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Med Spa Success Strategies
Building a Safe, High-Performing Med Spa That Sets You Apart - Interview w/ Jenny Hartley
00:50:02
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- [00:03]
A
Hey there, I'm your host Ricky Shockley with MedSpa Magic Marketing and this is the Med Spa Success Strategies podcast where Med spa 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. Excited today to be joined by Jenny Hartley. Jenny is the Founder and Medical Director of skinsynthesis. She's a Board certified Acute care Nurse practitioner who spent nearly a decade as an ICU NP Medical Director at Swedish Medical center before bringing her expertise in precision and artistry to the aesthetic space. She graduated top of her class at Vanderbilt and now stands as one of Seattle's most sought after injectors and an Allergan Medical Institute trainer. Today's episode is sponsored by CallRail. When a single call could mean thousands of dollars in revenue, you can't afford to be in the dark on your marketing attribution. Stop guessing and start optimizing with CallRail, the lead generation platform that helps you transform calls into consoles. With CallRail, you'll know the exact keywords and campaigns that are driving your highest value clients. Answer and qualify calls24.7 use AI to analyze client intent and to automate follow up so your high value leads don't slip away. Most importantly, CallRail's platform supports HIPAA compliance to ensure your client information remains safe and secure. It's time to stop the guesswork and start using real insights to inform your marketing strategy, optimize ad spend and drive significant growth in your Med Spa. Try CallRail by starting a 14 day free trial at CallRail.com Medspasuccess that's CallRail.com Medspasucespect We've been using CallRail for over a decade in our agency. I think it's the best call reporting and attribution platform on the market. Jenny, I'm excited for our conversation today. Can you start by just giving everyone a little bit of a background on yourself and your business? How did you get into this space? How did you get to where you are now?
- [01:53]
B
Yes, well, I am a nurse practitioner and I spend close to 18 years working in critical care, first as a nurse and then I transitioned to a nurse practitioner about 14 years ago and like I said, worked in the ICU for the better part of two decades helping people on some of the worst days of their lives and about seven years ago started to think about what else I might want to shift into in my career and found aesthetic medicine in 2019. And really it's a huge yin and yang in my career, transitioning from helping people on that nightmare day when they are often facing life and death, to now transitioning to improving quality of life and seeing patients who are healthy, who are thriving, who are already awesome, living beautiful lives and doing something to enhance their confidence.
- [02:45]
A
Yeah, I love that. Similar story, I feel like, to a lot of listeners that have done similar things. But your backstory, specifically with what you did before. I know in our conversation before this episode, we talked a lot about how that impacts your view of patient safety. So that's kind of where I wanted to start our conversation today. And you mentioned some things in our preliminary conversation that quite frankly, just weren't even on my radar, at least for, like, as a marketing person. They're not the conversations that I'm typically having, even when we talk about management and operations. So when it comes to patient safety, could you give us, like, the tie in there and why this is something that's so important to you and such a focal point in your practice?
- [03:21]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So in critical care, we're often doing procedures to try to save someone's life. You're putting them on life support of some kind, putting a breathing tube in, starting dialysis, doing these really invasive things because you need to preserve life. And in aesthetics, these are elective procedures. And so that margin for error, for anything else to happen, for complications should be as close to zero as possible. And so as I started my practice in 2019, I really started backwards thinking, what are all the things that possibly could go wrong? How can I prevent them from happening so that I can keep my complication rate, adverse events, misadventures, close to zero. And so that involves thinking about everything that could be, from an infection to a vascular occlusion to allergic reactions, and really thinking about what are some things that you would want to do to minimize your risk. And, you know, in medicine in general, we shouldn't be doing procedures that you can't handle the complications for. So setting up those protocols in your practice to make sure that you're ready to that you have a plan in place, that you have all the equipment or medications that you may need, you've already phoned the resources that you might want to ask if something were to happen, that you're truly ready and equipped to handle all the potential outcomes, of course, planning that by doing this process, nothing will happen. And so it's a ton of work to do and to build your practice this way. But I really think this is what excellence looks like.
- [04:53]
A
And from your Knowledge. Am I right? You help people with this also, right, Jenny?
- [04:57]
B
Yeah, we do. So in our region here, we're in Seattle, we do host a vascular occlusion simulation lab. So people come from all over the region and the country to come and train on how do we prevent vascular occlusions, how do we recognize them if and when they do occur, how do we manage the patient, how do we document what we have in our practice. We go through simulations. So in medicine we often are doing simulation learning. So a lot of us take basic life support or advanced life support. We practice, we go through mega codes. We actually play out these simulations where we practice cpr, you run the code, et cetera. But in aesthetic medicine in this space, we often just go. There are so many across the country who perhaps have taken a quick weekend course. They kind of are starting, but we don't go through these simulations. And I think that's so important. This is adult learning. This is very common in nursing and in medicine. And so that's what lot of our courses are about. Are going through the process of doing some of those role playing, pretending that this is a live scenario so that you're ready and when it happens to you, you're not going to freeze, you're not having a total code Brown in the room. You've actually been through this. And we also sell protocols for various complications in our clinic while that being vascular occlusion or nodules, you know, bruising, hematomas, infections, ptosis, heaven forbid blindness, which is, you know, related to vascular occlusion with strok. So we really are the experts in complication management and patient safety.
