A Big Ticket Niche in Health Care

As I sit here, recovering from a severe flu, I can’t help feeling extremely grateful now that my health is returning once again.

We take for granted our ability to just get up and go do something until we get sick and have reduced energy and struggle to do even the simplest things.

But since I’m on the mend I did want to say thank you to my readers.  I appreciate you for reading and for any feedback and ideas you have shared.

Now, onto this interesting idea in a Big Ticket Niche…

I was catching up on my reading while resting up.  One article I read was from the Feb 2007 issue of Business 2.0 magazine.  The title of the article was “The New Skin Trade” by Elizabeth Esfahani.

Here are some points from the article:

• “In 2005, Americans spent $12.5 billion on cosmetic procedures most of which were non-invasive, meaning no knife required.”
• “The number of nonsurgical treatments has skyrocketed more than 764 percentage since 1997, far outpacing the growth of plastic surgery.”
• “With baby boomers and more men looking for creative ways to slow the aging process, the ‘medical-aesthetic’ economy — including device sales and doctor’s fees — could easily surpass $20 billion by the end of 2006.”
• “ ’Despite the large number of companies, this is very much a demand driven economy’, says Jose Haresco a Merriman Curhan Ford analyst who covers several medical-aesthetic firms. ‘It’s still very underpenetrated.’ ”

Basically the article says that we have an aging population who are now more and more concerned with how they look than in the past.

Those people want options to slow the aging process down without resorting to plastic surgery. 

It’s a very big business that’s just getting started.

If you want to know more about some of the procedures discussed, I’d suggest getting the original article. 

But just as a test I took some of the keywords from the article and type them into the Keyword Selector Took at http://inventory.overture.com.  Here are the results

Searches done in December 2005
Count	Search Term
45226	botox
11431	botox alternative
6294	botox injection
1701	botox cosmetic
1148	botox side effects
998	botox cost

Searches done in December 2005
Count	Search Term
105795	laser hair removal
4932	permanent laser hair removal
4114	laser hair removal los angeles
3771	laser hair removal new york
3598	laser hair removal cost
2680	laser hair removal prices

Searches done in December 2005
Count	Search Term
694	wrinkle removal
573	cream face removal wrinkle
467	cream facial removal wrinkle
385	cream eye removal wrinkle
349	face removal treatment wrinkle
343	face product removal wrinkle

Searches done in December 2005
Count	Search Term
6554	chemical peel
553	chemical facial peel
478	home chemical peel
445	chemical face peel
383	cost of chemical peel
321	chemical peel picture

So a lot of people have interest in those topics.

Ok, so what’s the opportunity here?

Well an obvious one is to start a business that provides some or multiple of these services.  And that is a growth area according to the article. 

In fact the article says that many doctors have migrated their regular practices to become centered around only the needs of this niche.

Or you could consult and help those health care providers market their business effectively.

How about becoming a joint venture broker between several of these services and setting up deals to provide similar services to each of the businesses client lists?

Another idea might be to write an e-book that clearly explains the options available for all types of these non-invasive procedures.

And you could also provide back-end sales for certain types of products that are related or enhance the treatment someone decides to get.  This happens today with many of the skin cream or other beauty products you see advertised.  They sign you up where you pay by credit card and then they just refill your order every month until you tell them to cancel. 

So it becomes an ongoing revenue stream (definitely a Big Ticket item especially the more people you sign up).

Now, you may not be able do this with Botox or some of the other treatments because they require someone with specialized training (like a doctor) to apply them.

But you could still get one or several joint venture partners who can do these procedures.  Then for every customer you bring them you get a share of the profits.  These profits can be substantial because the cost of these procedures is high.

Best in Health and Big Ticket Success,

-Chuck

P.S. I did run across one other book that looked really interesting in my research.  I can’t recommend it because I haven’t read it.  But it’s called “The Wellness Revolution : How to Make a Fortune in the Next Trillion Dollar Industry” by Paul Zane Pilzer Amazon

It might be worth looking at because of Paul’s brief bio which I’ve copied for you here:

Paul Zane Pilzer (Park City, UT) is a world-renowned economist, a multimillionaire software entrepreneur, a part-time rabbi, a college professor, and a bestselling author. As an entrepreneur, Pilzer earned his first $10 million before the age of thirty. A former commentator on National Public Radio and CNN, Pilzer has been a guest on Larry King Live! three times, and he has been on the cover of several national magazines. He speaks to nearly 500,000 people a year, and more than 10,000,000 video and audio copies of his speeches have been sold.