AmSpa’s Director of Education Shares Tips to Elevate Your Practice - Interview w/ Kirstie Jackson

Summary

Med Spa Success Strategies Podcast

Episode: AmSpa’s Director of Education Shares Tips to Elevate Your Practice - Interview with Kirstie Jackson
Host: Ricky Shockley
Release Date: June 27, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of the Med Spa Success Strategies Podcast, host Ricky Shockley welcomes Kirstie Jackson, the Director of Education at the American Med Spa Association (AmSpa). With over two decades of international experience in aesthetic dermatology and plastic surgery practices, Kirstie brings a wealth of knowledge in business development, leadership, marketing, patient engagement, compliance training, and clinical research.

2. Kirstie Jackson’s Background and Current Role

Kirstie shares her journey from working at a plastic surgeon’s front desk to her pivotal role at AmSpa. Her transition highlights a passion for the aesthetics industry, emphasizing the importance of education and business growth over purely clinical roles.

"I love helping people look and feel like the best versions of themselves. I really like the science and the education and the continued learning."
— Kirstie Jackson [01:17]

3. The Importance of Service Payment Protocols

Kirstie discusses the critical aspect of ensuring that patients understand the value of services rendered without defaulting to discounts or deferred payments, drawing an analogy to hairdressers who expect immediate payment post-service.

"You're paying for an outcome based on the experience and competency and expertise of your chosen provider."
— Kirstie Jackson [06:06]

4. Handling Pricing and Discounts

Kirstie emphasizes the necessity of standing firm on pricing while offering alternative loyalty programs instead of discounts. She suggests pivoting the conversation to highlight existing programs that add value without compromising the practice's financial integrity.

"Instead of offering discounts, pivot to what programs we do offer and how they add value to the patient."
— Kirstie Jackson [06:11]

5. Ensuring High Service Quality and Pricing Strategy

The discussion moves to maintaining high service quality to justify premium pricing. Kirstie underscores the importance of aligning mission, vision, and values with the community’s needs, ensuring patient experiences meet or exceed expectations.

"Patient experience is everything. If you serve an experience to the patient that fulfills their needs and their requirements, that is what is going to bring them back to you."
— Kirstie Jackson [08:23]

6. Managing Online Reputation and Reviews

Kirstie highlights the importance of monitoring online reviews and having processes in place to address negative feedback. She advises practices to be proactive in managing their online footprint to maintain a positive reputation.

"Have a process predefined to handle bad reviews and ensure your staff are comfortable addressing them politely and appropriately."
— Kirstie Jackson [12:02]

7. Competition and Differentiation Strategies

Addressing competition, Kirstie advises thorough market research and understanding the local landscape before setting up a practice. She emphasizes authentic branding and a clear value proposition to stand out in a saturated market.

"Understand your community and deliver an experience that meets their needs, finding the sweet spot between your services and what the market desires."
— Kirstie Jackson [15:03]

8. Appointment Time Management

Balancing operational efficiency with patient satisfaction is crucial. Kirstie discusses the need to align appointment durations with both provider preferences and business profitability, advocating for flexibility based on the practice’s specific context.

"Understand how your providers want to practice and create solutions that respect their preferences while maintaining business viability."
— Kirstie Jackson [24:48]

9. Culture and Leadership in Med Spas

Kirstie underscores that a strong organizational culture is vital for staff retention and overall practice success. She stresses the role of leadership in fostering a supportive environment that prioritizes employee growth and satisfaction.

"Culture is at the center of everything. Your staff are what makes your business run, and they shouldn't be an afterthought."
— Kirstie Jackson [32:05]

10. Team Growth and Leadership Structure

As practices grow, Kirstie recommends building a structured leadership team with clearly defined roles. She advises against multiple hat-wearing, suggesting segmented roles to enhance operational efficiency and staff accountability.

"People wearing multiple hats is becoming a little outdated. As the business grows, roles should become more defined to ensure clarity and efficiency."
— Kirstie Jackson [41:33]

11. Membership vs. Loyalty Programs

Kirstie differentiates between membership and loyalty programs, explaining that memberships require a higher level of management and commitment. She advises practices to decide whether to fully commit to a membership model or opt for simpler loyalty rewards based on their operational capacity.

"Membership programs require a plan to ensure prepayments are utilized effectively, whereas loyalty programs reward customers post-purchase with less logistical overhead."
— Kirstie Jackson [44:34]

12. In-Office Promotional Events

Offering insights into successful promotional events, Kirstie advises thorough planning, clear goal setting, and logistical preparation. She highlights the shift towards virtual events during the COVID pandemic, showcasing their effectiveness in increasing revenue.

"Define the goal of your event, whether it's to thank patients or promote a new service, and ensure logistical readiness to handle the outcome."
— Kirstie Jackson [49:24]

13. Conclusion

Kirstie Jackson provides invaluable insights into elevating med spa practices through strategic pricing, excellent patient experiences, strong leadership, and effective marketing strategies. Her expertise emphasizes the importance of foundational business practices intertwined with a patient-centric approach to ensure sustained growth and success.

"Without a strong foundation in culture and leadership, even financially successful practices will face challenges in staff retention and patient satisfaction."
— Kirstie Jackson [35:48]

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About Kirstie Jackson

Kirstie is an influential leader in the med spa industry, serving as the Director of Education at AmSpa. She is actively involved in upcoming events like the Women in Aesthetics Leadership Summit hosted by AmSpa and shares her expertise on Instagram under the handle @KirstyAesthetics.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Kirstie Jackson’s interview, providing valuable takeaways for med spa and aesthetics practice owners aiming to enhance their business operations and patient experiences.