- [06:34]
A
So in those conversations when you're talking to other practice owners or people in the space and they're coming to you and like, are there any things, any common threads that are like an eye opening conversation where you kind of realize this is something that is really overlooked at scale, where people are not paying enough attention or is it just the entire process of hey, if something goes wrong, what are we even doing here?
- [06:53]
B
Yeah, well, I think what I hear most of the time when we have these conversations are people like, whoa, this is really scary. You know, know, let's. And often, you know, teaching or in group settings, I feel like people want it sort of dumbed down because it's scary. And if the percentage of a vascular occlusion is X, let's not highlight that because that's really scary. That might make the new learner uncomfortable. But I think we have to talk about it. And if you're Uncomfortable. You need to really ask yourself the question, are you trained to do the procedure? Are you really ready? Should you be doing it? So that's the first thing is people do avoid these conversations. These conversations, they are scary. It makes them uncomfortable. It tends to highlight that they're not ready. They don't have a protocol. They don't know where things are in their practice. They don't know how much emergency medicine they should have. How many vials of hyaline X are in their fridge. My office has two. Is that okay? The answer is absolutely not. And then it often sometimes brings up the reality that some office's medical directors are not actually trained within aesthetic medicine. And so that hierarchy of that chain of command in their office. Office is maybe inappropriate and or broken. And it's an uncomfortable topic for many to find themselves in. It's scary. Yeah.
- [08:08]
A
It's like insurance. It's like the thing that, you know, you probably need to have something squared away, but you just don't want to deal with it. It's not the fun, sexy, exciting thing.
- [08:16]
B
Yeah.
- [08:16]
A
For someone like me, and it sounds like you, I'm so risk averse that this is the thing that I would be obsessed with as a med spa owner. I want to know what exactly is going to happen if the worst case scenarios do pop up at any point.
- [08:27]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, for some the idea of like, well, there's someone in my town that's really good at it or they know I'll just phone them. I think it's wonderful to have colleagues that you can build relationships with and collaborate and phone that consult. But you should still have those protocols in your clinic. You need to have the supplies. You should have an idea of where to go and get started. It shouldn't just be throw up your hands and call in the calvary. That's not acceptable.
- [08:56]
A
Yeah. In terms of supplies, if there are any things where you find there's like missing gaps that are very common, like, hey, you don't have this, this and this.
- [09:05]
B
Right. I think the number one thing I hear about is inadequate amounts of hyalinks. And you know, this is something that can be debated within the esthetic space because some will talk about, well, do you have ultrasound or not? And if you have ultrasound, you may be able to visualize the problem and use less hyaline X. And I think if that's how your practice is set up and you have someone who's competent and they can use that ultrasound and you think that could be done fairly quickly, in your practice. Great. But in general, I think the minimum amount of hyalinex most clinics should be carrying is 12 to 16 vials. And if you have multiple injectors, you should probably consider carrying more. And when we have newer injectors, that might be an opportunity to also increase the amount of vials. Excuse me. Just so that your prepared. Now, vascular occlusions can happen to anyone at any point. So it's not necessarily that it's more common for newer injectors. I think we just have to be prepared. Someone with more experience should know the anatomy more. So therefore there is a stratified risk.
- [10:12]
A
Yeah. Interesting.
- [10:13]
B
Cool.
- [10:13]
A
We haven't, we haven't talked a bunch about that, so I was excited to dig into that a little bit. Anything else you want to add on, like the patient safety side?
- [10:20]
B
Well, I think when we talk about equipment, you know, number one, protocols and training are essential for everyone's office. And then actually literally going through and thinking about if you had a vascular occlusion or vision impairment in your clinic, what all would you need? Think about that list of equipment. Actually jot it down, make sure that you have everything in one place. We actually have a kit that we keep in our office. It's like almost a tackle box, if you will, so that we could grab it. And it has essentially everything but the hyalinex, because that belongs in the refrigerator. And the idea is, in the event that you were to have a bad vascular occlusion that was significant, or heaven forbid, the code brown for us all is vision impairment or blindness. Someone in your office could be grabbing that your protocol should be printed out in that tackle box. Others could be reading to assist you so that it's really streamlined and that you can focus on taking care of the patient.
- [11:14]
A
Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. Maybe a good segue here. Some of the conversations we had around just patient care in general and excellence in patient care. One of the reasons that we connected is we're always looking for people that have a really great reputation. Because if your patient, patients love you, that means you're doing a lot of things well and you all have a right knock on wood. Never jinx this perfect 5 star rating on Google. Patients are very thrilled. And in our preliminary conversation, one of the things you mentioned was if there was such thing as a Michelin star for a med spa, that's what I'm chasing. So starting at like square one, as you got into the space, what were some things out of the gate that were important to you and remain important to you. And then how has your thinking evolved in terms of like, what are the core pillars of providing excellent patient care so that you do maintain a stellar reputation? Because we've talked about this podcast so many times, this is a business of like the, the 1 or 2% improvements in what we do makes all the difference. It's not that any of us are doing something dramatically different than our competitors in terms of a service offering most of the time. So it's all those little details that matter most. Could you share just some of your general tried and true things that you think help elevate the patient experience in your practice?
