Surviving COVID-19 from a Physician Who Did

Topics Discussed In the Following Video Include…

Dr. George Liakeas discusses his recovery from the ventillator during his battle with COVID-19.
Dr. George Liakeas gives his best tips for helping your patients fight COVID-19 and win.
How the Priapus Shot® procedure may help with some of the damage caused by COVID-19
How COVID-19 has caused an increase in erectile dysfunction.

Video/Recording of CMA Journal Club, Pearl Exchange, & Marketing Tips

Transcript

Dr. Charles Runels:
Today, we have an amazing guest with us. Dr. George Liakeas. He is an amazing intellect in New York City, has an office on Billionaires’ Row. But he’s a humble, down to earth, brilliant man. He personally remodeled his office. They are in one of the high rises, so he can hammer a nail, and he can figure out your medical problem.
But the reason I asked him to be on the call, he also displayed the grit that you would expect from a Greek warrior, and both survived the ventilator with COVID-19 as well as kept his business running through COVID. So I’ll put him on the call here shortly, and before I do that, it looks like he hasn’t logged in yet. So I’ll pull him in as soon as he does, but before I pull him into the call, I wanted to bring up a couple of things that I think will help you take care of your patients.

Erectile Dysfunction After COVID

First, this came out about COVID causing erectile dysfunction. Here’s the paper it’s referring to. I’m going to put this into the chatbox. There’s a couple of reasons for noticing these papers, one scientific and one more to do with marketing/medical.

The scientific version, of course, is that people with any illness COVID or the flu, or anything that affects their peak health can affect their sexual function. But there’s also discussion here about the possible, just like you can get a mild carditis from a viral infection, possible orchitis or change in testosterone levels, just from the stress that comes with fighting off an infection.

So that’s the medical thing we should know that should heighten our sensitivity and eagerness and willingness to discuss sexual medicine, even in the middle of a pandemic.

The marketing political version of it is that as an example, I will show you this one where one of our doctors in London, Dr. Shirin, who is just an amazing doctor there who teaches for us as well, has got some press because she noticed that she’s having more people who are locked up with their lover and they’re finding out they can’t use the office as an excuse for not to be having sex. So they are having to face their sexual dysfunction and coming to the office for Priapus shot.

I’ll give you that link as well to Dr. Shirin’s article. And I’ll tell you how you can leverage this with your local press here in a second. It’s very common for us as providers to get a local press on the television or the radio leveraging the national press. It’s hard for newspeople to come up with something new every day. And they’ll often want to bring a national story into the local arena, and I’m giving you a way to give them news.

So this is from the Cleveland Clinic, but it’s made the popular press Cleveland Clinic. I’ll give you this one too. I’m about to tell you how to get on your local TV show for free if you choose. So that I’ve put in the chatbox. By the way, if you click these things in the chatbox, they will be open when I shut down the webinar. If you don’t, they disappear.

So I’ve given you the link to Dr. Shirin’s press piece to the NIH article about erectile dysfunction, and it’s open-source. So you can just see the whole article there. And as well as to the Cleveland Clinic article that references the one about erectile dysfunction. So here’s a couple of ways you could use this to help people in your community.

One is by just, of course, seeing, recognizing, and asking your patients who are coming in.

And second is by going and sending out an email that talks about this. And I’ll add one other thing to include with this in a second. Here, I’ll give you this link as well. There are actually six papers out that show Botox helps with depression. And I think everybody knows now if want to go to look the research is all over the internet about how COVID and locking people up is causing a bump up in depression and suicide and drug abuse, and divorce. And people are feeling locked up, and that makes them sad. So there’s now six papers published about Botox helping depression, even in depression that’s resistant to antidepressants.
So you have here now two reasons that you can actually, for medical purposes, talk about what people want to push into an elective thing. People are so depressed. They’re killing themselves or turning to drug abuse. That’s not cosmetic. And I would argue that cosmetic is not really an optional thing. Looking pretty makes people feel better. How many times have you seen someone who’s on chemotherapy, but they just want to look prettier.
My sweet sister, my baby sister, contracted breast cancer. And then it recurred in her liver. After, she wanted PRP in her scalp because she wanted her hair to be there as much as possible, even when on chemotherapy. So this is where I would use the F-word if I am tempted because it makes me angry when people want to say something that has to do with just looking pretty is not important.

It is.

So how could you push this out?

