did it mean um making that money and I think it was like my mom’s in pakist on right now U my grandma was here for about 5 months um and she was just spending time with her grandma things like that I feel like is is priceless so my grandma’s been to the UK probably two times in her entire life absolutely hates it doesn’t like the UK she lives in Pakistan um and I kind of said to I somehow convinced her to say look come over to the UK and just spend a little bit of time with my mom and my mom has never spent a since she’s been married she’s never spent like a prolong period of time with her mom just because she’s been raising us and every time she would go and see her it’ only be like a couple of weeks holiday so I kind of and my mom loves looking after her own mom as well you know I feel like both both our moms are quite caring people right so I said to my mom I was like let her come to the UK and she can just live with us for however long she’s able to Bear the UK right until she wants to run back to Pakistan and surprisingly she ended up saying for like you know nearly six months and during that period it was almost like okay I’m quite busy so I’m still going to spend time with her cuz she’s living in my own house but Mom you take her wherever she wants to go she wants to go get that food get her that food if she wants to go to the beach you can take her to the beach and um that feeling is just super nice and my mom’s super grateful for it um and you’re right there’s you know I would rather spend 10 grand on that than something that I’m going to wear on my wrist 100% 100% yeah and if you live in London I wouldn’t even advise that you buy a 10 grand watch and put it on your wrist because people are getting stuck up for that watches every day I had a client come into the office uh Tuesday last week right yeah um had AP on his wrist okay and that’s like a 25k watch and I was like that’s you’re asking for it yeah I was that’s a really nice watch but I was just out of curiosity do you wear that like do you wear that around London and he said no he can’t like he refuse to wear it I mean it’s okay coming to my office which is in Sor God is get in the car get out you know tucking it over your sleeve but then it made me think even with my watches and I don’t have any APS I’ve got a couple of nice time pieces Classic Time pieces I don’t really wear them anymore I don’t feel comfortable wearing them it’s crazy is it first time I felt comfortable wearing it was when I was in Dubai a few weeks ago yeah you’re fine out there yeah wear whatever you want out there so that’s another thing with the watches I think like you know if you you’re earning some good money just think about what you’re going to invest it in yeah I mean don’t get twisted I love a good watch man I love a good car so these things I I really enjoyed but you’re right it’s it’s limited happiness right they look good you feel good for about a week and then it’s the same as any other watch right you just want another one you just want another one right it’s that what’s theism where it’s like gratification please myself with these things and I think everyone should have a nice watch I feel like everyone should have a nice car right that they enjoy driving but I think there’s other more important things the thing that really winds me up is when I see um you know fairly youngish people that have made a decent amount of money and instead of treating their family members that were there for them they decide to buy a chain a watch a car for what and most of the time was Finance anyway right and I’m thinking for what your your mom’s never been to a high-end restaurant and you’re in this high-end restaurant with three of your mates with a rolly on your wrist that is probably not even yours or you financed it and that kind of winds me up a little bit and it’s like your mom’s you know your dad’s a taxi driver or your dad’s been working hard for his entire life to raise you for me that was like the first thing that I wanted to do once I made a bit of money I was like okay cool I’m going to take my mom to nice places where she’s never been to where she doesn’t even ask for it but I just want to it just for the sake of it so for me it was like I almost felt guilty when I went out of my mates to a nice restaurant cuz I was like okay sweet I now need to take my mom to this restaurant as well yeah yeah yeah so yeah it’s good that you have those morals though and I feel like when you’re younger you are naturally more selfish I mean just talking from my experience maybe you’re a different I was quite selfish as a teenager in in my early 20s um I think when I got to sort of 24 25 five years ago now um I started to really kind of hone in on what’s important family friends relationships connections holidays experiences that’s the stuff that stays with you forever you know treating your loved ones so just talking about that like what is your end goal here because you’re working hard you’re doing well got the five figures a month if you’re training industry leaders at a hugely credible Academy Derma medical your business is going really well as well mindful Aesthetics um what’s the end goal for you what you working towards yeah it’s interesting right and again you’re like me where you have a goal you hit it you’re like okay what’s next right it’s really interesting so I’m in this position where um I I need to take it to the next level now where I I work in quite a lot of clinics I do a bunch of treatments um you know on a weekly basis the training I don’t think I’ll ever give that up I I love the