- [12:25]
B
Sure. So to answer your first question, thinking about what do you really want to be known for? There's so many med spas, so many cities, there can be one on every cor. You do have to think about what's going to differentiate you. Do you want to be a practice that's really known for clinical excellence? Do you want to be a practice that is really a high volume practice? Do you want to be known for really high quality, et cetera? We have always been a practice that was based on first and foremost clinical excellence and amazing outcomes with that and then second relationships. An amazing experience. That's always what I have strived for after so many years in the hospital. In medicine, I've worked under pressure, I've seen a lot of patients throughout the day, I've had to cram through and get, you know, survive long lists of workload and really branching into aesthetics and opening up. My own practice has been about chasing quality and really having, you know, that five star experience. And that starts with clinical excellence. That starts with education, with your providers really truly being the world class and best at what you do, but then also maintaining those relationships. So that means a little bit longer appointments. That means touch points. On a personal level, we still write handwritten thank you cards to new patients in our practice. Is that extra touch? Thanks for choosing us, commenting on their journey, you know, welcoming them back to the practice. After we treat people within one to two weeks, we still send a follow up text message asking them how are you doing? How's everything looking and feeling? Do you have any questions for us? That's part of our retention plan, but it's also just really good. Care to see how's that Botox settling in? What does everything look like? Sometimes it just is a tiny little drop in one place to take a really good result into an amazing knock your socks off experience. And that's what we're going for. So the Michelin star, if you will. This year I read the book Unreasonable Hospitality. For those out there who haven't read it, I strongly recommend reading that book. It's very inspiring thinking about that five star patient experience. It really is about going above and beyond and within that book. It's essentially the story of an individual who works in hospitality who kind of birthed and created this amazing Michelin star restaurant in New York City. And it's all the fine touches that he and his staff created to make that experience. Thinking outside of the box. The same can be done in our business, whether that be as, of course, simple things. When someone walks in the door, you greet them by name. If you know them, if you don't know them, then they may actually need to approach the counter. And for hipaa, you might need to say, you know, thank you so much for coming to Skin Synthesis. We're happy to have you. Do you have an appointment with us today? May I please get your name? Because we definitely want to make sure that we're abiding by patient privacy. Of course. But as you get to know, it's that fine touch. You know, I, I'm seeing Ricky. Well, I know as I'm going to the front desk to check you out and I'm passing you off to the, you know, medical receptionist. It's okay. Ricky and I, we did Botox today. I treated him with 100 units. I'd like to see him back in three months. He usually prefers afternoon appointments. Usually five o' clock tends to be his preference. So I'll let you discuss that with him. You know, Ricky, we also talked about doing the laser. I'm going to send you over some information for you to think about and I'm going to check in with you in a couple of days via text. It's great to see you. And it's these really clear handovers and actually following through with that text. We know a lot of clinics across the country are using AI and I think that's amazing potentially for their model we have just found keeping that human touch, there's nothing like it. And it's become so rare because there's so much AI. It's, it, it's just that true relationship of knowing that you're talking with a human and following through that. We took the time or perhaps, you know, that somebody is going to a funeral or they have a huge event in their life. Just following up on that day. You know, Ricky, I'm thinking about you today. You know, your family is in my thoughts and prayers, you know, that can mean so much. That's what we're striving to do.
- [16:41]
A
Yeah, that's incredible advice and I agree a ton. Like, everybody's chasing automation and AI and when we're in a business that, where people are buying from people that they trust, it's like the trust economy on steroids, especially in this industry. The more you lean into automation, AI ifying your entire business to the detriment of the personal connection you have with your clients, it's not going to help you establish the relationships that lead to good retention numbers. I love the things that you're doing there, like to provide that personal touch and to go the extra mile. I read that book too. I'm going to get your book recommendations at the end of the episode because I know we had a few that we talked about, but a couple of things that you said there, you said, and I love this, when we're talking about what are we going to be known for actually being the thing and not just wishing that we were and saying it. There's a difference between saying it and being it. Like, if we want to be known for, like, excellence in patient care and outcomes and how our team is trained and the protocols that we use, then we actually have to invest in those things and take it seriously. We don't just get to go out and market and throw it on our website that we care about these things. If we don't have the goods, people will find us out. So actually being the thing that you want to be known for and not just saying it, I thought was a nice takeaway. There are the things that you mentioned there. I've already used this one in several conversations from when we first talked, the handwritten card. How many of you that are listening are doing that and how much of a difference that makes in the perceived value of the patient experience. And I know those are the kind of things that in a podcast, Jenny says it. It's two words. And there's so much in this episode to digest, as there are with all other episodes. But think about how much that one thing alone could impact the relationship you have. Your clients love that. Medspa owners. We are hosting a free training on December 18th at 3 o' clock central to show you the exact strategies, frameworks, offers and ads that are working best for our clients right now. I don't think there are many people doing this. We're going to peel back the curtain. We're going to show you stats, ads, offers, frameworks, the service direction, like, hey, why are we putting our clients ad dollars here and not here? How do we prioritize ad spend? It's going to be my deep dive, detailed crash course into the strategies that are working best for our clients right now. I'm confident that it'll transform your marketing investment and your patient acquisition for 2026. So don't miss this opportunity. If you're watching this before the deadline, December 18th at 2:00pm Visit Medspamagicmarketing.com 2026 to sign up. So that's Medspamagicmarketing.Com 20266 to register. You mentioned the follow up. When you're handing somebody off or like let's say somebody had a Botox appointment and you talk to them about this laser and you're going to give them some information and follow up. Two weeks from now, where is the onus in your practice? Is that on the provider to manage that relationship or is the front desk managing those follow ups? How does that work? Do you have any recommendations there?
