Sell Without Discounting and What to Do Instead To Stay Premium - Med Spa CEO

Summary

Med Spa CEO Podcast Summary
Episode: Sell Without Discounting and What to Do Instead To Stay Premium
Host: Heather Terveen
Release Date: July 23, 2025

Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Med Spa CEO Podcast, host Heather Terveen delves into the critical topic of maintaining a premium brand image without resorting to discounting strategies. Aimed at boutique, results-driven med spa and aesthetic practice owners, Heather provides actionable strategies to boost profits while preserving brand integrity and ensuring a high-quality client experience.

The Pitfalls of Discounting

Heather begins by addressing a common challenge among med spa owners: the temptation to discount services to drive sales. She warns against "crash discounting", a tactic where businesses indiscriminately apply discounts without adding value, which can ultimately "cheapen your brand" and attract price-sensitive clients who may not be loyal in the long term.

Heather (05:20): "Whether you're crash discounting or you're just discounting without any sort of value... it can actually attract more of those patients and clients who are looking for the cheapest place in town."

Introducing White Glove Promotions

To counteract the negative effects of discounting, Heather introduces the concept of White Glove Promotions. Unlike traditional discounts, White Glove Promotions focus on adding value through premium, exclusive offers that enhance the client experience without lowering prices.

Heather (12:15): "White Glove promotions... are promotions that are with the premium client or patient in mind."

Case Study: Successfully Packaging a Signature Offer

Heather shares a real-world example of coaching a successful, long-established med spa client who introduced a new signature package based on a proven clinical protocol. The client aimed to "increase the number of clients" and needed effective strategies to market this premium offering.

Heather (08:45): "She didn't have a ton of before and afters for this specific protocol just yet... how can we equip her team to have even more success selling this signature package."

Luxury Brand Examples: Elevating Promotions

Drawing parallels with luxury brands, Heather illustrates how companies like Chanel employ White Glove Promotions without compromising their premium status. For instance, Chanel offers "a gift with purchase," such as a makeup bag or travel-sized products, which "elevates the experience" and incentivizes higher spending without appearing discount-driven.

Heather (18:30): "Chanel is not a discount brand, nor did the experience feel like a discount type of cheap thing. It was actually elevating the experience with Chanel while incentivizing me to actually spend more with them."

Avoiding Crash Discounting: Lessons from Healthcare

Heather emphasizes that while crash discounts can yield short-term sales boosts, they disrupt the "metabolism of your business," leading to long-term challenges such as attracting only price-sensitive customers and diminishing the perceived value of services.

Heather (25:50): "Crash discounting works in the same way if you are panicking about your sales and last minute you're like, let's run this discount in order to spark some bookings and sales."

Implementing White Glove Promotions in Your Practice

Heather outlines practical steps for med spa owners to develop and implement White Glove Promotions:

Identify Premium Offers: Focus on high-value packages or services that align with your brand’s luxury positioning.
Add Value, Not Discounts: Incorporate bonuses or exclusive benefits that enhance the client experience without reducing the price.
Strategic Timing: Use promotions strategically throughout the year to drive specific actions, such as introducing new packages or rewarding loyal clients.
Maintain Brand Integrity: Ensure that all promotional activities reinforce your premium image and attract the right clientele.

Heather (34:10): "Having special promotions... that you can use strategically like a lever to actually have your patients or clients take certain actions that you want them to take is still an important part of your marketing plan."

Conclusion and Next Steps

Heather wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to assess their current promotional strategies and identify areas where they might be inadvertently discounting their services. She highlights the importance of shifting towards White Glove Promotions to sustain a premium brand image and attract high-value clients.

For those interested in further enhancing their promotional strategies, Heather mentions her White Glove Promotional Training available through her programs, including Ask Heather AI and the Authority Method.

Heather (42:05): "So how can we create White Glove promotions so that we can still entice folks to take the actions we want them to take on our premium offers while not cheapening our brand."

Additional Resources

White Glove Promotional Training: Available through Ask Heather AI, the Authority Method, and MedSpa Advantage (MSA).
Crash Discounting Episode: For a deeper dive into the dangers of crash discounting, listeners are encouraged to search for Heather’s dedicated episode on the topic.

Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a vital resource for med spa and aesthetic practice owners aiming to elevate their marketing strategies. By adopting White Glove Promotions, businesses can enhance client experiences, maintain their premium status, and achieve sustainable growth without the drawbacks associated with discounting.