You could call your local reporter and say, “Hey, the Cleveland Clinic is talking about how COVID is causing erectile dysfunction. One of the causes is a change in hormones, another cause could be a change in just fatigue or energy level. And another cause may have to do with circulation. I have ways that I’m treating all of that in my office. And so if you want, I will do a story about, and let you interview me about this and just mentioned offhandedly, but the main thing for your listeners or readers or watchers, whatever will be about the news. But of course, I’ll want to mention that I treated it in my clinic.”

And then you send them an email with links to that I just gave you. And I will be shocked if some of you don’t make it onto your local news, then you send out an email to your people about the same thing, where you say, “Hey, if you’re locked down, you’re not feeling so happy these days, and you’re suffering from sexual dysfunction or depression. I have some ways that I might be able to help you.”

So okay, beautiful. I just got a link that… Here let’s see if I got a text that George is on the call and must be signed in under someone else’s name. I don’t see his name. Hey, George, if you could raise your hand or something so I can identify you, I think it must be on someone else’s computer or something. So that I can unmute you because people want to hear your story.

Okay, let’s see if I can find him. He is supposedly on this call. Let’s see if I can find him. George survived, his businesses survived, and he survived the freaking ventilator. Give me a second. Let me figure it out. Let’s see if I can figure out where he is. I’m just going to call him. Sometimes the freaking… I’ll call his wife. He’s got a brilliant wife who runs his office there, and I’ll bet she will answer the cell phone. Here we go. And she will know where he is.
Nicole:
Dr. Charles, [inaudible 00:09:45].
Dr. Charles Runels:
Hey Nicole, I don’t see George on the call. Is he on the call?
Nicole:
Yes [inaudible 00:09:50], just hold on one second, please.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Hey, Nicole, let’s just do this, can you just hand him your… you guys, I have the phone on speaker so you can just hand the phone to him, and we can do it this way-

Dr. George Liakeas’ Tips on Surviving COVID–physically and financially

Dr. George Liakeas:

Can you hear me?
Dr. Charles Runels:
Perfectly well, so much easier than trying to do all the freaking webinar links. So guys, let me introduce you to George and his wife, Nicole. I’m going to pull up where you can see his picture. Here he is. And this is his website where he teaches. But obviously, this is a personal thing. I mean, when you have a near-death experience, that’s a personal thing. But I felt like maybe there are some lessons to be learned. And George is a natural-born teacher. He has residents come through his office there in New York City, and he teaches an amazing class for us. And many of our members have come through his classes, but I thought, how can you go through both making it as a business in New York City and making it off a ventilator from COVID and not learn something.
So I asked him if he’d be kind enough to just share whatever he thought might be helpful to the group. And here he is. So you are up, George if you want.
Dr. George Liakeas:
I’m here.
Dr. Charles Runels:
They should be able to hear every word.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Well, thank you for having me. So I still can’t, I’m still not speaking back to normal, one, this is not my voice, normal voice, and two, you’ll hear me often gasping for breath. I feel fine, but anyone who hears me, it’s a little bit scary, and it is what it is. In fact, the other day, we have a relative who was celebrating her 99th birthday while we, my wife and I were celebrating our anniversary. And this person always includes them in our anniversary celebrations. And there she includes herself because, at 99, I guess you only have a few left, but the comedy was that she couldn’t blow out her candle. I couldn’t blow out my candle. And Nicole had to blow out to all three candled, and it was really… It was like, whoa.
On the one hand, it was obviously comical. And on the other hand, my mother, who was sitting there, was saying, “I can’t believe my eyes.” So believe it, coronavirus is a little bit scary. I don’t know why. I’m only 49 years old. I don’t have high blood pressure or diabetes. I don’t know why I ended up on a ventilator. It is a different world now, that’s true. Forget about the vaccines, which whenever they are available. Thanks very simply some of the things we didn’t know where I’m just stand back in March. I got it at a time when we were telling patients to not wear masks. Not only were we telling them the masks were unhelpful, we were telling them to not wear masks because the CDC and the department of health organizations were telling us that masks you fidget, et cetera.
So that’s when I got it. I think I know a few patients that we were testing and might’ve given it to me. One of them I spoke to not too long ago, and I said, “Paul, did you ever… How sick did you get? Because I think you gave me coronavirus.” He says, “I don’t think so. You probably got it from somebody else.” Maybe, also, maybe not anyway, whatever. I don’t know why I was even bringing it up, but it’s become sort of a comical part of my life. And I can only say this, of course, because I survived.
At the end of the day, people said, “Well, what did you learn?” By the time I got sick, I had tested about 30 people positive. I had tested probably 80 people in total. I mean, I was testing them on the street, and because we didn’t want them to contaminate the office, Paul snuck upstairs and felt he was fine, didn’t want to leave. So he was a good example of how easy it is to contaminate your environment.
But even when we were testing, even when I was testing people on the street and I would say to them, “I’m going to put this in your nose, or even you put it in your nose, don’t cough, they might make you sneeze or cough. Don’t cough in my direction. Don’t cough in that puddle. Don’t cough on that guy’s car.” The city was empty. But I would tell them these things and test them right there on the street. And as they put it in their nose, and of course you see stars a little bit. They would turn to me as if to say, “I’m about to sneeze, get away.” And then they would sneeze in my direction even though I was [inaudible 00:14:27] as if I told them when you sneeze, sneeze on me.
I already know a few people that tested positive that did not follow my directions. I wasn’t wearing a mask. That’s probably how I got it. But what was very strange was that they had all… when I would call them two and a half days, three days later to tell them, “Yep, you’re positive. Now stay home and quarantine, et cetera, et cetera.” They all said, “Well, I’m shocked because I am better already.” So when I proceeded to get fevers, fevers that were shocking because I mean, I don’t remember having a fever of 104, and it’s not going down with Tylenol, but otherwise, I felt fine. No shortness of breath, no cough, no nothing. And I, too, was telling my wife, “I’ll be fine. Give me a few more hours. Give me a few more days. Let me sit here in the corner of our bedroom, I’ll be fine.” And she was very adamant that I should go to the emergency room.
And, of course, she’s not a doctor. Why would she be telling me what to do? But to appease her, I went to the stupid emergency room. And as I get there, of course, I have some patients who are patients in the emergency room. And I’m waving at them through the glass, et cetera. And after being there for an hour, wondering what I’m doing here, because who’s smarter than me, right? I don’t need to be here. All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe.
And then I told you the comedy about it once before I’ll spare everybody the trouble. But basically, then I had to call the telephone number that I was given by my nurse. And she must’ve gone on break. So now I’m calling the front desk of Cornell University, New York-Presbyterian hospital’s emergency room, trying to tell them that I can’t breathe. And they’re telling me, “Sir, speak up. I can’t hear you.”
Dr. Charles Runels:
And this is where I just want you to pause for a moment because if you did a sitcom and George when he wants to be, or even when he’s not trying, he could be very comical. But I just want to make sure people get the picture. You’re in the ER, but there’s no one near-
Dr. George Liakeas:
People say even come to examine me. You got to get suited up. So they put me in an isolation room, and I’m by myself feeling fine, minding my own business, waving to my friends or patients/nurses, et cetera. And then all of a sudden I can’t breathe, and there’s no one to tell-
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yes.
Dr. George Liakeas:
So then I have to call the front desk. Apparently, instead of what was supposed to be the charge nurse’s phone, it went to the front desk. And I had to explain to them that I’m calling from the emergency room, and she’s telling me, “Sir, I can’t hear you. Where are you calling from, bad connection?” So I called the second time. And just to give you an idea of the seriousness, I really couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t even thinking about it. I just wanted them to know I couldn’t breathe. And I woke up two weeks later.
But I don’t know if they found me in the corner of that room blue. I don’t know if I was… perhaps obviously, I had passed out and was cyanotic or at least my oxygenation. When I went to the hospital, my oxygenation was 88, but I felt fine. So to give people an idea, when I was telling my wife, I’m fine, this is ridiculous. I don’t have to go to the emergency room. I mean, I felt it, I wasn’t trying to be cavalier, but it turned on me very quickly. And if I had not already been in the emergency room, they would have been bagging me in my apartment. So I just survived-
Dr. Charles Runels:
That’s a very sobering thought, isn’t it? So sobering. That it can sneak up on a physician who obviously knows the signs to look for, but this idea of being hypoxic without experiencing dyspnea is unusual. Isn’t it?
Dr. George Liakeas:
But it just seems to be a common thread in COVID for some reason. For some reason, people can be hypoxic and not short of breath is what many people are saying, and that’s deceiving. So when now patients of mine tell me they tested positive, I tell them, “Do me a favor by a pulse oximeter. And if it gets below 92, I’m curious if it gets below 90, that’s not normal. And if it’s below 88, make your way over to the hospital as soon as possible.”
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yeah. Smart advice. So-
Dr. George Liakeas:
It’s has been an interesting time. We are in a different place. There’s no question about that. And since then I woke up two weeks later comedy ensued, even though I was a doctor, of course, you’re by yourself in these rooms. And I had to sort of learn how to walk again. I was completely not cachectic, but I had lost a lot of weight, my muscles had atrophied, and it was a mess. And to this day, I still am quite fatigued or easily fatigued. And this speech problem is probably from the tubing rather than coronavirus. It’s probably from a ventilator, and they tell me it could last a month for every day that you’re on a ventilator, and I was on for two weeks, but I otherwise feel fine, and I’m happy to be here. And I still go to the office to pat everybody on the back and do the things that only I can do.
I haven’t been seeing the general patients. We have half the office does the cosmetic side that my wife runs, and as estheticians and half the office does the medical, strictly medical, and for the medical, I just can’t. This is a good day, but normally I just can’t keep the level of speech going without losing my voice, et cetera.
We also have a friend who’s a plastic surgeon that came on board to help me out with some of the cosmetic things so that I’m not overly doing it because I can’t handle it. And we’ve been managing.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Good. So a couple of questions that I frequently get from our providers and from patients that I’m sure you’ve thought about in-depth. I want to come back to a near-death experience because I think there may be other things to say about that. Probably a day’s worth of things to say about that, but talk to me about what can people do? I think there should be more discussion about… I know there’s some randomness to it, but yet there’s also some science to it.
What can people do if they are just under the assumption I’m going to be exposed to COVID? What in your mind can people do to make it such that they can survive it? And here I’m thinking along the lines of, let’s say that yours as an analogy, if you’re the mother of a child with cystic fibrosis, every pathogen is a potential life-threatening thing, and you know your child’s eventually going to be on the ventilator in an ICU. And 20 years ago, I think the lifespan was 25. And now I don’t know. Maybe it’s 45 or 50, and you know it’s coming.
So my discussions, I don’t know about you, but when I talk with mothers of children with cystic fibrosis, they’re basically living with a child that’s in equivalent of a COVID pandemic all the time. But they do things to make their children extremely hardy so that when they’re on a ventilator or when they get attacked by some pathogen immune system, VO2 max, everything is optimized so that they can survive it.
So now, having come through it, by your understanding of the literature, what would you advise your patients and for us to pass on to our patients best way if you just know you’re going to rub up against COVID? What’s the best way to come out on the other side?
Dr. George Liakeas:
That’s a good question. I’m sure that there is no shortage of anecdotal information, et cetera. But most of what is said is that we would tell people that get diagnosed, and now is the time to perhaps tank yourself up, and it mostly revolves around your immunity. So I would say to other doctors, and even to patients, especially elderly patients, of course, now’s the time to sleep well, diet, exercise, try to be as healthy as you can, try not to be so stressed out if that’s possible or whatever that means, but for sure, tanking yourself up on vitamin C, vitamin D, maybe even vitamin B, those are all things that are good for your immunity.