- [19:32]
B
Yeah, good question. So if I'm checking someone out and I'm talking to you about the laser and I'm saying I'm going to send you some information about the laser so you can review it. When we are using those type of verbiage in our clinic, we've already talked about it. We have our own kind of communication code, if you will, with my team. What that means is I want the desk as soon as you leave to send our before and after patient education about the laser to your email. That's what that means. So that's kind of pre established verbiage that my whole team is trained on. And so that is how we're going to get you that information. But that text follow up, that is literally me in the next week or two weeks. We do not delegate that because you, whoever is in the room taking care of the patient, I'm the one who knows you. We had that discussion. I know what your treatment priorities are. I know what your fears are. I know what you're hoping for. I have an idea about your budget. I know that you have a big event or you just got divorced or you're going for a job interview. There's that special photo shoot coming up. I know you. And so all of these treatment recommendations are being, you know, really customized to your goals. Your lifestyle, your anatomy, your face, your budget, everything. And that's just way too much to bring someone in to delegate. And it also can be kind of intimate. If we had that really Sensitive discussion. And you told me about you're having this divorce and you're trying to get out there and you want to date again, somewhat sensitive. I'm not going to tell someone else in my office all those details about you. I'm going to keep that private. But I understand all of that when I'm texting my patients, if that makes sense.
- [21:11]
A
Yeah, for sure. And for those of you that are even running like bigger practices where you've got a bunch of injectors, I think this is something that you have to ingrain into the culture, into the expectation, which is managing that relationship. Because ultimately people are going to come back and they're going to buy from, they're going to stick with people that they like and that they trust. And you're trying to build that at a level that's unparalleled by any other experience someone might have had. Right. There's some of these people that are visiting our med spas that have been to another med spa there may be like testing the waters. They're going to try a few places before they settle on one. If they don't have a stellar experience like Jenny just outlined. I think you're leaving something to be desired and you're risking, you know, butts and seats at the expense of any sort of long term relationship that benefits both you as a business owner and also your clients. Like, we owe it to them to provide exceptional service and exceptional care. And I think those little things make all the difference in the world. Are there anything else? Any other little bells and whistles that you know, like the follow up, the management two week post, the handwritten letter, anything else that you all do on that front that you feel like is really advantageous?
- [22:12]
B
You know, we do quite a few things. I wanted to talk a little bit also about some business principles and you know, when we think about good business practices, how do we also translate that to that human experience and keep it clinical? So one thing that I've learned in business is that 80% of your revenue is coming from 20% of your patients in your practice. So that 80, 20 rule. So it is interesting and important to know who that 20% is. Those are your most loyal patients. Those are probably the patients on treatment plans, but they may also, it's not just revenue. You may also want to consider your referral sources because you may have some people who are spending less in your practice but send you a ton of patients or are literally your billboard and, you know, sharing the word about your practice. And so finding who are those 20% of your patients that are really building your whole practice and really making sure that you're caring for them. Now, with that being said, there are some opportunities that you may want to send, you know, special Christmas cards to that 20%. You may want to send them, you know, a small Christmas present. You may want to pay attention to their anniversaries and their birthdays and this and that. I sometimes struggle with that 20% because I do want to recognize them. For sure. Those are my most loyal patients. They are the ones that are here the most. I know them the best. It's the most sacred relationships that we have and we honor those. But I also care about the other 80% in my practice. And it's. If you're not 20% of our revenue, that does not mean you're not a vip. Everyone is a vip. I really reject that concept of the VIP patient. I used to hate that in medicine, in the hospital, when someone famous would come in into the ICU and people would be like, oh my God, well, there's a vip. Everyone is important. And so I think it's about what protocols can you put in place for patient follow ups, patient thank yous, all those daily little touches that we potentially can have. Or if you have a special bond with a relationship and you know something's going on in their life, honestly, just little simple texts, I'm thinking of you means so much because almost no one does that anymore. But I do like to know who are the 20% of my ride or dies in my practice. And how can I say thank you and give back? You know, this Christmas we're sending them all kind of a skincare package for Christmas just as a thank you. They're in here all the time. It's a tight relationship. I'm going to be handwriting Christmas cards to them. And, you know, it's amazing these relationships that we have. This is not just business. You know, we often are taking care of females. You tend to attract what you are. So in my practice, I have a lot of, you know, 30 to 60 year old females who are powerhouses out there leading their own businesses. They're CEOs of companies, they're lawyers, they're teachers. I mean, it's incredible the group of women that I get to take care of, it's such an honor and it's so cool to watch them grow and transform and evolve in life and be a part of that. I never lose sight of how special that is. This job is really awesome.