training aspect I think it keeps me sharp and in order to be an industry expert you have to keep that training skill as well the teaching skill so for me it’s almost I sometimes scratch my head and think why are they even paying me to do this I’m just standing up and talking to people right so um that aspect I don’t think I’ll ever drop you know in the next 20 years I think I’ll continue training um in regards to the actual treatments itself I still really enjoy doing the treatments I feel like I’ve spoken to a few people that have been in the industry for a long time and they almost say that I can’t do that many treatments anymore they just don’t have the mental capacity or they don’t have the patience for it so they end up dwindling it down to one day a week two days a week and I just enjoy doing the treatments I mean I always compare it to A&E and it’s like would I rather spend 12 hours in A&E or would I rather spend 12 hours speaking to lovely clients and treating them and seeing them happy and making good money in the meantime as well right so I can’t see myself stopping um or slowing down to be honest I think the next step really is to transition into um opening up my own Clinic um and then trying to expand that’s basically what it is now that might be a twoyear plan that might be a 5e year plan but I think that’s the natural progression right because at this element where I’m I’m doing a lot of work in other clinics which is great but I think I have to factor the I almost have to take the leap and be like okay I want to open up my own clinic and then I need to start teaching and recruiting other doctors dentists nurses and kind of yeah building like a little mini Empire of Aesthetics right so I think that’s the goal it might take five years the the interesting question is is do I do it in this country or do I do it somewhere else um because the Middle East seems quite appealing at this stage so huge opportunity huge isn’t it yeah really is it’s very saturated though I was quite surprised when I went to Dubai a few weeks ago um it felt like every other shop was a clinic or spot but it’s like you said earlier saturation is only a problem if you’re doing the same thing as everyone else yeah so I think the plan would be to really establish myself here and then when you do go over to the Middle East you’ve already built up a little bit of a name for yourself so it’s not like you’re starting from scratch again again we’ve talked about Zach a lot but when Zach went over to the Middle East wasn’t saturated for him um he had already built up quite a big name for himself in the UK uh his reputation from the UK yeah held way in Dubai absolutely yeah yeah yeah he was inundated when he went to the mid East how did they find out about him just from his high net worth clients that good question so so he actually had a lot of people that would fly out um yeah so from the Middle East they would come and they would have treatments with him and then they’ll go back um I’m quite lucky cuz I’ve inherited some of his clients and um and yeah they’re high net worth individuals that come get the treatments they don’t live in the UK they might have a holiday there and then they get the treatment there at the same time but I used to have a lot of people that used to fly out and I think because so many people are coming to see him from the Middle East he thought let me just do a clinic a month in the Middle East so um yeah so that that’s the kind of he’s almost got the Playbook right build a really big name for yourself in the UK and then when you go over to other countries doesn’t matter where you are there’ll be somewhat of a demand already built up for you yeah Mak a lot sense but yeah I don’t know man it’s it’s strange right because Middle East has all the benefits you tax benefits safety benefits the education whatever the education’s good everyone’s nice everyone’s friendly food’s great out there but I don’t know it feels like so good out there yeah food’s good it really is that’s one thing that impressed me about the buy food everywhere was fantastic yeah everywhere you went it was great right it’s a high level you can never go wrong with food places that I haven’t anyway but one thing that I found was um even pricing Wise It’s not that expensive you know you have a you go to a mill in central London it’s probably more expensive than if you go to a decent restaurant or even a high-end restaurant in Dubai so it’s not yes yeah I I said the same thing um I found that if you go to like a novakov or noou in London and compare that to like Asia Asia in Dubai yeah it’s not that crazy different alcohol is more expensive out there to be kind of expected okay um but then I’ve got friends that live in Dubai and they say petrol is cheaper groceries are cheaper um rent compared to London in the most part in Dubai is cheaper yeah mad cheaper and the properties are nicer a lot nicer right so it’s interesting but I mean it’s strange right but UK just feels like home I don’t know what it is born and raised it I mean I remember 5 years ago we moved house right and I don’t know how familiar you are with kind of s geography but I lived in a place called merom right you know merom right not the nicest of areas um but there are area it’s like a very farmy area but then there’s also areas where a little bit rough not great little bit run down kind couple of dodgy roads opposite the petrol station yeah yeah yeah there’s a few dodgy areas and it’s funny CU we had five years ago we moved house um to the place that I’m at of the moment and it’s the first time we’ve