The other things specifically for COVID is zinc and Pepcid, and Pepcid does appear to have some sort of prophylaxis or-
Dr. Charles Runels:
I haven’t heard that.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Yes, know that. So it doesn’t hurt to take a Pepcid. So why not? And then if you do get exposed or if you want to start sooner at definitely, and perhaps the most important thing is baby aspirin. So if you get exposed, when I first came out of the ICU, I was given blood thinners, Rivarox, or ultimately Eliquist, but after three to six months, it starts becoming perhaps more of a risk. So switch to baby aspirin. If there’s no contra-indication, perhaps taking baby aspirin for that person who might be positive and not know it for a week or from botic events, microemboli things like that.
Dr. Charles Runels:
So, let me make sure I catch up with you. So vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin D, all the things grandmother said about sleeping, a baby aspirin if you’re exposed, and one Pepcid per day. Interesting. I didn’t know that Pepcid works.
Dr. George Liakeas:
And zinc.
Dr. Charles Runels:
And zinc, yes. Zinc. So we’ve got quite a lot of people on the call that are interested in what you have to say. And many of them have put in things about zinc. What sort of dosages are you telling your patients to take of the various things you just mentioned?
Dr. George Liakeas:
The vitamins C in water-soluble, and the B. So that’ll go through you, but 1000 or 2000 to start taking four or mega doses it might be excessive if you have not been exposed. So I usually tell people 1000 or 2000, they don’t have to go crazy. And if they’re exposed, then they could do as much as they want. And it may not matter the scientist Watson believed in taking 4,000 a day, but anything with vitamin B, I almost tell my patients take a multi… Sorry, take a B complex and do what a bottle says.
To zinc that I’ve been given is 400 milligrams. 200 is fine as well. Again, baby aspirin, but vitamin D because it’s winter, there’s very little chance you will overdose. You’re probably already vitamin D deficient. So instead of one or 2000, I would easily take 5,000 a day, or there’s a 50,000 once a week dosage.
Dr. Charles Runels:
All right, very helpful. And like you said-
Dr. George Liakeas:
If you do have COVID and it affects your lungs, obviously, N-acetyl cysteine seems to be very lung helpful.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Okay, beautiful.
Dr. George Liakeas:
And I believe that’s 50 a day, but NAC, which you can find at any GNC or life extensions, is a very popular vitamin link website.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Beautiful. So while you’ve been speaking, Dr. Byman has been sending me links. So thank you, Eric, that backup much of what you’re talking about. And so that’s nice. So if you guys are listening or if you go to the chatbox, you’ll see some research backing of what you hear George speaking about. Anything, I want to get to what you’ve done. I know Nicole is a critical player there and keeping your clinic running. And so if she wants to jump in, feel free, but I’m interested in how with the combination of illness. And I mean, it’s just to me, you and your bride demonstrate the epitome of grip. When you can go through a life-threatening illness in the city that’s locked down probably more than any other city and still be financially solid throughout it all and continue.
To me, this is what doctors do, right? I mean, how many physicians have died taking in the middle of the COVID pandemic, physicians and nurses and EMTs, and if nothing else out of this, it seems to be maybe the meter of respect for physicians might have come back a little bit more high on the gauge than it was a year ago because people are realizing, “Oh, wait a second. People are actually risking their lives.”
As we do with the flu epidemic every year and HIV and hepatitis C, all those things are potential pathogens to healthcare workers, but it seems like people are noticing more. And now I’m speaking to a man who almost died from what he was doing as a healthcare provider. So anyway, let’s swap from… Go ahead.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Let me say ironically. So, first of all, when I was sick, there’s no question that my wife not only saved my life by telling this fool to go to, in fact, the hospital. But had I gone two days earlier, they would have sent me home. So you have to be very cognizant of things can change, but maybe most of all, you need an advocate.
Nicole was essential to probably saving my life because she served as an advocate reminding them that not only I’m a doctor, he’s a VIP. Take care of him at a time when I can tell you from colleagues that admitted, look, we didn’t even know what to do. And maybe people died because we didn’t know what to do with them. So whether it’s somebody to advocate for you, to advocate for somebody else that is extremely important. During my time, they weren’t allowing visitors. I was in the medically induced coma.
So somebody needed to be communicating to remind people that he’s a person, do what you can, and otherwise, again, colleagues will admit that at least in the crazy times in March and April, people fell through the cracks. So having an advocate was very important, but I will say it’s the reverse, or the opposite perhaps of what you’re saying is that even now, maybe it’s me, it does feel a little bit like, “Well, that’s not a vote of confidence that the good doctor gets sick, obviously not washing his hands, touching his mouth.”
So, although people will acknowledge that it’s very contagious, the ones that don’t get it pat themselves on the back and how good a job they’re doing protecting themselves, perhaps, and the ones that do get it are a little bit in the scrutiny of, “Well, you must not have been safe,” which is not unfair, but its sort of like the doctor that smokes is a good advocate to other smokers that look, I know how difficult it is, but it’s a very bad advocate for people who don’t have smoking as advice and don’t see why it’s such a big deal.