- [25:33]
A
Yeah, that's, that's Amazing. I love that. And that's funny. We. I just did a video on like some things that you can do in your med spot to try to elevate the luxury experience. And one of the things that I was concerned with too was this idea that you've got like this I've heard people recommend, like you've got like a special lounge for like VIPs. Like man, that really starts to feel like, like we don't care about you. 80% of clients, like it's a dangerous balance, right? You're. When you're sending a Christmas gift or a card or something like that to the top 20% of your spenders, the other people don't know that that's happening. And so it's not to their exclusion when you do things like you have a separate lounge and a separate seating arrangement for those people, I feel like that is very risky because you start to make the other people feel like they're not appreciated even though they might be spending money with your practice, you know, on a consistent basis. So yeah, I like that nuance of that because I thought, I thought the same thing. Like you want to be careful about how you manage any sort of like VIP treatment of your clients.
- [26:25]
B
Oh, absolutely. Because what is vip? And some people who are spending less, they might not be candidates for more. Truly not everyone is. And they could be referring a lot of patients. They might have done something that really made a huge impact in the, in the business's growth, et cetera. So it's really hard to put a financial value on one patient over another. And especially for practices that are growing, for new injectors that are growing, every single patient is really important. And you never know who's about to become this massive referral whale. You never know who is going to change something in their life and maybe will do more in your practice. You have no idea what people are going through. I also think we have no idea what people's budget really is. So many clinicians I think have their hands in their patients pocketbooks that are kind of financially limiting them. And this idea of what are those 20%. The average patient patient stays in a practice for about seven years too. And so thinking about that life taunt, that life long relationship too, there's going to be some turnover there. So you always want to be cultivating new relationships, but we need to take really good care of everyone. That's the Michelin star, that they don't sit there and think about who you are. How much was your bill last time? Should we give you, the five star, it's, you were just known for that. You're delivering that experience as you walk through the door.
- [27:46]
A
Yeah, and we'll, we'll get to some of the other business stuff in a second too. But like on the business side, I think there's so many practices, like we've talked to Ben Hernandez from Skytool Group, had really good conversations, but people become so obsessed with their numbers at times that they forget about kind of like the serendipitous effect that everything that you're doing has. Right. Like if I'm, if I'm sitting here and I've got like private equity and like an acquisition on my mind, I don't necessarily care about writing handwritten cards to all my clients because I can't track the ROI of that. You might never know. You don't know if the client that was going to stay with you for three years ended up staying with you for five or the client that wasn't going to come back for that second visit did, and they have the client that sticks around for seven years or hey, you're so obsessed with your time in treatment room. Like you mentioned doing longer appointments. We're so obsessed with shrinking our treatment room time that in a given day we've made our business more profitable. But how many people have we turned off to the experience that aren't going to come back? Those things are not measurable by nature. So when we have too much of a shortsighted vision on the business metrics and we lose sight of treating people like people and doing a right by our clients, I think it's a lose lose. And I don't think many people realize that because it's hard to measure that, especially in a short window.
- [28:52]
B
Totally. I mean, honestly, keeping it simple while looking at those business metrics is so important. And I'm sure we'll get into some of that to just really simple breakdown. Doing the right thing, it always pays off.
- [29:05]
A
Agreed. So good transition into some of the business stuff. In our earlier conversations, you talked about about a lot of people in this space. You're coming from the medical side. You end up running a med spa and getting into this world one way or the other. And now you're like, I thought I was just treating patients. Oh no, I'm running a business. And you mentioned kind of an eye opening experience you had on the business side. One of the things that I've really admired about you in our conversations is very eager to continue learning and developing your skills as a business owner. Can you Talk about that evolution and kind of that aha moment.
- [29:37]
B
Yeah. So I think, you know, almost 20 years in medicine just teaches you that you are always learning. As soon as you think you're the expert about something new, medications will come up, we'll find something else about the disease. Medicine, life, business, it is all just so humbling because everything changes. And so keeping nimble, staying curious, becoming and staying a forever student, I think has taken me really far in life. And so I am always trying to learn more, you know, through critical care. What is very common in practice is that you will regularly do something called an M and M morbidity or mortality. So whether that be once a month or sometimes at the end of a week, you're reviewing, you know, who died and why and unpacking that. Was it just the disease? How did it transplay? Was there anything that we could learn from that? And so that is very ingrained in my brain. I'm always reviewing things, thinking about what went well and what didn't. What could I have done better? What do I need to learn more? And I think just that philosophy and that habit of thinking has taken me far. And I'm just constantly analyzing and looking for improvements. I think that's how you also strive for excellence, is you. You refuse to stay stagnant. You're always looking for feedback, and you're always willing to change and evolve.
- [31:01]
A
Yeah, I love that. So anything specific on the evolution of the business side that you feel like was especially impactful in terms of, like, numbers, frameworks, concepts that as you got up to speed, it's like, hey, not only am I a provider, I'm running a business. And here are some of the things I'm going to have to be more cognizant of when it comes to running a business.