ever moved as a family and we moved from merom to Red Hill which is about a half hour walk a 10minute a 10-minute drive right and it was crazy I kind of said to Mom like why didn’t we move like somewhere far away and I think we were both just quite comfortable in this location even though it’s not the best location it’s home isn’t it it’s home it’s tough man I was kind of born and raised in around Red Hill and it’s like I know the shops I know the people my friends are here um my mom’s friends are there as well so you know for us to go and move up north or something that wasn’t even you a conversation and I feel like Red Hill although okay you compare it to R gate there’s differences but it’s it’s it’s safe it’s it’s okay it’s quite nice there’s definitely worser places similar to me I grew up in South croon 23 years of my life majority of my life I’ve lived in South Kon and it still feels like home to me you know um so there’s something that gravitates me to the UK I love the UK but then I love to hate it yeah I hate on it I hate on it there so many bad things that I say yeah I mean we have this conversation with my friends about the education system and um you know taxes and opportun is available for people all of these things right who’s in power the government we have all of these almost like conversations where we do slag off the UK but the same time it’s like it’s going to be hard to leave I I feel like I will at some point but doesn’t have to be forever doesn’t have to be forever yeah and I feel like the UK despite what people say it is good for business there’s a lot of good entrepreneurs clever entrepreneurs here great place to make you know great place to make money taxes are unfortunate but then if you look at the majority of the world it’s kind of the same like a lot of the places in the US are the same a lot of places in Europe are the same um there are some tax Havens even in Europe you’ve got like Lisbon Portugal a lot of people are going there or the UAE you have to buy yeah um but you know it’s not like the UK is different from everywhere else in the world I that tax that that’s that’s life you’re guaranteed to get taxed it’s interesting right because another thing about London is I feel like from Aesthetics I don’t think there’s anywhere else that’s better in the world London if if I think about high-end injection uh high-end aesthetic practitioners um I don’t know anywhere better in the world than the UK to be honest there’s there’s spots in America and I’ve done a few training sessions out in America as well so I have a bit of an understanding there and there’s some really good practitioners there but if we’re talking about density there’s so many good practitioners in London and we feed off each other right and I remember someone saying that if you want to be the best go to a big city and be the best there cuz the level of competition there is going to force you to bump up your game so if you want to be the best in London it’s going to be significantly harder than being the best in Brighton for example right Yorkshire some you know smallish Community where it’s not as competitive right so I feel like with London it’s just yeah it’s full of highend level aesthetic practitioners which will force you to bump up your game and I feel like a lot of the stuff that we’re doing in in London not many places are doing it there’s few techniques strategies all of these things that I’ve seen in um primarily in der medical because we’re quite a large team now that I haven’t seen anywhere else I see you know certain ways that you treat the underwrite area we’ve Spen about the under area a lot but it’s a tricky area to treat I haven’t seen anywhere anywhere in the world and I follow loads of people in loads of different countries I have certain ways that we treat the under right area even you know noses midface these type of things I’ve not seen it anywhere so that’s another reason that I want to be close to London I’ve got a client in New York and she said that people in the states love working with people in the UK I don’t know if it’s like the accent or the way that professionals are taught but she just said like you know that we have a good reputation for business and for Aesthetics yeah in the US and I feel like even in Dubai I notice because we’ve got two clinics in Dubai as clients okay they like doing business with people in the UK yeah they do I wonder why that is do you think it’s again don’t want a stereotype but people in the in the Middle East they’re a little bit more laidback they’re not as Savage maybe I think the UK people are polite we’re so polite we like the most polite in the world I notic this when I go on holiday we like to queue up and we always say please and thank you and not every culture is like that so I think the politeness helps that accent might help um London’s quite a trusted place for business I feel when you look at other places of the world they like to do business with people from London okay I I don’t know as the answer this is just my own personal kind of speculation um what do you think yeah it’s interesting I feel like people in London work hard yes I think that’s the thing if you go to the Middle East I don’t want to slag off the whole Middle East actually but let me just rephrase that you go okay I’ll talk about my own country so Pakistan for example my my family are I’d say 70% of my family I said in Pakistan so we go over to Pakistan quite frequently and I interact with my cousins my friends in Pakistan or my um uncle’s friends that sort of stuff and there’s definitely a more