Transcript

[Ricky Shockley]

Hey, everyone. I'm your host, Ricky Shockley with MedSpa Magic Marketing. And this is the MedSpa Success Strategies podcast where MedSpa and Aesthetics practice owners come to discover strategies and tactics that help them better market and manage their practices so they can grow, improve profitability and have greater impact for their teams and their patients. I'm excited today to be joined by Kirsty Jackson. Kirsty is the Director of Education at the American Med Spa association, amspa. She's worked internationally with exceptional aesthetic dermatology and plastic surgery practices since 2005. Her multifaceted expertise spans business development, leadership marketing, patient engagement, software transitions, compliance training, and clinical research. She has previously been on the executive board of the association of Dermatology Administrators and Managers. On today's episode, we go through a wide variety of topics and the main, I would say, theme of this episode is that Kirsty's going to share the things that she's learned over the years that make significant successful practices as successful as they are. So with that said, let's dive into the episode. Kirsty, thank you so much for coming on the show. We're super excited to have you today.

[Kirsty Jackson]

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

[Ricky Shockley]

So I was like to start with a little bit of your backstory and your current role. So can you give the listeners a little bit of your backstory and what you're up to now?

[Kirsty Jackson]

So like most people in the aesthetics field, I started working for plastic surgeon over 20 years ago as one of his front desk, kind of phone answering, surgery scheduling people just to pay my way through college. And I finished college, I got the job that I had intended to, which was fashion editorial. And then came the crunch. Decision was like, actually I really, really love this industry. I love helping people look and feel like the best versions of themselves. I really like the science and the education and the continued learning. What am I going to do? So I decided to stay and I worked for that surgeon in London for nine years. Eight. Nine years. And then moved to America and decided that I wanted to do some more learning and pivot and jump into dermatology. So I joined a dermatology practice so I could add more experience to my knowledge centers. Everything I knew about aesthetics, very different way of practicing medicine, and then ended up at a practice in Chicago that was multispecialty, meaning it was dermatology, plastic surgery and med spa. So it was kind of like the best of both worlds for me. And, and that's where we end I jumped out of working in clinical practice to work for Amspar because I think I love working in medical practice. But you wear many hats and it's very hard to focus. And I think the time had come for me to pick the components of my job that I maybe enjoyed the most. And for me that was definitely education and training support and business growth and development practices. And AMSPA provided that opportunity. So I said goodbye to working in the office and here I am.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, amazing. Well, that's what we're going to do today. Share. Share information and education. So I'm excited for this interview. I was going through your Instagram and some of the things that you've shared in preparation for the interview. I've realized I like doing this. This is a really good way, I feel like, to guide some of the questions. And in one of your recent posts, your more recent posts, you use the hairdresser analogy. And that's one that we use all the time when we talk about provider loyalty and service and that the relationship is ultimately the thing that creates stickiness. I think so many times practice owners are looking for a silver bullet. They're looking at marketing or advertising or some sort of shiny new strategy that's going to solve all their problems. And without this piece of the puzzle dialed in, I think you're sort of doomed. Like this. This was really a non negotiable. Could you talk about that a little bit?

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yeah. So I presume the analogy you're referring to is, you know, you don't go to the hairdresser, get a beautiful haircut or hairstyle and then get to check out and be like, oh, is there any discounts for that? Or can I just put that on my account? Or something of that nature. Everyone knows that once the haircut is complete, you go and pay for the service. So when services is rendered, these are due. Now, I think because there is the word medical in medical aesthetics and in the medical field, I think esthetics is drifting away from this somewhat. But because it's so closely related to health and care and this idea that we typically use insurance or, you know, how we pay for things, it kind of just, it feels patients, I feel like sometimes take the liberty of, you know, asking these questions that aren't appropriate in our space. And while we can't stop their behavior, we can ensure our staff are educated to counter those obstacles on in how they're handling the situation politely, kindly, appropriately. And one of my favorite statements for those patients that were kind of like, oh, um, you know, I Just walked out and didn't pay. And then you have to phone them and be like, hey, you had a service today and it's happened. Um, or when the patients are just like, well, why is it more like when the price conversation comes up, you kind of just have to stand the ground of when services are rendered, fees are due, and you know that it's the same in every other industry or every other service provider that you go to, and we are no different. And it kind of comes from that. But there is a very big education piece about ensuring your staff in the office are comfortable handling that question. When it does inevitably crop up.

[Ricky Shockley]

What are the quick bullet points to how you recommend people handle that conversation?

[Kirsty Jackson]

I think, I mean, it depends what they're complaining about. If they're asking for a discount or service, you can maybe lean into what you do offer. We don't offer that. But here's our. Here's the programs that we do offer. You know, maybe Ali Aspire, the experience program. Many of these companies, they have kind of those loyalty programs that actually pay your practice back the value that you're discounting. So for you, it's no discount. So just pivot. You know, we. Unfortunately, we don't offer that, but we do offer these. And these are here to. We. We thank you for your loyalty. We really appreciate you choosing us. While we can't, we often can't and don't want to compete. You know, our services are priced based on the experience our providers have. You know, and there's another analogy where you don't. When you go and buy a piece of artwork and you meet the artist, you don't say to the artist, well, okay, how much was the canvas? How much was the paint? How much was the tools and equipment that you. And I'm going to give you that amount of money. No, you're buying the outcome. You're buying the complete piece. And that is exactly what. It's the same thing getting your neuromodulator treatment or your filler treatment. You are paying for an outcome based on the experience and competency and expertise of your chosen provider.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, I love that. There's a few other questions that come to mind, kind of branching off that for me. And one is how do you ensure. I think the problem can be, if you really are a mediocre med spa, the experience is just the artistry that's provided with services is average, middle of the road. It's probably pretty hard to maintain a price point that you want to maintain. Do you have any Advice on, on that front and the reality of having to be like your providers actually have to have artistry. They have to be top tier for you to be able to justify high price points. Otherwise I would assume that that formula sort of falls apart. Is that your analysis as well?

