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Foreigners, Ricky Shockley with MedSpa Magic Marketing. And this is Med Spa Success strategies. Today we're going to be Talking about the three Ps, a new concept that I developed as I was thinking through some of these things internally for our agency and having to go back to the foundational work that's I think required to be effective to market your average, to market and advertise your practice in a way that actually generates results. I think this is enormously important. But it feels like the thing so many of us skip over and skip past because we want the quick fix and the quick answer, which is promotion. We want to run ads to get business, but if we don't have the foundation in place, we're going to make all of our promotional strategies infinitely less efficient. If any of you listen to Alex Hormozy, one of the, I'd say new age marketing thought leaders, really, really intelligent guy. He talked about his first business which was called Gym Launch. They built it to like $50 million and essentially it started off as doing marketing for gyms. How did somebody turn what was a low level commoditized marketing for gym service offering into a 50 million dollar a year business? He always would say that people thought that it was their funnel, their advertising funnel. And so you see people trying to copy their advertising funnel, like, oh, we'll run ads that look like this, we'll do landing pages look like this. Here's a be our intake form. But what he said was actually the differentiator was his offer and his messaging and that the promotional aspects of their campaigns became infinitely more effective and efficient because they got this part right. So this is more of an exercise in hopefully opening your eyes, getting you to go back to the drawing board on some of these things that can make everything else you do, it's grease in the wheels, it's going to make everything else more effective. So let's talk about pitch and proof primarily today. And as we talk about in the last six or seven months, you've seen me talk a lot more about branding and differentiation and less about just the tactical offers that generate at bats. And why am I kind of leaning in that direction? The tactical strategies that generate at bats still work and they're effective and they're. All of our case studies on our website were built with that strategy. But I understand as practice owners we want something more. And as we feel the competition around us increasing and it starts to feel like we're being squeezed and squeezed and we're just getting a smaller piece of the pie. I think going back to the foundation and the fundamentals is going to help us be more effective through the rest of 2026 here and beyond. So let's go into some of these. First, we do Botox is not a strategy. If we're saying the same thing that every one of our competitors is saying, we're going to get lost in the crowd and lost in the shuffle. So sounding like everyone else, I think is a recipe for disaster. And this is something that I found that we were doing sort of accidentally in our agency, which I'll talk about in a second. But understand also that generic messaging equals price competition and low, low value clients. So if our messaging is generic, then the only thing we can rely on is price competition and that race to the bottom that so many of you want to avoid. Now again, this is, I think still effect on a very effective strategy. You want a good offer to get people in the door for the first visit, but how do we not live there forever as the only play? Also understand that the market doesn't necessarily reward the person who's best I When I was independent so I was basically an independent contributor in the marketing space for a decade from 2012 to 2022 before we rebranded and went all in as building an agency under the Med Spa Magic marketing name. I operated under a small little agency name called Shockley Marketing. And I'm going to be Honest, during those 10 years, I I might be a little arrogant here, but I think I was a pretty elite marketer. I took this stuff very seriously. I studied all the time. When I was at the gym, I'd be listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks. I was always honing my craft and pursuing excellence in the services that I sold my clients. And so I thought I was probably one of the better marketers in the entire country during those years. But I ran a very small business that was just me. Or why is that the case? Well, I wasn't the clearest communicator and I didn't have a message that was compelling to reach the market at scale. I just knew that the clients that worked with me had a really good experience. But if that's the case for you, you're missing out. So the last thing here is you need to figure out how to make your pitch combined with your offer, your value messaging, your value messaging, you need to make that irresistible and specific. So if you want a good book to go dig in and start to do an exercise that Alex Hormozi's book Hundred Million Dollar Offers I think can get the wheels turning. And it's got some specific exercises there that can help you hopefully change your marketing message and your value proposition so you don't get stuck in this place where you're just saying the same things as your competitors and you're just trying to convince your prospects that you do it just a little bit better. And again, that can be a recipe for success. I don't want to diminish the fact that if you can say, hey, yeah, we do that, but we do it a little bit better, it can work. But it's hard to be compelling when that's the pitch that you're making. 