laidback approach you know it’s hot during the day let’s just have an afternoon nap okay you know what it’s really um busy in the afternoon so let’s take the morning off okay we need to eat three four times a day so we’re taking big breaks from work right not living they’re living live right they they got a really good like work life balance and I guess partly because they’re quite family orientated out there so there’s a lot of time that you have to spend with your family members as well so not everyone I mean my uncle he’s in the Army and you know I would hate to have his schedule it’s crazy um very hardworking but generally speaking you know if it’s a hot day shops won’t open until after about 3 p.m. once the sun’s gone down so it’s a bit more of a relaxed slow pace um not everyone but generally speaking and I think in London it’s just yeah nonstop you wake up at 6:00 a.m. you’re in the office at 7 8 you’re there until you know you can’t work anymore you come back and you do it again it’s probably because to survive you need to pay like four G’s a month yeah yeah yeah you know not easy to live in lond yeah that that’s a really good point a lot of people compare New York and London they have similarities you know it is a hustle culture we are hard workers for sure yeah I think the UK is a great place to earn money the buy is a good place to spend yeah I’ve heard that before I that told me so I’d like to finish off by asking you a question to the viewers that might listen to this who are starting out in the Aesthetics industry maybe they’ve recently qualified maybe they’re in the building blocks first couple years struggling to build that client basee what would your message be to them for them to be successful within the Aesthetics industry what would be your message yeah that’s a really good question um so I think you have to spend a lot of time on your skills when you train to become a surgeon you spend a decade on the skills themselves and I think with Aesthetics um I think it is easier to be an aesthetic practitioner than it is to be a surgeon for example but I think some people have this idea of oh I can go to two or three training courses and within 3 months I’m going to be lip queen or nose King and it just doesn’t happen you know good things take time so I think be patient with yourself um don’t expect to make a lot of money in the first couple of years don’t even be focused on the money aspect of it the money will come but I think really pay attention to you becoming a good aesthetic practitioner you do have to still spend time on the business element of it but I think when you first start off you should spend the majority of your time just getting good at the skill um with botox you can learn it relatively quickly you do a 100 people’s Botox you can do everyone’s Botox with dermal fillers I’ve done over 8,000 treatments I’m still learning today I’m still tweaking little techniques that I do so with dermal fillers be patient with yourselves with botox you do 100 you can do anyone’s Botox after that really um but yeah spend I’d say 80 to 90% in the early phases getting good at the skill itself and then spend maybe 10 to 20% of your time on building a business building a brand doing the marketing website all of that stuff client acquisition really um and eventually it will start to tip you’ll realize oh I’m actually getting really good at the aesthetic side now I can start spending more and more time doing more marketing building a business around myself um but in the early phases definitely focus on being good at the skill because you can be the best marketer but if you’re crap at the treatments doesn’t matter the words are going to get out all your clients are going to be onetime clients they’re not going to come back to you but if you nail being good at Aesthetics which is difficult it’s not easy it can take years to become good at what you do and it you know a lot of trial and error um but if you can nail that then everything else eventually falls into place so that is probably my number one advice number two advice trainer at Derma medical because I’m a trainer there no I’m just kidding but Derma medical is arguably one of the best training companies on the planet there’s a few others that I think are pretty good so acquisition Aesthetics and interface Aesthetics who’s run by a Maxa surgeon I think they’re both pretty good training acmis um but I don’t think anyone’s doing it like Derma medical to be fair doing some big things I mean that scalability you know Miami UK India yeah no one else is doing that what I’ve seen anywhere I could be um I went to their office last week wow it’s blown away yeah you just they’re a real prestigious company and they’re not slow going down they’re going from strength to strength so big up hamr the CEO yeah yeah yeah big up ham Hy all the rest of the team good guys right so just had an amazing conversation with herun thank you so much for coming through mate thank you appreciate that man pleasure likewise and uh of course I mean we speak regularly anyway we got projects on the go um we’re going to have some pretty cool guests on this podcast we’re going to try and do one every single month the goal is bringing the best minds of the Aesthetics industry on a podcast to give value inspiration and just some general knowledge in terms of the industry right now so thank you for listening if you like it like comment subscribe follow what’s your Instagram tag Haron uh dr. Haron Ashraf dr. Haron Ashraf and Harvey wared media Samuel Warrington HW is my Ig as well and uh thank you for tuning in