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yeah. I think this all centers around your mission, vision and values and your branding. So when you sit down to decide what is our business model, who are we, who do we serve, who is in our community, what do we bring to the table as providers through having that conversation and being forced to address those components. That's why creating mission, vision and values is so important. You're going to see a very clear picture laid out as to, you know, maybe we, we are in a mid priced community and we have to be mid priced because there's a lot of competition or we don't have access to the experienced providers that can charge maybe a higher price point due to their credentials. And so how are you going to make that experience better for your patient demographic? Because I speak about this a lot and I talk about it at bootcamp. Actually, patient experience is everything. If you serve an experience to the patient that fulfills their needs and their requirements, that is what is going to bring them back to you. And I think studies have actually proven, not that this specifically answers your question, but studies have shown that I think 79% of people will pay for a, a higher price for a treatment or a service if you are driving an experience that they like, that they enjoy and that serves their needs. So if you connect the dots and you understand that about your community and you actually deliver it to them and you're meeting in the middle, I think that's probably where the sweet spot lies.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. That's amazing. So having a realistic perspective of what the formula for success looks like for your business based on the factors that are at play in your market, in your community, with competition, and making sure that you develop something that's going to check that box in terms of patient satisfaction. And I think you're right. Like people will pay if they feel like they're getting something that is superior to what they expected. I just been using this mechanic analogy because I've been out of the shop with cars the last couple of weeks and you have so many different experiences when you take your car in sometimes. I've gone to two different places in our town. One of them is really, really expensive and it feels like everything they're doing, they're just trying to sell me something I don't need. And the other Place that I went felt so non professional that I almost didn't trust their expertise. And we were traveling, we went to a mechanic shop where I was like, holy cow. The way that they treated me, their clarity and communication. I trusted these people and I almost didn't care that they might have charged me a couple hundred dollars more than the person down the street because I was very confident they were actually diagnosing the problem and achieving the desired outcome. And I think those are the boxes you have to check to make sure that you can position yourself to see success in terms of patient satisfaction and retention.

[Kirsty Jackson]

I think the easiest example of that is. Ricky, do you use food delivery services?

[Ricky Shockley]

Believe it or not, I don't really.

[Kirsty Jackson]

You're the one human on the planet that doesn't.

[Ricky Shockley]

But I work from home, so I'm always looking for an excuse to get in the car and go pick something up.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Right. So, but I think Uber Eats or you know, grubhub or whatever, you have access doordash or that is the easiest example of this. People use those services. Most people use those services. And when you ask them, well, why? And they're like, well, it's convenient or I just wanted to relax on my couch at home, watch a movie and have the food come to me, okay, that's the experience you want and you paid extra for it, right? There you go.

[Ricky Shockley]

Absolutely. Do you, do you find that there's a challenge with this? Because one of my experiences working with practices is sometimes people can be a little bit delusional or blind to how they're perceived by the outside world. So they kind of think they're the bee's knees. They think they've got a great reputation, they think they're doing a killer job. What a patient experience. And then you go look at their Google reviews and it's sort of middle of the road. And if the, the actual patient experience and the data that you have that reflects patient experience and things like Google reviews and the help reviews doesn't reflect that, and you're trying to charge a premium price point for high level of service and convenience, do you see that there's sometimes a disconnect there with practices?

[Kirsty Jackson]

I'm happy to say that that's not one that I come across like a lot. I think for the most part practices these days are much more aware and cognizant of. I have to be aware of my online footprint. And for those practices that haven't maybe got there yet, it's just about reinforcing that message. Like you, you have to just as you run, hopefully you run data metrics in your practice to be like, how much money did I bring in today, this month, this quarter? You should also be running reports and these are non financial, the non financial KPIs. So what is my Google ranking? Like how many reviews came in in the last month were any bad? You need to have a process to address that too. This comes down to your operations. But you know when you do have a bad review coming, everyone's going to get one. Rather than flap and panic and be like, oh my goodness, you know, what do we do about this? You have a process to predefined to handle it. I think awareness is, is crucial and is at the core of this. And the more that you are honest with yourself that some people, some of your patients are going to have a bad day, some of your patients are potentially going to have a poor experience. Hopefully they are in the 1%. They are, you know, you, and you, you often can't chase the 1% as well. So like being able to take a step back and say is this a true practice issue that we need to learn from or is this person just truly, truly having a bad day and there was nothing we could do to turn that frown upside down? There's a big difference there. You just, you have to take a deep breath, make sure you have those policies and procedures in place that you're actively mining this information data. And even if you don't always like what you're seeing, make sure that you have awareness of your online footprint. Because if you don't, that's just, it's, it's naivety and there's going to be things being said about you in industry space that you may not like and you're doing nothing to change the, change the direction of that. You know, so it begins with, it begins with awareness, really?

