← Med Spa Success Strategies
Med Spa Success Strategies
Stop Blending In: Med Spa Branding, Pricing & Strategy - Interview w/ Gina Graziano
00:44:07
Loading summary
Transcript67 lines
- [00:03]
A
Hey there. 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, their patients and their communities. I'm joined again today by Gina Graziano. Gina is a respected leader in the aesthetics industry with over a decade of experience in sales, marketing, brand development and business strategy. She's the visionary founder of the Med Spa Matchmaker, where she sculpts new med spas into thriving clinical practices. Known for her meticulous approach and profound strategic foresight, Gina's a sought after advisor to private equity and leading financial institutions, actively shaping the industry's future. So everyone in full transparency. This is Gina and I's second attempt. We actually filmed an entire episode. This is Gina's second time on, but I guess technically third, because the episode that we filmed last week was basically so corrupted. It was the Amazon web service outage that day. And I think we had trouble with Riverside, which is the platform we use. So just thank you to Gina for coming back on, doing this again with us. Hopefully it'll be even better than the first attempt.
- [01:09]
B
Yes.
- [01:10]
A
So I'll make sure that we do our best on that front. So, Gina, there were so many things that I wanted to talk to you about. It's such a great episode. Last time talking about device sales, and today I was. I've. I've done this on a couple episodes. We talked about looking through your Instagram and you just have. So as a consultant, you have so many different areas of the business that you have a fingerprint on and a pulse on that. I thought it'd be fun to do a little bit of an episode with a diverse range of topics. So the first thing that I pulled off your Instagram was the branding blueprint. We've talked a lot about branding on the podcast recently. And transparently, as an agency, I think one of our flaws or the things that we overlook is we get so transactional with direct response advertising because we can tie it to numbers in a very short time frame that we become really reliant on that we fall in love with it a little bit, maybe too much, but I think long term, we're all searching for the ability to develop a brand that's magnetic so that people are actively seeking us out. And so you had this post on Instagram with a whole bunch of slides, the branding blueprint in Your eyes. What is, what does branding for a med spa look like?
- [02:08]
B
Yeah. So branding is one of those things that everybody needs, but nobody really knows how to define it. So I usually start when I do my intakes with my clients and I ask, so what's special about your practice? And why would somebody come to you over any other, you know, med spot in your area? And I usually get the same answers. It's. We have, you know, our MD is, is renowned in his industry or her industry. They're, you know, X, Y, Z expert in this field. That's kind of related to medsa or I hear we have state of the art technology from beautiful brand names. Right. I hear a lot about the people and the services, but that does not make a brand. Right. A brand is the sentiment your patient has coming into your practice. It's calling your patients patients, patients versus clients versus babes versus, you know, it's the way you talk to your patients. It's your brand messaging. So if you can't answer that point of view, we are the best at X and people come to us for X, then we don't have a brand. We have a business, but we don't have a brand. And I think with so many med spas now, I started that post Within 2010, we had 1600 med spas in the United States. In 2024, we have over 10,000. I think it was 10,800.
- [03:23]
A
That's w nuts.
- [03:25]
B
Right? And so even though the patient population is growing and there are patients to support the med spas, those years of 30, 40% growth that we might have seen in Covid have definitely slowed. And the people that are really successful have a strong brand. They niche down. The riches are in the niches. Right. We can't be a master of everything or a master of none. You've got to have that, that focus that you're the best at and that sets you apart. It's the only way to, to get a name in this super crowded field right now.
- [03:57]
A
Yeah. And I love the, the, the part of the post here, you need to go beyond aesthetics and build a brand with a point of view. So do you find that like one of the things, I think for us, for the content that we produce, like on YouTube or the podcast, I always feel like the thing that makes us stand out and the reason that it's been so, I think magnetic and built a brand for us is because we're always adding our unique twist or angle or perspective to things.
- [04:21]
B
Yes.
- [04:21]
A
And those little nuances and the differences like with your treatment philosophy, like showing people how you think, your philosophy, why you do what you do and the nuances that make you different, it seems like those are part of building a brand as well.