Connect with Heather Terveen and Learn More:

If you're a boutique, results-driven med spa owner looking to "drive more sales profitably each month without hustling yourself into the ground," consider joining the MedSpa Advantage program. Designed to help you grow revenue and profits while reclaiming your time, this program provides the tools and support necessary for balancing business success with personal well-being.

Apply Today: heatherturveen.com/apply

Transcript

A (0:00)

Whether you're crash discounting or you're just discounting without any sort of value besides the fact that you're putting a percentage off on something that can cheapen your brand and it can actually attract more of those patients and clients who are looking for the cheapest place in town. Welcome to the MedSpa CEO podcast where I teach you how to grow and scale your med, spa or aesthetic practice so that you can have the income and impact you know you were meant for without overwhelming stress or feeling like you have to sacrifice your personal life and happiness to do so. It's totally possible for you and your business. Plus, simpler than you think. Keep listening to find out how well hello my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Recently I was coaching a client inside of MSA and we were, you know, I think the episode that precedes this episode is all about manufacturing success. And I was talking about on that episode how the topic of manufacturing success and me coaching my clients on what that looks like for them just keeps coming up over and over and over again. And so we were talking about manufacturing success for one of her signature packages. And it's a new signature package that is new. She has been in business a long time, she's very successful, she has a whole team. And this package, it's new to them, how they've packaged it together, but it's based on a clinical protocol that they've done with a lot of clients throughout the years, but the way they are presenting it is new. And so we were talking about how can we equip her team to have even more success selling this signature package. And she also really wanted to increase the amount of clients that she had get through this protocol exactly how it is so that she could even get more before and afters. She didn't have a ton of before and afters for this specific protocol just yet. And so we were talking, talking about it and I said, well, what if you had a promotional campaign about this particular package? You don't even have to have the in person event because sometimes I do recommend having the in person event and have a high impact event with the promotional campaign where you promote this and you have some special incentives on top of the package. So you know, it's a value add. We're not discounting it, we're just adding in some irresistible bonuses that are value adds to the thing thing. And so she was concerned. She was like, I just don't want to end up accidentally making myself into some sort of discount clinic. And what I told her, and this is what we're going to talk about today is a concept I call White Glove promotions. There is a different. When you are creating a White Glove premium experience, you can still use promotions to actually help incentivize your clients or patients to do certain things that is very different than promotions that are built on generic discounted things. And so today I wanted to talk about the difference between white glove promotions and how premium brands and even luxury brands, they still use promotions, but they use white glove promotions. They don't use discounts and other things in this same way. An example I gave to my client was I told her, you know, I recently went and purchased a bunch of makeup at the Chanel counter. And as I was, you know, deciding on the things I was purchasing, the Chanel representative was like, oh, well, we have this special. Essentially it was a gift with purchase. She's like, if you spend more, like she basically told me I had to spend X amount and I was underneath this amount, then you get this makeup bag and a couple of other sort of like fun travel sized lipstick type of things with it. And so this was a white glove promotion, right? Chanel is not a discount brand, nor did the experience feel like a discount type of cheap thing. It was actually elevating the experience with Chanel while incentivizing me to actually spend more with them. And so this is the difference between white glove promotions and discounts that are cheapening your brand. And so that is what I was encouraging. My client was like, we are coming up with white glove promotions. We are coming up with promotions that are still in alignment with you being a premium or even luxury brand. I want you to think about this. I actually have a brand new training that was a bonus for Ask Heather AI. It'll also be if you have the authority method, you will have access to it. And then of course, MSA will have access to it as well. But walking through how to actually have a strategy, a white glove promotional strategy for your practice or clinic. And the reason why this is so powerful is that having special promotions, you know, throughout the year that you can use strategically like a lever to actually have your patients or clients take certain actions that you want them to take is still an important part of your marketing plan. So we still want to have a promotional plan that is highlighting certain things and that may incorporate certain sort of bonuses and value adds in order to actually entice your buyer to actually take the action on whatever it is that you're selling. Now where the confusion comes up is that There are a lot of you that have inadvertently done something that I call crash discounting. And so whether you're crash discounting or you're just discounting without any sort of value besides the fact that you're putting a percentage off on something that can cheapen your brand and it can actually attract more of those patients and clients who are looking for the cheapest place in town. But with White Glove promotions, these are promotions that are with the premium client or patient in mind. You know, if I have a three to $10,000 package and I am adding