[Ricky Shockley]

I think, yeah, it makes sense. On that note, if you're in a competitive landscape, which most med spas are these days, how do you think about competition, differentiation and how, how to win in a competitive landscape? Because I think it can be really challenging. I think people talked about unique value propositions and trying to find your lane. I think that can be really hard for a med spa. And when your services are commoditized, it almost feels to me like the devil's in the details and you have to just optimize all of the little, the little things. What are your thoughts on dealing with competition and how to set yourself apart to be successful?

[Kirsty Jackson]

It's a big question and I I probably would be a very rich person if I knew the exact answer to this. But here's my best answer. My best answer is, first of all I'm going to tell you to do all the research you can in advance of starting your business. You know how many med spas are in the local area, what kind of services are they offering, what kind of price points are they at? Then I'm going to ask you like what data do you currently have access to? Because there are some practices like if, if you are, this would be an easy one, a dermatology practice that is wanting to open a med spa or something. Then I might say, okay, let's run some of your ICD10 and CPT codes and see how many diagnosis you have for melasma hyperhidrosis. You know, things that can lend into cross referral or promotion. Like if you offer a miradry treatment and because you see a lot of hyperhidrosis patients, that may be something your med spa can offer. Or if you see a lot of patients with pigmentation issues, that might be a service your med spa can offer. So just the easy crossover. So it's about foundation building to do all your research. And then what I'm going to do is a little bit to tell you to throw that out the window. It's not completely ignore it. But then it comes, okay, well who are you? Because there are some providers and practices that like to stand on a platform of character and uniquity. And I, you know, where the practice like maybe has a theme or the interior decoration is like reflective of the personality that maybe the personality of the provider is very like bright and vibrant and all of your internal spaces are you, maybe you've got neon elements in there. You know, the, the space should be authentic. Just as with social media, the space inside should feel authentic to the practice and the provider. And so, and then you need to. The third part of that is kind of like the more business elements which is you have to run KPIs for your financial overheads in order to price your services. You're not just going to come in and throw spaghetti at the wall and say, okay, I'm going to charge $300 for neuromodulator to this area just because, because three people down the road are doing that. Well, you know, that might work for them and their overheads, but what are yours like? You need to know what your overheads are. What is the room cost per treatment charge, the provider cost, who's doing the service, what consumables are needed to perform it. The light bill, you know, any, anything that you need to operate the space to offer the service needs to be taken into account. And when you look at that, and then you have to mark it up, right? And usually that markup is somewhere between maybe 40 and 60%, we hope. But like they. Then you mark it up, right? And that number that you land on might not be that 300 that you had wanted to land on. So then you have to have a business, a decision. Okay, well, in order to cover my overheads, we need to be priced slightly higher than I thought. What does that look like? All of these things need to be taken into consideration. You shouldn't just come in, find a space and pull numbers out of the air to price your services. I find a lot of people miss some steps along the way, but that's my answer.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Med Spa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help Med spas and aesthetics practices market grow with more effective marketing strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase, right? That's a vague claim. So I have an offer for you. I offer this to any new prospects if you're interested in exploring any of them. Another marketing option, a new agency, or just getting into Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads for the first time. I'd love to show you why we're different, what we're doing for clients. And we can do that via a one and a half hour planning session where I'll outline a specific marketing plan and I'll give you all of the blue blueprints that we would implement if we were to do business together. Now you can take that, use that on your own, hire someone else to help you execute it or work with us. We really don't hold anything back on that strategy call. And I think you'll have a lot of confidence in how you manage your marketing investment moving forward. Understanding some of the nuances that can help you implement more effective marketing strategies for your business. So if you want to do that, you can go to medspamagicmarketing.com you had an Instagram post a couple of years ago that I've got pulled up here year and it was talking about pricing for tracking inventory, verse treatment for neuromodulators. I think this ties into what we're just talking about, the difference between tracking inventory and treatment. Can you just dig into that a little bit in terms of just the numbers and the financial analysis?

[Kirsty Jackson]

So from an operator's viewpoint, they're very. It's different information. So if, if you're charging per unit for your neuromodulator. Right. You might just say I'm going to charge $16 a unit for my neuromodulator. At the end of the month I can run a report hopefully on how many units of neuromodulator went out my practice and how many neuro units of neuromodulator patients are treated with. But that doesn't tell me anything about the treatment area. Right. So if I just know X number of units of neuromodulator are going out of my practice, but I know nothing about which areas we're treating because I can't run that report easily from my emr. I don't know maybe how to market my practice. Maybe I'm doing a lot of lip flips. How would I know that if it's not something that my system contract? I might be doing a lot of platysmal bands and Nefertiti lifts, but how do I know that if it's not coming out? So I just think there's no right way to do this. Some practices prefer to just charge per unit and it works for them. Some practices charge per complete outcome. And that's going to be the flip side of that. It's like, well, if you tell me you're charging 1500 $2000 for a complete face, you know, and you're assessing holistically and that's how you prefer to practice. Totally fine. But then I'm going to ask you the other question. Well, how are you tracking your units and your syringes of filler? Because I'm assuming the price in your system is going to be like full face rejuvenation, fifteen hundred dollars. Right. So they have to. The dots have to be connected there too. It's very two very different pieces of information. And I as an operator, I want to know both. I want to know the units and syringes being used for my inventory management and I want to know the treatments and the service areas that I'm treat. So I then can I know the most about like if we're doing a ton of lip flips, maybe we want to push that on social media and be like, you'll come into the practice that's completed X number of flips in the last month. You know, it's useful information. It's just different information.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, I think that's extremely valuable having both sets of numbers. Do you find that a lot of practices don't do that? They're usually doing one versus the other.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yeah, they, they usually do. You know, we're charging by units and that's it, or we're charging by area and that's it. And then it's hard to kind of reverse engineer that and go back and correct the problem. And there are certainly ways you can manipulate your EMR and your software to do that, like a zero charge treatment area, for example. And maybe your system is pulling both. And now you have data that I don't need a charge for a treatment area, I just need to know what happened and when it happened. And usually using data, using your billing is the easiest way to do that. But typically, but yeah, they're usually doing one or the other.

