Scaling Up Magazine Scaling Up Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 15

SUMMER '18
private companies in America for
2017 and currently has five locations
in the Detroit metro area and a
new one in Beverly Hills, with 171
employees and seven physicians.
BUILDING A STRONG
FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH
How did he pull it off? Allure put the
right systems in place for growth.
Although Dr. Mok was off to a strong
start in growing Allure, he knew there
was more to learn—and like many
successful leaders, is a reader. He’d
soon read Mastering the Rockefeller
Habits, my first book on how to achieve
a successful scaleup, and started drawing
on ideas from the book. For instance,
he put together a strong leadership
team and began delegating more. The
company also began holding daily
huddles to build better communication.
Dr. Mok continued to grow revenue,
but there was a problem. Allure’s
expenses were climbing even faster.
“I knew how to increase business but
lacked an understanding of how to
scale profitably,” he says. By 2015,
Dr. Mok hired a financial staff and
in 2016, he added a CFO. The CFO
worked out better payment terms with
vendors to improve cash flow, but Dr.
Mok ultimately wanted to do more.
After reading my book Scaling Up:
Rockefeller Habits 2.0, Dr. Mok
attended what is now called the ScaleUp
Summit in 2015 to learn more about
how to deploy the Scaling Up system
for growing a company. In 2016, he
began working with Gazelles Coach
Mike Goldman. He and his leadership
team developed the company’s core
values, purpose, and vision. Every
Friday, Dr. Mok would make a video
to share with the entire team to outline
the principles the company embraces.
SPOTLIGHT: ALLURE MEDICAL
GREATER ACCOUNTABILITY
Dr. Mok prefers a somewhat
unstructured organization, without a
lot of bureaucracy, but he still wanted
to establish greater accountability
for his team and provide mentoring
and feedback to help them grow.
Goldman helped him build a culture
where employees with just a few years
of experience were well trained and
empowered to make key decisions
without asking their boss for direction.
“It’s about having employees take
ownership,” says Goldman.
PUTTING CASH FRONT
AND CENTER
Getting the cash part of the equation
right was essential. Dr. Mok had openly
shared the company’s financial status
with his team from the beginning,
but after reading The Great Game of
Business by Jack Stack, he began asking
his employees to get more involved in
making sure the spas are profitable. He
dissolved all previous bonus plans and
moved to a monthly profit sharing plan
in which all employees participate.
The profit sharing plan proved to
be highly motivating, and team
members offered many helpful
suggestions on how to avoid wasting
money, particularly on supplies.
They also looked at how to
streamline their work. “They started
identifying things they could do
more efficiently, with fewer people
or in fewer hours,” he says.
The change was dramatic, with the
staff collectively figuring out how
to save about $300,000 a month.
“It was almost like hitting a switch,”
says Dr. Mok. The business went from
break-even or losing a little money every
month to turning a healthy profit.
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MORE
FOCUSED
MARKETING
Allure also got
clearer on its
core customer
and focused its
marketing more
closely on them. By studying its patient
database—which includes 140,000
people—Allure’s team realized that eight
Census block groups accounted for 70%
of its revenue—and directed more of
the company’s marketing efforts toward
them. These were not necessarily the
most affluent Census blocks in the area,
but they were made up of people at a
stage of life in which they could afford
to take care of themselves. For instance,
one key group of customers is older adults
whose children have finished college.
Allure, which specializes in high-value
services, also published its prices on
its website as a way of screening out
price shoppers. “By being brutally
honest, we lowered our new patients
by 30% but our business revenue grew
by 50% in one year,” Dr. Mok says.
In early 2017, Dr. Mok attended the CEO
Bootcamp my company runs. One of the
most powerful takeaways, he said, was
learning that companies that are true
Gazelles—or high-growth firms—produce
profits three to five times their industry
average. “I thought this was impossible,
but changed my mindset,” says Dr.
Mok. “Now, seven months later we are
running at 2.5X of our industry profit,
and plan to hit 3X during this winter.”
With these changes in pla