- [04:33]
B
Sure, of course. And it attracts the people that you want. Right. So I've been a career salesperson my whole time and like my whole career, 20 years. And I always found the clients where I was just totally myself. I was very like me, you're getting me, not the sales version of Gina. I always found those people were my best clients that were the ones I loved working with because they were, they accepted like me for, for me. And it's the same with your, your med spot. It's not just to get every single butt in a C. It's to get the right people in your practice.
- [05:07]
A
Yeah. People will buy from people they like. So not being afraid to show personality and have a perspective and a point of view. The other thing you talked about with the riches are in the niches here said start narrow, expand later. So it's not that we have to like be exclusionary with a niche like oh hey, we're the med spa for only we're not the med spot only for women over 40 who are wellness focused. And the, it's that hey, that maybe is a specialty area. We speak specifically to those people so we attract a higher percentage of them. But we also have appeal that bands beyond that niche to some extent too.
- [05:38]
B
Right.
- [05:38]
A
So it's like the flexibility of focus narrowly and expand later as, as you start to grow and develop a little bit of momentum.
- [05:48]
B
Totally. You know, there's some, some tried and true treatments that I think, you know, every med spa should have toxin filler, you know, a laser here and there, your basics because you want that money to stay in the practice at some point. But if my goal is to attract the 40 something year old women, then I'm going to have treatments that support women after baby with, you know, mom tummy as I like to call it, with scarring with C section scarring. Right. With, with vaginal tightening, with stomach wall, you know, muscle treatments to get, to get everything back in line after baby. Right. Think about who you're talking to and what they need and if you offer what they need and speak directly to them, they will come.
- [06:30]
A
Yeah. And that's, and I think that's perfect example because that doesn't mean now that if you offer Botox at your med spa and someone goes to Google bot near me and your practice has great reviews and a great reputation, they might not Even know that side of you, and they'll still come visit you for another reason. So you kind of get the best of both worlds. There's not necessarily a downside to doing that. On the branding side, you also say having a brand voiceover, brand font, and the key takeaway there that's bold is be memorable. And that can be really hard for med spas because everybody wants to. It seems like everybody has a similar brand voice. A lot of people use similar colors. We just had a client in California, they rebranded with like an orange. And one of the reasons they said they did is just nobody else is doing it. At least it makes us memorable. Everybody's blacks and beiges and golds and maybe a blue here and there. So how do med spas achieve being memorable? I know that's a really hard thing to achieve for probably most businesses.
- [07:21]
B
So I, being a career salesperson, I draw back to like sales 101. And it's about building rapport with people and humanizing yourself in a bit. People remember stories, not facts. So I go online on Instagram and I scroll like this every five seconds. It's here. I'm nurse Sarah and I'm here to tell you what Botox is. I'm nurse Karen and I'm here to tell you what hyaluronic acid filler is. And that's great. We need educational content, but that doesn't give me any insight into who you are as a provider. What is your philosophy on talks? What brands do you like to use? What areas are your favorite? What do you do that's different? Why should I come to you over anybody else? So the baseline information is there, same as everybody else is giving. But there's nothing memorable about that post to make me go to your practice. And that's different for every audience that you're trying to speak to. Right. So we just need to make sure at the end of every post there's a call to action, there's a reason someone would book, and that we're speaking to a direct person, not the masses.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah. I think the interesting thing there is. Tell me if you agree with this, Gina, is sometimes those posts, I think people get discouraged, like if we're talking about social media, that they're not getting like a ton of reach. But in a weird way, those are not necessarily the reach mechanism. They're like the. The second step research component. People are going to find you maybe from an ad or from a Google Reviews or word of mouth referral, but then they're going to go investigate and you want that content to be there for the people that are investigating, to make sure they feel comfortable, confident proceeding and scheduling the appointment with you over the other options they have available. It's not that that has to reach new people, it's when people are researching. You want that stuff there because it's going to set you apart and it's going to ultimately get you the appointment.
- [08:58]
B
Hopefully people have to see a brand six to eight times, usually before it resonates. So unless my best friend had an amazing filler outcome and I said, who do you go to? And she tells me and I go there. A direct referral tends to skip some of those steps. But if I'm just a patient in the area, it's usually six to eight times. Seeing your brand, interacting with your brand before booking. So, yes, it's a step on the way.