[Ricky Shockley]

Cool. Yeah, very useful. Appointment times. One of your posts here mentions somebody may be potentially feeling like they overpaid if an appointment time was small. On the podcast, we've had different providers have different opinions of this. So you have operational efficiency, which is, what are our margins? How do we ensure profitability? And some of that is of course related to how much time you spend with patients. Because if you're running 20 minute appointment times, you're seeing three patients in an hour. If you want to spend all day talking to a patient and learning everything that's going on in their lives, I've had some people that say, you know, that's, that's the way I develop the relationship is I block out larger appointment times. But there's a financial implication to that. Any advice on how to manage the, the balance or how to find a balance between customer satisfaction, feeling like you give people the time of day, versus managing operational efficiency, and controlling appointment times? Any recommendations there?

[Kirsty Jackson]

So I think that I'm maybe I'm a little unique in that. Like I try to really understand how a provider wants to practice first and foremost. And I'm not, you know, if I was true, if I was doing, giving that answer with the business focus, I would say time is money, right? But not everyone wants to practice that way and they are perfectly within their rights to want to do things in a way that feels right to them. So my first question is always like, how, how is your, how are your consultations set up? What time do you want to allow for them? Like how. And I might, if they say that they need like two hours to do an initial consultation, I might, I might be nudging them towards that. Well, this isn't, this isn't obviously going to be a good business decision for you and we need to try and speed that up because no patient really wants to be in your office two hours with you and this your best friend. But you know, so we start with the provider because some providers want just that quick pace and in and out and they feel that they can get what they need to done within that time frame. And it's kind of like, well, who are we to judge if that's working for them and their patients enjoy the experience that they provide for them. Who are we to judge? So from a business operator consultant perspective, I have to be mindful and cognizant of that and create a solution that works for that provider. And the same with the provider that maybe wants longer with their patients. They maybe want an hour consultation and they are firm on that. They like, no, this is what our patients come to us for. This is what we want to deliver. This is the care that we want to provide. Okay, fine, we can totally work with that. Now there are going to be some business cost implications to running a longer consult, meaning that obviously you're paying your provider for the time that they're in the room and your profit margins are probably not going to be quite so high as something that runs at a slightly quicker pace. But it's not wrong. So yeah, it kind of begins with like understanding the practicing habits of the provider and the experience they want to deliver to their patients. And then we talk business around that and there might be some points where I'm nudging and encouraging and being like, hey, if we can improve on this, that would be awesome for you. But mostly you have to be respectful that providers like to see and treat their patients and provide different experiences that feel true to them.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, we've learned that too. It's every practice and provider has a different way that they want their day in their week to feel. And not everything is a one size fits all solution. It's not like this, this way or the highway. It's about understanding the trade offs of the decisions that you're making. Do you for the practices that do feel comfortable, hey, this is the what I want to deliver. I think being in the time longer with the patient is important. Do you recommend that they adjust their pricing to. So my thought would be if I'm going to provide a truly objectively superior service with via a more in depth consultation, more one on one time, ideally you're charging a premium for that. Do you find that's generally true or are people just eating the margin essentially as a result of the preference?

[Kirsty Jackson]

I would be trying to guide them to charge a price that gets them with a within comfortable overhead covering that comfortable overhead. And then we talk about it and we like, okay, this is the ideal. And if you can, you can maybe manipulate and massage those numbers a little bit. But ideally yes, you know, and if a patient, think about it from a patient perspective, if a patient is in the room with you for an hour as an example, they probably are wanting something that's a bit more conversational, slower pace, know, really get to know their provider and. Or maybe they're just, they know as a patient they're a nervous patient and they need a lot of handholding or maybe they know they've had neuromodulator or something, an injection before and they passed out and that's why they chose that because they need a little bit more care, more hand. They're usually seeking that out too.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. Do you, I assume the challenge with this is patient preference can be different than provider preference from time to time. So you could have a provider that they really like to do the hour long consult, but maybe you have half your patients just want in and out in 20 minutes. Half of them would love the hour consult. Do you find that there's any way to make that a patient based selection where they can kind of opt into. Do you want the 20 minute in and out version of this? Like you kind of know what you're getting into and we're good to go versus an elongated or prolonged consultation?

[Kirsty Jackson]

I try to avoid that as much as possible because running that kind of model, although it is possible it's going to cause you operational challenges because now your schedule is going to be, especially if you're multi provider and all of your providers are doing completely different things. And then also within the designated time slots you've then got providers being like, you know what, this 30 minute appointment, I want that to be 15 minutes. It's going to create scheduling issues and it also a lack of continuity like optically across your practice. Ideally you kind of all want to be singing from the same hymn sheet whereby if a patient comes in and sees they're seeing provider A and their appointment is 30 minutes, they don't want to see that Provider B is offering a 45 minute appointment for the same service. It just optically looks bad and it looks like you're not providing continuity of care. So it's not something that I would recommend. Out of the gate usually involves sitting all the providers down and finding like a happy ground like where they're comfortable and we kind of go from there and then I, we build out the operational piece of things.