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 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 out. All right, so your pitch starts with radical clarity and getting away from the deliverables and more into a coherent, concise pitch that looks something like this. So what outcome do you deliver that you own in your market instead of saying, hey, if you're looking for Botox and filler, right. That's not very compelling. We do Botox and fillers. Yes. So do all of your other competitors. But if you say and there is value in what you say because people assume your priorities align with the messaging that you're putting out into the world. So I think that there is value in just saying something because it shows your alignment of priorities. So if you say, hey, we do Botox and fillers, great. Does that mean you're really good at doing lip filler for 24 year olds? Are you good at full facial rejuvenation for someone that's in their 60s? Do you really like an overdone, like very cosmetic, like Los Angeles plastic surgery vibe look? Or do you want something that looks very natural that people maybe can't even tell you had something done? Right. So getting clear on your messaging can show people where your priorities are and the outcome that you're trying to generate for your prospects. So we specialize in helping women 35 to 55 look refreshed without looking done. That's a more compelling pitch and elevator pitch than we do Botox and fillers. And I would say that's not even a good example, but that's at least moving in the right direction past the we do Botox and fillers. Okay, next thing is your introductory offer should get the right person excited and repel the wrong one. This can be tricky. One of the challenges we have when we run discount based offer strategies is they're just, they're effective because it allows you to create perception through experience on that scorecard. That is the buying matrix that's made up of reputation, convenience and price. It's the easiest lever to pull to manipulate price and to just run a really attractive promotion. And these strategies work. But as you up the ante on price promotion, you will naturally increase the percentage of people that you probably don't want as long term clients or that just aren't going to be long term clients either way. So now still, in terms of absolute volume, those strategies can be effective because you might see, you know, 5x the number of clients in terms of volume. So you've got enough volume that even if the percentage of quality patients is lower, you're often still left with a large number in terms of absolute volume. But I know from experience with practices that can lead to frustration. So if you want to move away from just the single play of price lever talk about your reviews, price lever talk about your reviews. You need to come up with an offer framework that gets the right people excited and repels the wrong one. That also needs to tie into the service that you're promoting. There are certain services that are not conducive to retention and high lifetime value and profitability. There are others that are, I would still say injectables are the lifeblood here. It's going to have to be a core part of your introductory offer. But there are all sorts of creative ways to do that to attract the right clients and to understand the trade offs behind aggressive promotion and price strategies. I want to give you an example for us as our agency. So hopefully this can get your wheels going a little bit too. So this is inspired by the Alex Hormozi concept here. So I realized 18 months ago our sales calendar was really full. We had people on a wait list. We were on like a six, seven week wait list to work with us. And I think we've done nothing but get better. All available evidence, our reporting, our data, our clarity, everything has gotten infinitely better in the last 18 months. But it's become much harder for us to recruit new clients than it was 18 months ago. And so as I started to look at this, I realized the market had caught up. And the I think we were doing so many things behind the scenes that we weren't communicating to the market that made our advertising less efficient. So for example, to our prospects. I started to get on sales calls and I realized, yeah, there are all these things I think we do differently, but I wasn't making it tangible and concrete. So it ended up in the eyes of the prospects that it was an apples to apples comparison of providers offering the same services. So when I would talk, talk about, hey, our introductory, our priority one is we're going to run meta ads for you. That's the primary play that we're going to run. There are 97 other agencies that'll go run your meta ads. There are. So what is it about us that's going to be different? And I tried to go into the weeds to create a compelling marketing message by getting into the nuanced perspectives that we have on these different things and different strategies. But that's not a concise enough way to go to market to attract clients at scale. So I had to get really clear on how do I condense the things that we do that actually produce outsized value relative to our competitors. And as I went through this and I kind of reverse engineered what we're actually doing for clients, I realized we had some layers in there that we weren't doing a good job of communicating. And so after I did this exercise, I