So I think definitely again, in my case, we didn’t have masks. It is what it is, but I think definitely if you do get it, you want to reinforce that you are a clean person who is conscious and aware of the risks, and you still got it. Because similarly, I think patients need to hear that you’re taking this pandemic very seriously and that you are doing things to protect them.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Let me just, I want to go a little bit rogue on-
Dr. George Liakeas:
And I feel confidence that I got it.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yeah. I’m going to go a little bit rogue here and just out of bounds for just one minute. There’s this in general when it comes to sickness. There’s this general idea of not just COVID among some sets of people that anytime someone is suffering. They must have done something wrong. And no matter what the suffering, if you go back to C.S Lewis writes about pain, and if there’s God, then why is there pain? And I think he puts it best when he says, “You’re going to have pain or use disease in this case, because you can do something wrong because you did something wrong would say cirrhosis, because you drank a fifth of Jack Daniels every night, you can also have pain because you did something, right like stand on the fucking sidewalk of New York and let your patients sneeze on you all day long.”
And you can also suffer. Let me put, so you can suffer for doing wrong. You can suffer for doing right. And you can also suffer because we don’t know the fuck why? Like, why does a young Jewish man get Lesch-Nyhan syndrome? And she was tongued, why does the baby get born with cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell? I don’t know. Maybe there’s something that I can’t see about that, but it seems to me they didn’t do anything wrong.
And so it’s shocking to me, although it shouldn’t be that that attitude might appear. And it’s cool that you brought it up because I know a number. I know one of our providers, and Tron was hospitalized. She would make it on the vent, but others in our group have had COVID, and I should have expected that reaction from some people, but I hadn’t.
So anyway, just in general, that’s the way I like to think about pain, and here, I think it’s the reverse. You have a man who’s suffering because he put himself in harm’s way to take care of his patients. Talk to us more about what you and Nicole did to make and what you’re still doing to help patient flow at a time when people are afraid to go outside.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Right So in the office and patients want to hear this, and many groups have done it from churches to schools, et cetera. We’ve been communicating with our patients from the beginning that we have established COVID protocols from things like social distancing stickers to handless pumps of soap in the bathroom, to remind the patients what we are doing in between patients to sanitize the room, keeping windows open, including guns that spray alcohol, even into the air.
We have an ozone machine. Some of the things I don’t even know exactly how good they are, but I know patients like to hear it. The problem is, how do you stay viable and profitable when, in the past, part of the ability to do that was to have a full waiting room and keep the patients turning. Now, I’ve never seen an empty waiting room in 17 years, and now, even if I’m not at the office, if I look in the cameras, it’s shocking to see an empty waiting room.
Now we’re not at quarter capacity, half capacity, but we’re moving them into the rooms much more quickly. And the waiting room is empty. Maybe that’s a good thing in general, but you have to tell them that you’re going to be doing that. And the one time that two people come off the elevator at the same time, somebody might even inform us, “Hey this person’s here at the same time I am.” All right, “Well, you’re 10 minutes early that person’s 10 minutes late, but what do you want me to tell you?” But they consider it bad planning on your part. So you communicate that you are doing everything you can and remind them. And if nothing else, it’s a way to stay in their minds.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Interesting. So how are you communicating? By emails, social media, how?
Dr. George Liakeas:
By email.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Email.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Yes. When we see patients, we are following up with them a little bit more afterwards and always sort of reminding them stay safe. Don’t forget to wash your hands, social distance, things that remind them we are the doctors, the healthcare professionals, and make them feel like we care and that we are on top of things. And that we are not only calling to see how did their procedure goes. You might have some swelling, et cetera, but also, we are the go-to people for all of questions.
Nicole:
Hi guys, can I chime in?
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yes.
Nicole:
Hi, everybody. So you can see our website right there. My website, I think it’s very important to have protocols on the website. People are looking for it. Even show cleaning while the clients or my clients are here. I have my spot coordinators with Clorox in hand and spraying down everything very carefully using the right words. Like we want to keep you safe. We want to keep ourselves safe, showing on social media that we’re cleaning the rooms, that we’re wearing our masks, and that we’re cocooning them here. That we’re very safe, and we’re very mindful of that. And I think sending emails constantly to remind the clients of that is very important so that they feel safe.
Dr. Charles Runels:
What’s constantly for you, Nicole? How often are you sending emails?
Nicole:
I send emails about twice a week. Or if I’m not, I send-