[Ricky Shockley]

But that Makes a ton of sense.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Honestly, I have worked with practices where they have been like, okay, well, provider A schedules 30 minutes for this and provide a B schedules 15. And the beauty of that is then you can refer the. Well, I don't personally choose to practice that way. All of my appointments, 30 minutes. If that doesn't work for you, I can refer you to my colleague and it's still kept in house. But honestly, I prefer trying to get all the providers. I like to say it can be like herding kittens sometimes, kind of get them all on the same page.

[Ricky Shockley]

It makes sense. As you grow in scale and you need that operational efficiency, you have to have SOPs, you have to standardize delivery. And if you're just. Everything is. Every provider is operating as like a sole proprietor doing their own thing, it really gets pretty challenging, I assume. So that makes a ton of sense. One of the other quotes you shared, leadership isn't simply being in charge, it's taking care of those within your charge. You all said some stuff about culture matters on Instagram. Culture and leadership. What are your thoughts at a high level on where you see even successful practices lacking in culture and leadership practices?

[Kirsty Jackson]

You can be financially successful on paper, but if you can't retain staff, that is a sunk cost and it is a massive headache for your business and the continuity of care of your practice. So from, from delivering the service itself, patients feel the like, oh, but you know, you, you had a completely different staff last time I was in the office. Where did Susie go? You know, it doesn't look great from the patient perspective. They don't feel like they're getting continuity of care. They pick up on it. They too. They too. They pick up on it. And if you drive that all the way back to the staff themselves, you know, they're the people that often, I always say, as rule of thumb, training someone to work in an aesthetic practice probably takes about six months. They might be able to smile and check in and check out functionally, but actually understanding all the treatments and services takes at least six months. And that's for a position that's considered entry level. Don't get me started on that, because a lot of people say they want entry level, but actually what they want is an experienced hospitality service provider. And then, so you think of all, and then you think of your providers themselves. You're putting all this effort and energy into training your providers and your team to deliver the standard of care that you want. And then you've. But yet you're creating this environment that's so challenging for them to work in that they just don't want to stay and then they leave. So it's a, it's obviously a cultural problem. It's a financial problem, both from the side of things that the investment you're making in them and also your business revenue coming in. It's just I once heard a, a very respected pharmaceutical company said that culture was low hanging fruit. And I was, I couldn't disagree more. It's at the center of everything. Like you need, your staff are what makes your business run. Like without them you cannot function, you cannot operate. So they shouldn't be an afterthought. They should be at the core of everything you do. And that's why as a leader, you picked one of the ones. That definitely is my mantra. And those who have worked with me before, if they hear this, they will probably laugh because I used to say it a lot like, I am not here to be in charge. I'm here to take care of those within my charge because I. They are all incredibly competent staff members and they all want to do their best. They want to do a good job, they want to learn, they want to grow, they want to develop, they want to be just as I did and do they care about their careers and they want to grow in this field. So you can't just treat them like an afterthought with no, with no employee benefits, no prioritization culture, no growth plans for them. I think that's really. Especially if you're working a front desk position. Do you. There are some people that just, they, that's where they're comfortable. They want front desk and that's all they want to do. But some people, more often than not they're like, well, what's next? Like when I'm good at this, what do I get to do next? So what does that look like in your practice? How do you grow and develop them? I think all of these things are very important, crucial to cultural health of a practice and something that if you're a business owner or a leader, you are responsible for.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. And ultimately it's like we said, it determines the success or failure of your business. Because if you don't get that part right, everything else kind of unravels and falls apart.

[Kirsty Jackson]

No, it's like a, it's like a never ending. It's just like a cycle of the same problems on repeat. If you don't fix the root cause, you're. It'll start to feel like Groundhog Day in your business where like every Day you're dealing with the same set of challenges and that is a one way ticket to moral injury, AKA burnout. And they call burnout. Moral injury is actually a term that they coined during the COVID pandemic in the National Health Service in the uk and it was because they studied it and they saw that all the physicians that joined decided they want to be a physician and joined the hospital environment. They joined because they wanted to help people be well, look and feel like their best selves, you know, be healthy. And they wanted to practice good care and they found themselves in an environment with like extreme limitations. And when you are psychologically place an environment with extreme limitations day in, day out and you cannot do the job that you signed up to do, it is the fastest psychological track to burnout. And you don't want that in your business either.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, yeah. For yourself or for your team. Hey there. Wanted to briefly interrupt the episode to make a quick ask. If you're a podcast listener, it would mean the world to us if you leave a review for the podcast, whether that's on itunes or Spotify. It's something I hadn't really remembered or thought of asking for, but it does help us show up more frequently so that we can reach more people with the information that we're providing. So it mean the world to us if you'd leave a review on itunes or Spotify, if you're listening on audio, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you're in the loop for future videos and you don't miss any of the content that we're putting putting out. You mentioned people progressing, so like your front desk person, they might want to know what's next. As you grow, you inevitably have to build a leadership team in your practice. You can't wear all the hats all the time. What do practices do? Well, once they start building a leadership team versus ones that struggle to delegate and figure out how to put key team members in more prominent roles.