- [31:18]
B
Yeah. Gosh, that is just the mammoth of a question.
- [31:22]
A
Everything.
- [31:24]
B
Yeah. As a provider, you know, we are really, we should always be first and foremost focused on the medicine and the science, for sure. And then I talk about this a lot. I'm just obsessed with maintaining a moral compass and maintaining really tight ethics and never compromising being a business owner and growing a business. Sometimes those two things can compete. Business goals sometimes can compete or potentially violate your own ethics. So, for example, if, you know, wow, I really want to get to this financial goal this month, well, if I'm striving and chasing numbers, I can bring that into the treatment room and I could just sell more to reach that number. But the question is, did the patient really need that procedure? Did I really need to, you know, upsell. Was that really ethical? Was that, did that impact my care? And so I'm always trying to keep those two things separate. So in my practice I work really closely with a management team. We've got two people who are kind of my ride and die business partners. One of them, Bethany, has been with me for almost four years and is really like my work wife. We built this team together and then Joey recently joined the business in the spring. The two of them, they predominantly focus especially on the finance and some of our strategic planning. I am definitely involved, but I prefer to keep my dominant hat being the medical director and on the clinical side. But over the years I've probably needed the most education. Both of them come from a background that involved more business and finance. And so I've really had to dig in and learn, Gosh, what are KPIs? What is utilization rate? How do I read a P and L? How do I look at a balance sheet? A lot of these business concepts, concepts were new for me. They take time to learn. It's hard to figure out at first, you know, who should you listen to, what kind of educate, where do you get this education? And it comes from a lot of places. And then you have to decide within your business what principles will you build upon, which ones will you incorporate, which ones will you not? And then there's different phases of growth that you may be needing to involve some of those concepts more than others. If that makes sense.
- [33:35]
A
Sense, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Certain things matter more at different times. Med Spa owners if you're tired of your marketing feeling like an expense, it's time to truly see it as an investment. At Med Spa Magic, we specialize in driving predictable massive growth for med spas. We've helped practices jump from 30k a month to 120k a month in a year and a half. And we've helped multi location med SPAs at over $2 million in new patient revenue in just 18 months. Direct attributed to ads. These aren't outliers. This is our expectation. We're HIPAA certified by Compliancy Group, rated a perfect five stars on Google. We provide a true consulting and strategic layer, not just button pushing. So if your med spa is ready to consistently invest $6,000 or more in proven marketing solutions, you want a transformative look at the exact frameworks, ads and offers that we use for our clients. Schedule a complimentary one hour consultation with.
- [34:26]
B
Me at point one.
- [34:27]
A
Medspamagicmarketing.com that's Medspamagicmarketing.Com in terms of leadership and leading people, how has that evolution been just like, you know, not only caring about your patients, but people that now work for you? Like, what does that look like? How do you. How do you think about that responsibility?
- [34:43]
B
Yeah, good question. So similar to wanting to offer a Michelin Star experience to my patients, I feel the same way with my team. You know, as an employer and a boss, you're responsible for helping build someone's career. And so you want to make sure that you're providing educational opportunities, that there are strong mentoring and coaching, that you're treating them well, that you're giving them various opportunities for growth within your business, that you're incorporating their ideas, you're asking them how things are going. We have regular team meetings. Those occur monthly. Joey meets with each member of our staff every two weeks for a check in. He does review KPIs with them, but he's also reviewing goals. I check in probably more frequently than that, informally as the medical director, to see how things are going. I'm constantly reviewing charts so that I can also continue to teach and make sure that if I'm noticing any gaps where there's educational needs, I'm filling them. And then I'm either bringing someone in to help with training or I'm blocking time out of my schedule to take time to train my team. We also do a lot of team building activities. We've worked with Color Insights, which is this philosophy of, you know, we all have different energies within us. So there's red, green, yellow, blue. And each one of these color energies tends to lean to a personality type and also tends to represent how we might communicate and how we show up on a good day and a bad day. So we have done some of those activities as a team to determine what color energies do we lead with. We all know that we know how each other is. Kind of thinking of our preferences is that has really helped us. We've also created a form. It's called How I Like to Be Managed. And we're really screening for how do you like to communicate? How often would you like to meet with your manager? What kind of support do you need? What are you motivated by? Again, it's screening for goals and revisiting that and then for team building, you know, additional kind of fun things. Things we also are constantly obsessed with thinking about, what is that Michelin star experience? What does that look like? And what is luxury service? And so we will go out to eat at a really fancy restaurant as a team. We'll enjoy that together. But we're also watching, how are we treated? How are we greeted? How's the experience? How was the food? How was the service? What happened when the bill came, when we went to valet to pick up our cars? What was that like? And then we'll bring that home and talk about it and debrief grief. Were there things that we experienced that we want to incorporate? Were there things that we experienced that we didn't love, how they made us feel? We've also sent employees, our team, to secret shop other med spas. And so they will go and they'll have a facial somewhere else. How is that experience from check in to treatment to check out and even the follow up? How did they, how were they treated and what things did they like? What things did they not? So it's both treating our staff. It's allowing them to see some of our same services that we provide other places. And again, just thinking about how can we level up? So we're kind of constantly looking at supporting our team, working together, communicating closely, you know, educating, mentoring, having fun, but redefining what is excellence and always trying to raise that bar as a team.