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yes, I do believe it. So I want to pause there and make sure everybody gets that because most doctors are afraid to send an email every two weeks or have some horror of being put in somebody’s spam folder. But what I think you’re saying is-
Nicole:
I thought that in the past, but I have come to realize more and more. I am sending them the past year. Now I’ve been sending them twice a week.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yes, and a thing I want you to correct me if I’m wrong, what happens if you’re their person, if you’re their doctor or healthcare provider, if you’re the person they look up to, they might not read everything you send out, but if you’re sending them the kind of information you’re talking about, they won’t put you in the spam, and they’ll actually be grateful that you’re taking enough time to communicate with them, what’s new in your brain, about current events, and what’s new at your office.
Nicole:
Correct.
Dr. George Liakeas:
So we’ve spoken about this in our masterminds. Whether or not you think two emails a week is a lot or whatever. One thing that’s always important is to not just make the emails a selling as you want to sell your practice by giving them something, and what we can do very easily is educated. So the type of email is, “Hey, just a reminder, aspirin is good for the microemboli that can happen after coronavirus, keep doing that. If you feed them something and then throw in your selling pitch, they are less likely to think you’re bombarding them with spam.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Now, talk to us some about… because I’m still old school email, we talked about this a few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal did an article about how industry is rediscovering that email. You don’t have big brother unless you’re using Mailchimp, kill Mailchimp. They’ve started censoring email of all things, but so far, except for Mailchimp, no carriers censoring emails and websites. So we’re able to talk about sexual matters and not get banned like what can happen on Facebook and other venues.
And to me, it feels like a more in-depth discussion, but I don’t know, expand upon that. Tell me your thinking about why it’s email versus social media and how are you doing it, what mechanism you’re using to send it out.
Nicole:
We’re using MyEmma. I don’t know if you guys have heard of MyEmma. I’ve been using that since I’ve been around since 2002. So that’s just something I work with, and I continue to use it. We use it for medical Sets in Smooth Synergy. It seems to be pretty good. And I just find that if you train your clients to read your emails, I send them out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I send out educational things on Tuesday, and I also have my product line. So I sent out my products on Thursday. And that’s kind of how I’ve divided the week from Sets Smooth Synergy.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Beautiful.
Nicole:
Yeah. And for social media, we try to use social media. I really would love to have more following on social media, but I find that it’s hard to get someone who really can engage with my clients. I mean, with my client-based in my spa, I have locked down. My ideal client doesn’t really go on social media all that much. So for me, I find that the emails are working the best.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yeah. So maybe just one more comment about that. Let’s say you were going to deliver a message about the best way. What you just mentioned about how you don’t forget to use aspirin if you are exposed to COVID, and you’re going to send that to someone you love, your family member, you wouldn’t tweet it to them. You’d write an email, or you may be pick up the phone, but if you’re not going to call them, you would send it in an email or a text message. You wouldn’t tweet it or Facebook it.
And so along those same lines, I think what you’re saying is that because you have relationship with your patients, email is more like a communication between two people who have something to say who were in a relationship, which for me, the best way to get lots of followers on social media is do outlandish things like, I don’t know, take a picture in your phone by the swimming pool, or you balance a champagne glass on your booty like Kardashian did. I’m not saying that people in our group haven’t been successful marketing with social media, but I think most of them are not paying enough attention to the depth and the quality that can happen with an email.
And if you just listen to what you’re saying, we’re hearing two concerned people who’ve experienced near death, and you’re actually delivering your heartfelt message about how to stay well to the people who love you that you care about. And you’re choosing email to do it. I should talk less and listen more. So tell me more about what’s in your brain that you’d want the group to know. And then I think we’ll shut it down. We’re coming to the end of the hour. Thank you so much, both of you, for taking time to do this.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Oh, I would probably say one thing that I think is important in terms of what can I do to generate revenue? Is, this is an opportunity to do things COVID-related. When I had coronavirus, and if you read about it, you’ll see a lot of people lose their hair. And I can attest to that. I mean, it was like, “Whoa,” it was amazing. The hair would fall behind me as I would walk, and then it stopped, and they say it’s a stressor that a number of viruses can do. And it’s, telogen effluvium, but it was impressive.
So this has been an opportunity to push, for example, the Vampire Hair Therapy for before you get coronavirus or after you get coronavirus. This is something that might be able to mitigate the strength of your hair loss. And that has been good. There’s been a good response to that.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Beautiful.