[Kirsty Jackson]

As you grow and scale, they've usually planned for it. And what that might look like is if you see if you're collecting your data and your KPIs and you see you're trending in a growth trajectory, great. But now you might start thinking, okay, well we can't just stay the same if we're growing, right? So then at that point you have to get your leadership team or your entire practice, however you want to do it and have like a big team meeting and really look at the hierarchy of your Practice and be like, okay, well before we might have had a provider, an ma, a front desk person and a manager, but now we need a clinic manager as well. Or we might need another ma. Okay, well who are the mas reporting to? Are they reporting to the clinic manager? Are they reporting to the practice manager? So that's what I mean about like foundation building. And sometimes you're building that hierarchy chart for positions that you don't yet have, but you see where they fit into the organization. So on a very basic level, it might be like, okay, well, using the model of I've got a provider, a med ma, a front desk person and a manager, maybe the provider's doing their own social media right now, but they feel the need to have. Do more, do more marketing. Someone else has to take this. So maybe there's a role for a marketing manager and maybe there's two people beneath the marketing manager. One might be social media and one might be like website management and you know, PR or something. And you might not have those people right now. But. But if you build a structure where they exist when time comes to hire them and you create then the job descriptions for every role on your, on your board, on your wishboard, and you try and start transitioning the staff to this new model and this new way of thinking and this new organization and structure, it's going to be a lot easier because when you need to hire that role, guess what, you've got the job description. You know, maybe know what the pay range is for it. You know who's going to report to them. They then your employees are clear. Like, that's the worst. When you don't have like a clear reporting structure and employees like, I don't really know who, who is my manager, it can be very confusing. So I think being like being very realistic about having a good foundation and that means outside of the hierarchy structure, it means having a handbook, an employee handbook. It means maybe having a code of conduct. It means having those job descriptions, it means having pay scales. It just really means it's foundation building. It's foundation building.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. And clarity and thinking ahead. I know when any business first starts, everybody's very comfortable with people wearing multiple hats.

[Kirsty Jackson]

But.

[Ricky Shockley]

But as you start to grow, you feel like, I have to hire a person that does this specific thing. Do you find that as you transition into building a leadership team with your practice, that there are often a lot of times where people are wearing two hats or do you really like to segment those roles and be very specific with drawing that boundary?

[Kirsty Jackson]

This could be a controversial statement, but I feel like people wearing multiple hats is becoming a little outdated and I'm almost glad to see it. I think that we've kind of outgrown this idea of the practice manager would be the ideal example for this. Because back in the day when, you know, 20 years ago, practice managers did do everything. They literally did everything. They hired, they did the marketing, they ordered all the consumables, they scheduled the surgeries, they, they did the staff schedules, they answered all the patient phone calls like they did everything. So many hands. And I think these days we understand that that is too much to ask of one person. Thank goodness. And we are starting to be a little more focused with how we assign job roles now. For sure, in a smaller business you are always going to have multiple hat wearing, but I think as the business grows, you do see that becoming more and more defined and that people understand what it is they're supposed to do when they come to work every day. Having people wearing multiple hats or dual roles where maybe you've got a medical assistant who is your medical assistant but also sits at the front desk. You, I, I challenge you to ask someone that's been doing that for a few months and be like, hey, do you, do you like what you're doing? And they're probably going to give you the response of, ah, I, I like both, I like both jobs, but doing them simultaneously, sometimes on the same day can be a bit of a challenge. So, yeah, I think that it's a very good point to raise. I, I don't love to see multiple hat wearing, but it's, I think it's something that we are leaving slowly but surely behind.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah. So as you're growing, that might be something you do in transitions. Make sure that you have it clearly outlined and you provide clarity and be working towards as you grow. Giving people clarity and roles and more of a singular focus.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yes. Especially, yeah. As you grow, make sure that is happening as well. Yeah.

[Ricky Shockley]

I wanted to wrap with a few rapid fire marketing questions. If you have a couple extra minutes with the ones. We already kind of talked about some of these, but one of them is membership programs and loyalty programs. This was a really hot topic on the podcast. I feel like, honestly, like when we started the podcast, 2022, 2023, it came up every episode and I don't know if this is just my anecdotal experience. It seems like it's been a less prominent part of the conversation. My inclination is that people are struggling more with selling membership programs than they originally thought they would. So it's maybe less popular, but maybe again, that's just my anecdotal perception. How do you see memberships and loyalty programs and the difference between the two fitting into a practice here in 2025?

[Kirsty Jackson]

Okay, so membership programs, the patient is usually paying money into a pot to look like massage. Envy does this right? You pay monthly and you get a certain number of services for the value that you pay. And there's usually tiered amounts. And loyalty is like where you're earning rewards. So you might spend $1,000 at the practice and maybe you're getting like a 10% discount on your skincare products thereafter or something of that nature. So they're doing, they're serving different functions. The goal is still to retain the patient, but one is forcing them to have skin in the game and the other is rewarding them after the fact, after the fact that they've spent it. So I think with membership programs, it's a bit like Instagram or social media. The most profitable membership programs I've seen are practices that have gone all in on their membership program. Like they want everyone on the membership program and that works well for them. Where I don't see it work great is where they do, they're doing, they're not really like it's an afterthought or not everyone has to have it. So I, I, it comes down to the type of bones you want to build for your business. If you want to be a membership practice, then great, you can certainly do that. But then you need to, that needs to be a focus and a priority. The other thing about membership programs is the patient is obviously paying money in every month. Now as a practice, logistically, and this is the thing on the flip side that people don't often think about is they're giving you money. That means that you have to provide them a service. Now some patients, they will come back to you. They will schedule their appointments, they will schedule out. They know that they're coming to see you monthly. And some patients aren't like that. They're just like, I'll come in whenever I feel like. It's. So what you don't want is to have a bunch of thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of prepayments on your books and it going nowhere. Your accountant is going to be really mad with you if, if you just have too much of other people's money sat doing nothing on your account, it looks really bad financially. So I think you just have to have a plan for it. You have to have a plan for it. You have to make sure that might be team members involved in the membership plan side of things where you're like they're actually actively texting, calling, emailing, saying, hey, you know, you're due for your service. Or maybe you employ like a service software provider that can ping your patients when they're due to come in. There's just other logistical considerations that I would be suggesting a practice put into place if they were doing a membership program because you just don't want to be sat in the position where A, it's not successful but which does happen, or B, it is really successful and then you're not doing anything with these prepayments. And also like the other consideration for that would be credit card. You know who's liable if the credit card transaction doesn't go through? Is it your, the software provider that's supporting your membership program or is it you?