- [38:09]
A
Another one of those things. I'm just listening, thinking, how many of you are doing this, like going out to dinner with your team at a nice restaurant and having those conversations, being intentional about secret shopping and visiting other med spas so you can compare experiences. And again, this is not like some weird, malicious thing that you go, secret shop, what am I? What can I steal? You're just trying to figure out, what did they do that we could do that helps elevate our patient experience? And what lessons could we learn? And when we're in our own cocoon, our own ecosystem of our businesses with our team, you don't have a frame of reference to what other people are doing and how invaluable and helpful is that? Just to get out every once in a while and see what, what it, what it's like to experience another med spawn, to help set the standard and to elevate what you're doing. I think that's really, really cool. You've got so many of these things dialed in, like the little nuances that I think make all the difference in the world, especially when you stack them on top of each other. I skipped one question I wanted to ask your consult process. We talked, we asked this a bunch. What does your consult process look like? And how do you think about a consult for a new potential client? Somebody new in the seat?
- [39:07]
B
Yeah, great question. So consults in our practice are 45 minutes and we bring Pat in for that consultation. For the majority of patients it is not a day of treatment, it's just a consult. The exception would be Botox. And I am meeting with those patients. It's also serving as our good faith exam. So I'm meeting with them, reviewing their medical history, determining what procedures are safe for them that we have in our practice that they could have potentially in the future. It's talking to them about their goals, it's reviewing their anatomy, it's acknowledging their lifestyle, some exploration into their budget, and also timeline and motivation for treatment to really understand that whole person and come up with a treatment plan, really looking out for about one year. What are the treatments that you may want to consider based on all of your goals, the anatomy, all the lists that I just provided to come up with that roadmap for them to consider. We're currently leveling up that process. We've been working with a company called Pinpoint and we're creating a treatment plan roadmap that is beautiful. It's going to be, it's a beautiful design. It's on nice paper that we'll be able to fill out and it actually will be given to the patient with a service menu. That way they can refer to it. Because I think for many of our patients that can be overwhelming. They want that information, they appreciate it. Being broken down a hierarchy of what procedures make sense. First is what most of our patients.
- [40:35]
A
Appreciate that, love that, so that they.
- [40:38]
B
Know, okay, the biggest thing for my buck is X, Y and Z. But 1, 2, 3 would be nice. And then what a lot of people need is a estimate of cost. And I think this is where again, I see people putting their, their hands in their patients pocketbooks. A lot of these treatments are expensive and they're big investments, but patients know that too. They generally want to know, what am I a candidate for? What would you recommend, what order and how much does it cost? Cost? They will choose their own adventure. I think if we don't give them that information, we're doing them a disservice. They came to us because we are the experts. They want to know what we would recommend for them. And if we don't tell them that, they're going to go somewhere else because they have, you know, these concerns. They have problems that we have solutions for. We need to present the solutions and then let them determine their timeline of when they may want to do those things. Things I think in, you know, 20, 25, going into 2026. We're also doing a disservice to our patients if we don't have financing options. You know, payment plans are super normal now. Younger generations are very comfortable with them. That's something that they've been doing that is just normal on life. You could go onto Amazon right now and buy some coloring books and crayons for your niece and nephew and when you go to check out, Amazon gives you a payment plan plan option. So this is just done everywhere. And so I think having that financial fluidity and giving patients options is also very important. They may or may not want to use them, but it's nice for them to know that it's there.
- [42:11]
A
Yeah. And I feel like the simple way to think about this, like this line between sales and like there's, there's two ways to go with this that I feel like are kind of bad bad on the extreme. One is just the rubber stamping like, oh, you came because you wanted 40 units of Botox. Okay. And that's the whole conversation. That's obviously a disastrous way to handle your client consultation. And then the other way is like, hey, I've got a sales quota and Jenny's going to measure my success on how many of these things I can sell to people and how many of these I can push and prod. There's a way to do that tastefully and gracefully, I think. But it feels like the guiding principles just educate the patients, be honest. And like you said, I love give them a prioritized list. So like, hey, you came in today because the 11 lines in your crow's feet are bothering you. We're going to do some talks. You're going to feel a million times better about that. If you want to elevate the experience, this is not a must have, but it's going to give you this one extra little benefit. And if you really want to go all the way, here's the other thing that we can do. But just giving people a clear visual and letting them sort of self select based on the education and just being honest like, hey, this, this thing is cool. It's going to increase the, the result by 10 or 15%. This is not going to be transformative though. So if you to want, if you're not comfortable spending an extra $700 for something that's not transformative in terms of the result, like we're just going to be honest about that and blueprint what these actually look like and put them in a prioritized list.