Nicole:
So I ran a little special on Smooth Synergy through the Email Blast that for the Vampire Hair Therapy, and that seemed to work. And people agreed. They said, “Oh yes I’m losing my hair,” whether it’s from them being sick from COVID or the stress from COVID. We had a real big up in the Vampire hair treatments.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Interesting.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Also, because it’s holiday season, you can start preparing for a new world and vaccine is here 2021 and start throwing out the specials for them for people that want to pre-purchase or purchase and give as a gift or whatever. It’s also that time of year. People are probably looking for a way to get rid of the negative and see some positives.
So it’s a good time for businesses to advertise. I know in Nicole’s case, she also has been very good at with some of the local businesses that have complained when they needed to shut down or when people don’t want to come. For example, collaborating with some of the hair places nearby that deal with beauty come to us.
Nicole:
Drybar. Just did a collaboration this week with Drybar. So if they come this week to Smooth Synergy, then they get a complimentary dry style at Drybar, which is right around the corner from here.
Dr. Charles Runels:
That is brilliant. And I haven’t heard people talk about that much. I forgot that I actually used to be something I would do. If you have local businesses that share clients, high-end clothing stores, high-end beauty salons, and personal trainers across promotions like that, it works wonderfully well. What about, I’ve never had that much success selling gift cards and always felt like I was doing something wrong. Are you selling gift cards? And if so, tell me how you’re doing it because I see it on your website.
Nicole:
We don’t sell that many gift cards. However, we did. We were very successful every year. I’m not a big promotion person because, in the way past, I’ve learned a lot. I mean, I’ve been in business for now since 2002. In the beginning, I used to do a lot of promotions. Right now, my brand, I’ve kind of changed my tune a little bit in the past since I’ve moved to the new location. So it’s a very high location you can see from the pictures. We put a lot of money, a lot of work into this space. We’re very proud of that.
Dr. Charles Runels:
It’s amazing, by the way, guys, if you go there, you’ll want to move in and live there it’s beautiful.
Nicole:
Thank you. So I really have moved away from promotions, and I really have moved more towards being in touch with our clients. Really giving more for their value, really going back to the gift cards. So now it’s just, I do 25% off on gift cards for Black Friday. That’s really the only time I do like a super promo and that 25 Black Friday that weekend, and then Cyber Monday, I do a 15% off. So I will give 15% off, 20% max here and there very strategically.
I don’t believe in giving away everything like I used to. No, it’s really not good for my brand. And people start understanding that there’s a lot of costs to this. There’s my expertise. There’s my knowledge. And really, it’s about the fact that I built a brand, and it’s not about giving everything for free.
Dr. Charles Runels:
Yeah. And just to add to that, everyone on this call, your brand, your most important brand, of course, is your name. And if you treat the people who come to you like they’re members of an exclusive club, because they’re able to see you and you make that a real thing by taking outstanding care of them, then that translates into what you hear Nicole talking about, which is now you don’t have to attract people by doing Groupons. They become grateful that you’re letting them walk through the door.
Nicole:
So the only thing is sometimes I am embarrassed to say, “Oh gosh, I’m done. People will Google me. And there is a Groupons that pops up.” So for people who might hang up and Google me, Smooth Synergy, I do it very strategically. I only used Groupon for facial, so way back when Groupon started and I would see all my colleagues or my competitors giving away everything for free. I was like, “What are they doing? They’re going to commoditize this industry. This is horrible. They’re going to go out of business.” And as right now, those people have closed. They made a quick buck, and they closed.
So what I did recently about a few years ago, when I decided Groupon was kind of hounding me, and I said, “Fine, I’ll do it very strategically. I’m only going to give away facials or I will stage one of microdermabrasion.” So again, I get them through the door, and believe me, I could not even believe this, but I was so surprised a lot of the Groupon, I have converted into old fellas to really very loyal clients.
Dr. Charles Runels:
I like it.
Nicole:
And I have not believed it.
Dr. Charles Runels:
I like it. So you’re pulling in, well, of course, you guys you have billionaires in your neighborhood, even billionaires, like good deals, but the idea of-
Nicole:
And they also don’t know where to go. They also don’t know where to go sometimes?
Dr. Charles Runels:
So pulling them in through your lowest price or one of your lower-priced services to help you find each other is different than just generally, that’s your main strategy for getting people in the office and keeping them there.
Guys is at the end of the hour. I’m really am grateful on notes. Crazy busy there, and lots of things going on. But quite a number of people on the call, and I’ll make this available to our group to listen to and the replay. And I know there’ll be grateful for you having the courage and making time to come talk to them. You guys have a great day. Thank you. Thank you, George. Thank you, Nicole.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Thank you, everybody. Happy holidays.
Nicole:
Thank you. Happy-
Dr. George Liakeas:
We’ll get through this; this too shall pass.
Dr. Charles Runels:
That’s right. Bye-bye, thank you.
Nicole:
Bye-bye.
Dr. George Liakeas:
Bye-bye.