Chapter 114: Physical Examination Chain Store
Liang's mother's face darkened. She said, "Isn't your wife in the system, working for the district labor union? Isn't a physical checkup a great benefit? If she can talk to those companies down there, she might at least have a chance of winning over some clients. With a place as big as ours, we definitely can't just serve individual customers. We have to focus on those big companies and work with them to receive clients from corporations and large enterprises."
"That requires connections. Between you and that uncle, who can go and do the business? They want kickbacks, how are you going to give them?" Boss Liang has been doing business for so many years, and he has seen pigs run even if he has not eaten pork. He knows that to serve big corporate clients, one has to pay real money, and no relationship is as secure as one that is tied to interests.
Liang's mother was silent. She understood that her son was right. She had only heard a little about these business tricks. In fact, if someone asked her for kickbacks or other benefits, she should have a prepared protocol.
Opening a medical examination center requires more than just professional medical examination techniques. She and Lao Tong have limited abilities, and the older women aren't equipped to handle such tasks. They previously worked in hospitals, where patients begged them for favors, leaving them with no experience in attracting clients.
Lin Ruoyan broke the deadlock and said, "You are all retired doctors and nurses from tertiary hospitals. You provide professional physical examination services. Coupled with some novel physical examination process designs, the advantages are obvious."
"There are only a few items in the physical examination, how can it be novel?" Liang's mother was puzzled.
Lin Ruoyan then said, "For example, since everyone comes for the physical examination on an empty stomach, you can prepare a breakfast for each person. If the place is large enough, you can make the breakfast like the breakfast room outside the hotel, with a variety of dishes to choose from, so that customers can eat on the spot after the physical examination to enhance the experience. The wool comes from the sheep, and the breakfast fee can also be included in the physical examination fee.
Men and women will also have separate floors, and each guest will have their own locker. While the department's physical examination doctors are all experienced professionals, the guiding nurses can be younger, less educated, and trained nursing students to reduce costs. With real-person guidance, every client receives a VIP treatment, with someone to monitor them wherever they go, eliminating the need to wander around like a headless fly. This streamlined process creates a distinguished experience that's undoubtedly far superior to a typical hospital physical examination.
Also, the decor should be thoughtful. Don't go with the white and green walls of a hospital. The color palette at the health checkup center could be more lively, like in a shopping mall, with each floor having a theme color, with separate men's and women's colors—blue and green for men, pink and yellow for women—to create a distinct identity. Each floor should have a high-end lounge area with sofas and coffee tables, offering free boiled water."
Lin Ruoyan was just casually describing the model of a physical examination center that she had seen in the real world. This was basically the standard configuration of physical examination centers more than ten years later, but it sounded refreshing when she mentioned it now.
Boss Liang naturally knew that the decoration of the store was very important. Liang's mother also compared her previous physical examination in the hospital with Lin Ruoyan's description, and immediately felt the improvement in service that customers could enjoy.
She used to hear patients complain at the hospital about how a visit to the hospital for a checkup turned out to be a real illness. This was because the doctors and nurses at tertiary hospitals were so busy that they couldn't find the time to explain where to go, which room to go to, and what to expect. Patients were left to worry about this themselves.
The kind of personal guidance service that Lin Ruoyan mentioned was a perk only available in high-risk wards. If their physical examination center could also provide such service, why would they worry about not attracting customers?
"Various services should have different treatments depending on the medical examination items. For example, you can design medical examinations into multiple packages, including pre-employment medical examinations, retirement medical examinations, and medical examinations for current employees. The prices of each item are different. In addition, there are different charging standards for leaders and ordinary employees. The clinics and doctors provided have different grades. This will be attractive and encourage customers who have purchased the standard package to try the upgraded package."
Boss Liang's eyes lit up. "That makes sense. Contrast is what makes things attractive. People want to experience higher-end services. If everyone's physical examinations were the same, year after year, and everyone in the same unit did the same thing, it would be boring. Just like the services in our barber shop, we're always trying to innovate. In addition to new hairstyles, we also have different packages, such as scalp care and perm maintenance. There seem to be many options, and there are different levels for customers to choose from. Customers feel fresh every time they come, so they come back often."
Mother Liang nodded repeatedly, wishing she could take out a notebook to write down these wise words, but she finally gave up. She couldn't remember so much. She said sincerely, "Boss Lin has come up with so many good ideas. Why don't you also invest in them? We can't just use your good ideas to make money for nothing."
Boss Liang's mother was a kindhearted person, no wonder she raised someone as conscientious as Boss Liang. Lin Ruoyan grew increasingly excited about the medical examination center project, but six hundred thousand yuan a year in rent was still too little. If she truly participated in this project, she would expand the chain, investing ten million yuan this month and opening several more stores.
She smiled and said, "If you really want me to participate in this project, then I recommend that we start a chain business, expand our scale quickly, and seize the market. Otherwise, others will learn our tricks after just one visit, and then copy them and open businesses elsewhere, and your business will be affected. After all, a physical examination is only once a year for each person."
"I understand that," Boss Liang sighed. "A physical exam is different from a haircut. With so many barbershops on the street, we don't have to worry about business. After all, everyone has long hair and needs a haircut every month. But our capital is limited, and the only place my mother can rent cheaply is at the hospital where she used to work."
Liang's mother also said, "We've never opened a health checkup center before. We don't have the money to start a chain all at once, and we don't have anyone to manage so many things. We should just start with this one, gain experience, and then expand into new stores when we make money in the future."
Even so, Boss Liang could already see the eagerness in his mother's eyes. His family could certainly afford the six hundred thousand yuan annual rent, but the problem was that opening a medical examination center also required equipment and labor costs. To realize everything Lin Ruoyan had just mentioned, besides the initial rent, it would require at least several hundred thousand yuan in renovations, not to mention the equipment. Therefore, starting a medical examination center alone would require at least one or two million yuan in startup capital.
They were just listening to other people's talk about the excitement. They hadn't even opened a single store yet, and they didn't know how much money they could make, yet they were talking about chain stores. That was definitely unrealistic. However, Ms. Lin was so optimistic about this project. If she was willing to invest, opening several more stores across Beijing might even monopolize the market share of some large enterprises.
A large scale also means that it can accommodate larger customer groups. Just like a barber shop, people are unlikely to travel all the way from the north of the city to his shop in X District to get a haircut. There are always a few shops near their homes.
The same applies to physical examinations. If others follow their example and set up a physical examination center of the same quality in another urban area, customers will probably choose the nearest place. Who would run such a long way to a store for a physical examination in the early morning on an empty stomach? It's not like they are looking for a complicated disease.
In industries with low technical barriers, services can be replicated. They need to seize the initiative and secure large, stable clients to avoid being surpassed by later entrants. Expanding through chain operations is definitely a good approach; the earlier you open, the more advantages you have and the easier it is to establish a brand reputation.
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