Amid huge global expansion plans, the co-owner and director of clinic chain Therapie shares the secrets of her success with Georgia Seago

Interview

As Professional Beauty went to print, Therapie Clinics was just about to open the doors to its 32nd clinic, and its first London branch, in shopping and entertainment behemoth Westfield’s White City Location. Another clinic in Westfield Stratford on the other side of the city and a flagship on Wigmore Street will follow before the end of the year. It’s a far cry from the company’s roots with a single clinic in Dublin just 17 years ago.

“My dad opened the first clinic in Dublin in 2001. He owned a chain of sports clinics in Ireland at the time and would regularly have massages when travelling on business, but couldn’t find anywhere in Ireland that he thought offered good-quality treatments”, explains Katie McGlade, co-owner and director of Therapie Clinics, who runs the company with her brother Phillip McGlade. “He opened the first site but massage didn’t take off, so he brought in more clinical treatments and got me and Phillip involved. We’d both studied business and marketing and made the decision to really evolve Therapie’s online marketing because none of our competitors in Ireland were promoting themselves well online. That’s when business really rocketed and we rolled out in Ireland.”

Grand plans

Therapie currently has 22 clinics in the Republic of Ireland, one in India, and eight in the UK, not counting the three London openings or sites planned for Sheffield and Manchester in November and December respectively. McGlade also reveals that the group is in the late stages of securing sites in Bromley, Kent, and Romford, Essex. In fact, she says confidentially that the plan is to open 100 stores over the next three years. On the decision to branch out from Therapie’s Irish roots, McGlade says, “We went to Scotland first and really learned the market, and given that Newcastle is right next door and the market is so similar, it seemed like it would make sense to open our first site in England there.” She adds, “We worked with some of the Geordie Shore cast then got an influx of enquiries. People are very educated on injectables in Newcastle; they’ll tell you exactly what they want.”

Laser hair removal used to be our bread and butter but the market is changing and we’re growing the aesthetic side of the business massively

After developing an effective clinic model and successfully replicating it in several locations, McGlade says the time is right to try to conquer the London market, as “that’s where its all really happening. We’re everywhere in Ireland and we’re the market leader, so we’re going over to the UK to gain market share and are expecting consumer spend to be higher.”

While the salon and clinic market in London is highly competitive, McGlade is confident that Therapie’s model will do well. “Our concept is to offer a wide range of the most advanced, high-tech, non-surgical treatments at the most competitive prices on the market in the most accessible locations. We provide a five-star service at three-star prices”, she says.

Tried and tested

Therapie’s high-street and shopping-centre locations are also chosen to support the retail side of the business, which McGlade says is a “very big part” of the operation. The clinics sell professional skincare brands including Murad, Environ, Image Skincare and Advanced Nutrition Programme. “We learned that making the retail side profitable was all about getting the right products in at affordable prices. We used to sell very well-known brands but they weren’t affordable for the everyday consumer. We do a lot of advanced skin treatments so it would be silly for us not to offer products to complement them”, says McGlade.

Only clients in the Republic of Ireland can currently buy product online through Therapie’s website, but the group is set to launch an app at the end of October, which will allow clients anywhere to buy product, book or reschedule appointments, and access special offers. “Clients will be able to control their whole journey on the app”, says McGlade.

Market changes

The clinics offer skin treatments including laser rejuvenation, microneedling and JetPeel hydradermabrasion, but it’s the cosmetic injections that now make up the majority of treatment sales. “Treatment demand is pretty much the same everywhere for us; across the board, clients are investing in botulinum toxin and fillers instead of anti-ageing skincare”, says McGlade. This reached a peak after Therapie was the official sponsor of the Australian version of popular reality TV dating programme Love Island when it aired on Irish TV channel 3e and Virgin Media on demand.

“Laser hair removal used to be our bread and butter but the market is changing and we’re growing the aesthetic side of the business massively. We saw an increase of 75% in enquiries for injectables following Love Island”, says McGlade.

The one place in which laser hair removal is still Therapie’s most popular treatment is in India, where the group opened a clinic in Mumbai in 2017, soon to be joined by a second location on the opposite side of the city in November. “My other brother had a hotel in India, and from his contacts in the hospitality industry we learned that the middle classes are really growing and there’s a huge market for laser hair removal, but no one was doing it right”, explains McGlade. “The market is completely different out there, and Mumbai is so big that we felt we were losing out on potential customers just being in one part of the city.”

While cosmetic injections aren’t currently a big money-maker for the group in India, McGlade believes there is potential for them to grow there, pending education about the safety of modern injectable procedures.

“In India, consumers are not very educated on advanced treatments so we’re trying to develop the education and make clients aware of what we can offer”, she says.

Consistency is key

The other side of education – that of its therapists and staff – is also an important focus for Therapie, with a “centre of excellence” training academy set to open alongside the upcoming Wigmore Street site. This will be the second training centre for the company – currently staff are trained in Malahide, Ireland. “We like to control everything ourselves so that all staff have the same experience, which means all clients have the same experience”, says McGlade. “If you come to one clinic, you’ll get the exact same experience in the next you go to. We’ll have a massive 4,000sq ft site on Wigmore Street so that will be our UK training base.” With so many clinics to manage and evolve in different markets, it surely can’t all be plain sailing.

McGlade says she sees far more opportunities than stumbling blocks in the industry, using the challenge of online retailers as an example: “Though some beauty businesses are struggling to compete with online sales, we’re first and foremost a service-led industry, and consumers can’t get that online. If anything, there’s massive opportunity to capitalise on that.” PB