Professional Beauty brings to you our Powerful Women series – interviews with the leading ladies behind some much-loved salon industry brands across the skincare, cosmetics and technology spaces. Anita Quade caught up with Aesthetic Coach founder, Nicole Montgomery.
Tell us what inspired you to set up your company?
I set up Aesthetic Coach to empower aesthetic clinic owners with the digital marketing knowledge and tools they need to attract and retain clients – the knowledge and tools that I discovered the hard way!
When I opened my first clinic, the digital world was full of slick ‘marketers’ promising the world’ but failing to deliver results. After throwing away a lot of money to more than a couple of these so-called ‘marketers’ I felt like a total failure but knew there had to be a better way; I decided the best option was simply to do it myself so I attended a lot of digital marketing courses and gradually implemented what I learnt.
I made many mistakes along the way, but my passion for the aesthetic industry and digital marketing grew and led to my unique career as a digital marketing expert in the aesthetics industry working with leading clinics, suppliers and practitioners around Australia and New Zealand.
What was one of the hardest challenges starting out?
Prior to launching the Aesthetic Coach, I had already launched and run several businesses (including multiple aesthetic clinics, Trusted Surgeons and most recently Anybodi Aesthetics) so I knew that launching and running a business wasn’t easy.
However, one of the biggest challenges launching the Aesthetic Coach is the same challenge that all businesses launching a new product or service (including clinics adding a new treatment to their menus) face: educating potential clients about the new product/service they offer and how it could benefit them.
Therefore, I used my digital marketing skills to create an online presence for Aesthetic Coach to reach and educate/inform potential clients (aesthetic clinic owners) about my unique digital marketing services and how they could benefit them (attracting and retaining more ‘ideal’ clients).
Although there are thousands of digital marketing courses/ consultants in Australia today, I think Aesthetic Coach is very different to all the competition: We offer one-on-one training, support and resources in all aspects of digital marketing specifically for the aesthetic industry rather than ‘one-size-fits all’ templates/strategies that often cost ‘a small fortune’, are difficult to implement in the real-world and/or simply fail to deliver.
The Aesthetic Coach shows clinic owners how to take control of their digital marketing themselves – after all no one knows their brand and their clients better – but is there to help every step of the way (just like a good coach).
Being a powerful woman as a business leader – what is an important piece of advice you can share with your peers?
I also hope that my trailblazing inspires my five children particularly my daughters Ella and Lily to believe that anything is possible if they are willing to take a risk, work hard and never give up.
I think the most important piece of advice that I could offer to clinic owners today is: It doesn’t matter how stunning your clinic is, how advanced your equipment is, or how skilled and talented your therapists are, if your ‘dream clients’ don’t know it exists the clinic will never succeed (or reach its potential).
A lot of clinic owners spend a lot of time and money building the best clinic they can afford but all this money is wasted if they can’t get enough clients in through the door. And the only effective way to get clients is by ‘advertising’ online.
How have you found the support from like-minded women in the industry?
I have been lucky to work in an industry filled with supportive like-minded women who empower each other. There really is no other industry that I can think of that is dominated by women running their own businesses serving a customer base dominated by women.
Despite the increasingly competitive and evolving nature of the industry, and its often negative portrayal in the media, the aesthetic industry is filled with women helping each other every single day. Whether it’s a therapist helping a client get rid of a few worrying wrinkles or a clinic owner taking on a young graduate and then teaching them everything they know before wishing them well a couple of years later as they leave for better opportunities at another clinic or even to start their own clinic ‘down the road’!
Many women have helped and supported me in the industry over the years and I have also tried to, and continue to support many women in return.
What is it you love most about being an industry trailblazer?
I love making a positive difference to the lives of all women in the industry
– particularly for the next generation of aesthetic clinic owners.
I also hope that my trailblazing inspires my five children particularly my daughters Ella and Lily to believe that anything is possible if they are willing to take a risk, work hard and never give up.”
This article originally appeared in the March-April 2022 issue of Professional Beauty.
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