in a value add bonus, which is the price point range that my client who was coming to me with and we were talking about, and I decide I'm going to add in a white Glove promotion for a limited period of time to entice my folks to actually purchase that during that time period. That is not, you know, the person who's not going to invest in a three to $10,000 package isn't going to even learn about that promotion. But your premium client or patient who appreciates the luxe gift with pur purchase, if you will, the value add to it is not going to be cheapened or it's not priming her to like ask for discounts, right? It's a very different experience as opposed to having every month your promotional plan be the random discounts that you're running. And so for those of you who aren't familiar with crash discounting, I actually think I have a podcast episode called Crash Discounting where I talk about it. So if you want to go search my whatever podcast player you're listening to this on to find it, I dive in deeper. But the Cliffs Notes of crash discounting that I've seen with people in our industry over and over again is like, you come up similarly to crash dieting, right? Where you're like, you have a big event coming up or you know, it's almost summertime and so you're like, I need to lose weight. And so you do some diet. That is a crash diet. That does maybe in the short term work where you lose something weight or you lose some water weight, but over time it actually messes up your metabolism to crash diet. Crash discounting works in the same way if you are panicking about your sales and last minute you're like, let's run this discount in order to spark some bookings and sales. It does work in the short term, right? Like those crash discounts can work, but they mess up the metabolism of your business. And what I mean by that is they mess up how you've positioned your business. You actually end up growing your patient and customer base around price sensitive people because you're training those folks to wait for discounts and you are attracting the discount shopping folks. So it messes up with the integrity of what most of you are trying to do, especially if you're listening to this podcast or a follower of me at all. So we don't want a crash discount. We don't even want to do the regular discount promotional plan where we're just randomly picking the generic treatment or service or product or skincare lined discount every month. How can we use white glove promotions? You know, when you think about it, if you look at like luxury hotels, they will still have promotions. In fact, you can go and look at the Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons or some of these like really luxe experience hotels and they still have have promotions that are more white glove in how they're designed. Right. And so, you know, it might be that they have a spa package where you will get a certain amount of spa credit by booking for five days at this, you know, luxe destination. Right? So it's thousands and thousands of dollars for the package, but it's going to attract still the premium destination traveler. It's not going to attract like the person looking for the cheapest hotel in town, but it's going to encourage them maybe to take the action of booking for five days instead of booking for three days. You know, a fine dining tasting menu where they have the chef's selection and it's curated and it's like a fixed price that is still premium but is actually maybe a better deal on everything because you are picking what the chef has curated. Or maybe it's a private yacht charter that is including like a bottle champagne and a charcuterie board for the sunset cruise. Right. So like looking at what other industries do that are still premium or luxury, they're not mainstream. And who they're trying to attract leaves us clues for how we can do this in our own industry. So what I coached my client on was how can we keep that premium white glove experience but still incorporate promotions to get folks to do what we want them to do. And so what I mean by that even is, you know, when I have been talking like I was talking about at the top about manufacturing success, like let's say you're trying to get a certain number of people to purchase initially because it's a new package, right? You can have an incentivized white glove promotion that is a value Add bonus For folks that take action early on, this is a shift in how you actually think about your promotional plan and it's something that I'm going to be teaching and training with my clients on and I wanted to bring to the podcast so that you can start thinking about okay, where are we crash discounting? Where are we cheapening ourselves? Or where are we so concerned about crash discounting or cheapening ourselves? Because you've learned from me or other consultants and coaches that you shouldn't be discounting. So how can we create White Glove promotions so that we can still entice folks to take the actions we want them to take on our premium offers while not cheapening our brand while or the experience for the premium patients and clients that we want to attract more of to our clinics, med spas and practices? That is what I have for you this week. If you are interested in learning more about Ask Heather AI or the Authority Method or msa, I'm going to put all those links in the show notes because the White Glove promotional training method will be in those products. All right, my friend, that's what I have for you this week. I'll see you next week. Hey, if you're enjoying this podcast and you're a boutique results driven med spa owner who is looking to drive more sales profitably each month without hustling yourself into the ground to do so, then you should consider applying to join us inside of the MedSpa Advantage. It's the only program designed to help you grow your revenue and profits while gaining back more time so that you don't feel scattered and drained while running and growing your business each month. To learn more about whether or not you're a fit for joining us, you can head over to heatherturveen.com apply to apply to get on a call with us to learn more. That's heatherturveen.com apply to learn more.