realized that our value stack is yes, the play that we're going to run for our clients that are newer. So for our full service established clients, we've got a whole robust marketing plan with multiple touch points, different channels, an omnipresent present approach. But for newer clients, we want to be lean and efficient. It's one of our core values to do what's in our clients best interest free of self serving financial impact. So that requires us starting lean. And when I start lean, it's easy for the service to feel commoditized because the play is we'll run Facebook ads. But when I started to look deeper for $2,000 a month, there were agencies that all they're going to do is run a copy and paste blueprint with pre selective ad creative and it is what you get. On the other hand, we were sitting here for 2000 $2500 a month doing custom strategy offer frameworks, back end consulting, helping them get the foundation in place, helping them win that validation phase checklist that we talk about coaching on the nuances of different offer strategies and the financial advantages and different advantages, disadvantages of different routes and different plays that we could run then getting in the weeds running plays, custom ads, creative testing, monitoring. Third we have a we had a data backed CRM. We have competitors in our space that they just sell the CRM function that we use which is integrated with our clients emrs for 5 or $600 a month. I didn't even mention that in our pitch. I just acted like we were reselling a base version of high level instead of what we really do which is building in depth reporting. So instead of us being just ads managers, we're actually a three in one coaching program where we do strategic consulting and marketing consulting and coaching and execution and management of your initiatives and then data backed CRM and CFO level reporting on roi. So as I was able to get clear on that, it gave me an easier elevator pitch to go to market with. And that's infinitely more valuable than me just running more ads saying what I used to say previously. Hey practice owners and marketing directors. Interrupting this episode to invite you to schedule a one on one strategy call with me to discuss how we might be able to improve and level up your digital marketing efforts. So we're rated five stars on Google, we're HIPAA verified by Compliancy Group and we have a track record of taking clients from 30,000amonth to $120,000 a month and adding multi millions of dollars in additional revenue for some of our bigger multi location med spas from more effective marketing strategies. So on the free strategy call, it's really educational. I basically spend an hour going through detailed reviews of all of our best perform plays that we run for our clients. You have it to take and run with it if that's what you want to do and if you think it might be a fit to work together, then we're excited about the possibility to partner with you. But if you're interested in better, more effective digital marketing solutions for your Med Spa, visit Medspamagicmarketing.com that's Medspamagicmarketing.Com to schedule your one on one strategy call with me. So proof also turns your pitch into a promise. So here are some ideas on the things that you can do to incorporate social proof to back the validity of the pitch. So number one, are Case studies, real results, real clients, before and afters. Voiceover before and afters. Video interviews with the clients that are happy that talk about the transformation, especially if they've been to other med spas, the things that they found to be challenging or lackluster that really set you apart and caused them to stay with you and your provider and be so happy with the results. Result. Let's make sure that those transformations are documented. Really, really important reviews and testimonials. So what are your Google reviews look like? How. What is the context and the depth of those Google reviews? What services are people talking about? Right. Those kind of things make a massive difference in, in the effectiveness. So when you have the pitch backed by proof, you have a recipe for success. We actually are going through this exercise for a client right now that's in Texas. She's really good with filler. Like her whole brand is based on filler. So you go to her website, everything's been filler. Her reviews, filler, her case studies, and her Instagram, all filler. So no wonder when we go run a play to attract new clients for Botox, the results are not as good as we expect and they're not really on par with what we see throughout the rest of the country. Well, the pitch and the proof didn't align. When I go to research that practice, all I see is information about, hey, this person's really going to kick butt if we go. If we want filler and we want our lips done and we want a certain look, this is the person to go to. But for talks, we didn't have that alignment. So really get clear on that so that your marketing message is going to be more and more compelling as you go to market. When you do these things, promotion is the gas. Pitch and proof are the engine. So promotion without a clear pitch is just expensive noise. I. I'm in a, an agency group where I'm one of the coaches and I coach other marketing agencies on how to build their businesses and how to serve their clients well. And one of the things I talk about all the time is, hey guys, we can run the same plays, but the context of how well we run the play makes all the difference in the world. So I