- [43:29]
B
Totally. I love to tell people what I would recommend for them. And so that's medically, you know, Ricky, for you, I would recommend we treat your 11's your forehead, your crow's feet, you know, yada yada, yada. I list that out and then I say now the reason why by treating. And then I'll break it down by each area or procedure and I will tell you why, how it will make feel. Because you told me that you feel like you're really tired even though you're sleeping well, you just feel like as you're aging, you're looking tired. This is going to open up your eyes, this is going to smooth out your forehead, yada, yada, yada. I think patients appreciate, okay, you're going to do this action, it's going to have this outcome and that outcome is going to make you feel X and that investment is Y. That is a really great roadmap for many people.
- [44:15]
A
Yeah, just being honest, presenting the information and being honest. Cool. All right, to wrap here. Well, first let me get your book recommendations because I know you mentioned a few. Unreasonable hospitality was one of them. What are a few of your favorites in terms of just like books or continuing education resources?
- [44:31]
B
Sure is amazing. I also really love the Energy Bus. That's a phenomenal read. Traction is very helpful. It is meaty. I haven't finished it yet. Full disclosure. It's a book that I'll read a couple of chapters and I feel like, gosh, I have a lot of homework assignments I need to dig in and then I'll open another chapter and read through that and then get to work in my practice again. Those are my top three this year. I'm currently reading the Five Types of Wealth I think is the name of it. It's a Sahel Bloom book. And so that's what I'm reading right now. And in terms of education, I'm a huge fan of continuing education. I do attend a lot of conferences. I'm very picky. I'm constantly thinking about what do I want to learn and will I accomplish that goal in my practice. And sometimes that's clinical, sometimes it's on the business side. So when I go to conferences, I always am being very selective about why I've gone there. I study the agenda and come up with a plan beforehand. I'm careful to make sure that I'm sleeping there. I'm a nerd. I'm admittedly in the front row, like taking notes. These conferences can. I mean, they are long. They're long days. They're often expos? At the end of the night, there's after parties. I often don't participate in that kind of stuff. I'm going back to my room, I'm sleeping or reviewing notes. Because one of the things that can really easily happen, you'll go to one of these conferences, you'll take a whole notebook of notes and you'll come home, and then you're just back to the grind and nothing ever changes. So you've got to come up with a really strategic plan. What do you want to learn? What lectures do you need to attend? What are your notes? When are you going to actually review those and come up with your action items? And when are you going to get the work done? And sometimes it's carving out time when you get home, some additional admin days to really make sure that you're doing that transformative work. Or else what was the point at all?
- [46:26]
A
Yeah, the knowledge isn't very powerful if it's not put into action. I was just listening to an Alex Hormozi podcast. He talked about having read a bunch of books and he's like, what am I doing? I'm still in the same place place. He's like, oh, I have to do this stuff. So he made it a rule that until he implemented three things from the last book, he wouldn't go read another book because he got into this thing where he was just learning for the sake of learning without taking action.
- [46:48]
B
I think that happens a lot is we'll go to different conferences, we learn all this new stuff, but you didn't finish the protocol, you didn't write, you know, the SOP or whatever it is. And it's kind of like a scene and be seen and it's fun and there's all this stuff and it's glitz and it's glamour summer, but it's actually smoke and mirrors. And so you really have to decide if you want to go to something, is it a social thing? And if it is, there's nothing wrong with that. Networking is so essential. Your net worth is your network. And so I think there are times where that might be valuable. But if you really are trying to learn and grow and transform and scale your business, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves and carve out that time to do the work.
- [47:27]
A
Yeah, that is some insane discipline. To go to the conference, though, and not go to the after party. Also say kudos. Props to you. So, last question here, and this is the one we talked about, is kind of like a hard one. It's a Little abstract maybe, but how do you want patients, patients in your team to think about your brand and your business, let's say 10 years from now?
- [47:48]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I want us to be known for clinical excellence. We are always chasing evidence based practice, which is not always the newest, latest and greatest. We're looking for what is quality over time and what can obtain amazing clinical results. So that will always be our guiding star and then that second is always going to be our patient experience. And really, we're trying to make people feel so cared for. It's not very often that some of the people that we serve take time out and are doing this self care. So when you walk into skin synthesis, we want it to feel like an oasis. This is a retreat. It is self care. From the moment you walk through that door, it's all about you. And we're, you know, along your journey, you are the main character. We're really customizing your entire experience to give you value and to improve your quality of life.
- [48:41]
A
Yeah, I love that. So, Jenny, where can people learn more about you skin synthesis and also like the, the protocol, the safety protocol courses and things that you offer?
- [48:50]
B
Sure, all the things. Well, you can learn more about our business on our website, skinsynthesis.com we're also on Instagram. The business is skin synthesis. My Instagram is jha skinsynthesis. And you can email adminkinsynthesis.com if you want to learn more about our courses. Our next vascular occlusion simulation lab is going to be in Seattle on January 24th and we do sell our policies and procedures and all of our protocols. So I'm happy to reach out if there are people who want to grow and strive and level up their business. And Ricky, thank you so much for having me today. It's such a pleasure.
- [49:30]
A
Yeah, thank you. That was a great conversation. I feel like we could have doubled it in length. Honestly, I feel like premature even cutting it off, but it was a great conversation. Hopefully have you on again here soon.
- [49:37]
B
Thank you so much.
- [49:39]
A
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.