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, I think the challenge with med spas specifically, it's so easy to get distracted. It's not like we're a plumber. We don't have like this one service that we offer. There's so many different options, you can be pulled in so many different directions. I think you're right. People that offer the membership, it's just one of 75 things, it tends to get lost in the shuffle. They've got 20 or 30 people on the membership program and it's sort of an afterthought. So it makes sense. Either go all in on it or it kind of is what it is.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yeah. Because it requires quite, I mean quite a lot of management. Like I said, these are people that have already paid you money, so now you have to do something about that. So the tense tends to be a bit more logistically and people power wise involved with that process than there is with a loyalty program where it's like, oh, you've earned 10% off or you've earned a free skin care product that's not so labor intensive or software intensive.

[Ricky Shockley]

Yeah, makes sense. You wrote an article for Decisions in Dermatology on office promotional events. In office promotional events. I did these when I started in marketing 13, 14 years ago. My first digital agency for doctor's offices. I have very little experience in this sense. I know this is another area where people really struggle and this is probably a pain point because you hear certain practices, oh my gosh, we could do a killing when we host these in office events. And then a practice goes and tries it and it's a total bust. So I wanted to Pick your brain a little bit on advice for running successful in office promotional events.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Well, go to one. Like, go to your peers, open houses and events and what do you like? What do you not like? You can't just host an event and not know like, what, what it's supposed to look and feel like. So go to one and start filtering. Okay, what did I. Maybe you liked that they gave Prosecco or champagne. Maybe you didn't like the decor was really chintzy. I don't know. Like, you know, think about how you want your practice to look and feel during one of those events and then you have to think about from the marketing side, like, what is the goal? Is the goal to touch as many of the patients as you possibly can? Is the goal to thank the patients for their loyalty? Because that's also different than actually necessarily just having an open house and trying to sell as much as you can. You might actually be one of like, thank you for choosing us. Is it because you bought a new device and you're trying to promote that device? So what's the goal, really? Think about your practice, what the goal is and like how you want it to look and feel on the day. Like, are you going to offer specials, promotions? And then you have to support that. Like, I definitely worked, I mean, successful open houses before where we had over 350 people in house and everyone wanted to buy everything and we did not have enough checkout stations to support that flow. So I think we thought we did, but in the hubbub and the busyness of the moment, we didn't. I do think that there are also different versions of in house events that work better. Like if you're going to do like a cool sculpting event, you maybe just want to target people who have an interest in that area. And the goal should be we want 50% of people that attend the event to book a service. Right? So if you have 26 people attend and 13 of them book, you have met your goal. Whereas if you throw a big open house and only 10% of people buy things, is that, has that been successful?

[Ricky Shockley]

People are there for the Prosecco and don't care about that. How do you, how do you recommend people recruit attendance to the event? Is it ads? Is it your, your newsletter, combination of all things.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Planning. Like, as any good marketer will tell you, you know, you need a lead time of probably at least two to three months for something like that. So you can push out your messaging and yeah, use e blasts like your patients in your database. Maybe you want signage in your office. Maybe you want to push it out on social media. Maybe you want to charge a deposit and be like, you know, it's a $25 deposit and maybe you want to have that link go to your website so they can pay and transact on the website because it's going to give you a hit there, but it gives them skin in the game. And then you can say that $25 is going to be towards any purchase you make that night. Yeah, there's lots of good ideas. But one thing I will say is that my. In my last practice, we actually transitioned away from in House and actually it was during COVID we went online and we did the whole event online and we gave like a little key code for when the they put in the code so they could enter the room and it was just like this virtual experience. And that did. We took like 60% more in revenue from doing an online event and they never went back to in house after that.

[Ricky Shockley]

Wow, that's good to know. That actually just came up recently too. And I assume this is like anything else, the more you do it, the more you figure out. So don't do it once. If you're doing one of these online events, you do it once and it's not perfect. Don't give it up and assume the strategy is bad. Figure out what went wrong and iterate and come back to the drawing board. Go back to the drawing board.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Yeah.

[Ricky Shockley]

Kirsty, where can people learn more about you and what you're up to? We'll make sure everything's in the the show. Note links as well.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Well, obviously I'm, I'm a an employee of amspa, the American Medical Spa association. So you can find me through their website, which is american medspa.org we also have a big conference coming up, Women in Aesthetics Leaderships, which is at Terranea in October. And that is an event that we are hosting to celebrate the beautiful people in our space that make it such a joy to work in and more importantly, like inspired leadership. You know, what do you do, how do you do it when you get there? And it's kind of more of a retreat vibe than it is a true traditional boot camp. But that's lots of fun. So you'll find me there. And then my Instagram is Kirsty Aesthetics.

[Ricky Shockley]

Amazing. Kirsty, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Hope to have you back again.

[Kirsty Jackson]

Thank you for having me.

[Ricky Shockley]

Thanks everyone for tuning in. This podcast is a production of medspa Magic Marketing if your med spa or aesthetic practice is in need of digital marketing services, help with advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Google lead generation and booking more appointments, please visit Medspamagicmarketing.com.