just got done watching the Masters. If I were to say, hey, the, the proper tool for the tee shot on 13 is probably a three wood that stays short of the trees with a little draw. Great. But if I give you the three wood and you go up there and you're not good at running the play and you pull it in the water left or hit it in the trees right, you, you're not going to get the same result as someone who actually knows how to run that play with maximum efficiency. So instead of spending money to get a marketing message out to the world, when you haven't refined your messaging, refine the messaging first, because the promotion is going to make. It's going to be fuel on the fire of your business. Once your offer is clear and your proof is stacked, the ads work much, much, much better. Those things work much better in combination. Once the foundation is in place, then your meta ads, your Google Ads, your email campaigns, your SMS reminders, your local influencer networking, anything else that you're doing is going to become more effective. So I think that's the wrap for today's topic, is that most med spas, we skip straight to promotion. We want to spend ads, we want to get business in the door. But we haven't gone back to fix the pitch and the proof that are the foundations for success that are going to lead to momentum, the flywheel effect and outsized growth in our businesses. So hopefully this was another reminder. Go back to build the foundation. Make sure you've got a compelling pitch and proof that aligns. It's going to make your marketing results much more effective. When we see deviation in results, why does one person run ads and they get a really good result and another person runs ads that are much less effective? I think again, this entire concept of the validation phase and the pitch and proof framework explains most of that. So a few action items to wrap today. Three questions with the pitch. Can you describe what you do in one sentence that helps you stand out from a crowded market? So if you just say we offer Botox and filler and we do it really well, not good enough. Everybody's making that same pitch proof. Do you have multiple compelling case studies and transformations that back the pitch? I've got three on the screen. You want more? Way more than that. The more the merrier. And make sure they're deep. Just a picture of before and after is not nearly as compelling as a voiceover of a before and after or an interview with the person that happens to have before and after is embedded into some sort of a story. Right. Those are even better. And then the third is promotion. Are your ads and the content pointing to a clear specific offer or just back to your pricing menu? My client that I mentioned that's really good with filler. I love her pricing menu because she's got specific names like the Russian Lip or like all these different names for the type of service that have a price. And instead of just saying a syringe of filler is $750, she's got a menu of different transformations and different service types that happen to have a dollar amount associated with it that are a combination of the product and the artistry that's required to get a result. Now, you can't do that for everything, but I think that's a much better way to go to market than just saying, we do Botox. Here's a price sheet. We think we do it a little bit better than the competition. And here's the reality. If you're going to make the vanilla pitch of we do the same services everybody else, we just do it a little bit better. You have to actually be reputationally superior or the entire recipe for success falls apart. So hopefully that gives you some food for thought and some things to go back to the drawing board that hundred million dollar offers. Alex Hormozi book. Really valuable. I'll make sure that link's in the description. Thanks. Hope that was valuable. And we'll see you on the next episode of Med Spa Success Strategies.
Episode: Med Spa Marketing FAIL: Why "We Do Botox" Is Killing Your Growth (And What to Say Instead)
Host: Ricky Shockley
Date: April 20, 2026
In this episode, Ricky Shockley delves into the foundational marketing missteps that hinder med spa growth, focusing specifically on why generic messaging like "We Do Botox" dilutes your brand and stifles growth. Drawing on his years of experience and concepts inspired by marketing leaders like Alex Hormozi, Ricky provides actionable advice on how to differentiate your med spa by refining your pitch and providing compelling proof—before pouring money into promotions. The episode is a wake-up call for practice owners who default to price and promotions without first building a strong brand foundation.
The Problem with "We Do Botox":
Crafting an Effective Pitch:
Lessons from Personal Experience:
The Commoditization Trap:
Recommended Reading:
Action Questions (Concluding Checklist): (54:40)
Example of Effective Menu:
| Pillar | Key Question | Example/Advice | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | Pitch | Can you state your unique market outcome clearly?| “We specialize in helping women 35–55 look refreshed, not ‘done’.” | | Proof | Can you back your pitch with deep, specific cases?| Collect case studies, interviews, before/afters, testimonials | | Promotion| Are you fueling a clear, differentiated engine? | Only spend on ads once pitch/proof are solid and aligned |
“Go back to build the foundation. Make sure you’ve got a compelling pitch and proof that aligns. It’s going to make your marketing results much more effective.” (59:15)