- [09:22]
A
Awesome. Last one you mentioned on there that I wanted to touch on was name your method. We've talked about that on the podcast. I think that's so powerful because it's gonna be like when we're talking about standing out and doing something different, that is going to be like one a really easy way to do something that's different. Because if you have a protocol or a method to your treatment philosophy, it's unique to you. What do you recommend? Kind of that looks like, how do you do that in a way that's not. I think the thing that always sticks in my mind, I've seen like marketers take this to an extent that's, that's very inauthentic. They'll basically take like a combination of treatments, give it a different name, kind of hide what the treatments are, and then put a weird price point on it that doesn't make sense. And that's not what you're talking about here.
- [10:04]
B
No. So what. What I preach is once you get somebody in the practice, we keep them in the practice. Right. And one of the things when somebody is new is that they price shop a lot, especially in the major things like toxin, where the, the price per unit is kind of splashed all over everyone's pages. And the major chains really kind of gouge the independent practices because they're buying power so much bigger and they get the product for less. They can charge less. Right. So it's not just calling it something different and trying to disguise what the treatment is, but it is trying to get people to spend with your practice and remain in your practice. So everybody sells toxin. Right. I have a lot of success implementing tox clubs at my practices because you're, they know exactly what they're buying. There's a disc, an easy way for patients to see the value in signing on for something like that. But I don't just call it, you know, the wrinkle reducer club and it's just toxin four times a year. But I don't tell them what's in it. Right. I also see the other end where people make these memberships where they're so complex that nobody understands what they're getting. So it could be, you know, facials and IVs, and once a quarter you get a microneedling treatment, but next quarter it's a laser. And some people, it's just too much for them. So I kind of straddle the middle. We make packages that make sense that are one to three items with a very clear advantage for the patient in committing to all of those treatments. I could call it the Glo recovery protocol, but I list rf, microneedling appeal, skincare, whatever it is, with individual prices and then the like membership pricing in general, I find people need a pretty good discount to buy up like 2 to 3,000, 5,000, $7,000 packages. So usually we'll discount around 25% of all the individual items. And you're getting the money up front and you're getting the patient's commitment to the practice and that's, that's the trade off.
- [12:02]
A
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. That's almost the opposite of the thing that I described. Some people try to do is like, well, let me just put a fancy spin on this. I'll combine three things and then I'll charge twice as much as like a premium package. And I think that's very risky because it's not super transparent and you're just, you're almost trying to pull one over on people. Yours is just basic consumer psychology. If I want people to buy a combination of higher ticket treatment options in combination, let's give them a little bit of a deal to do it. It's a win win.
- [12:28]
B
Exactly.
- [12:29]
A
Makes total sense. Yeah. I wanted to side sidetrack here with one additional question because this came up. We have a recent episode that's come out on this and it was a conversation that I had with a client who had really high initial visit revenue numbers. Like really, really high great reviews. They have nothing but five star reviews, super high initial visit revenue numbers. Like for like Botox, they're having the average client that's coming in for a Botox appointment spend over a thousand dollars and interestingly their retention number was low. Like 45% of the people were actually coming back for a second visit. And the owner's theory was like, hey, that we're actually, we're doing a good job of educating them. We're getting them excited to spend this big amount on the first visit. But then they realize, like, oh, maybe they had a little sticker shock. Maybe I shouldn't do that again. And they hesitate to come back.
- [13:13]
B
Sure.
- [13:13]
A
So my question is, how do you balance, like, with sales? You have one angle of this, which is like you're incentivizing your team to sell. Maybe that ends up coming across pushy. You're trying to extract maximum value out of patients per visit versus just educating people maybe, and letting them self sort where you have, hey, one person comes in and what's going to make them happy is $300 worth of Botox. We give that to the person that wants the $300 worth of Botox. But we educate people that if they want the additional B and C options that give them a 15, 20% better result and that ends up being a $3,000 sale, then that's great too. But we have both of those patients. So how do you go about balancing the difference between just patient education and sales and sales incentives? Like, where's the balance there from a sales standpoint?
- [13:59]
B
Yeah, probably the hardest balance within a spa. Because every clinician that I speak to wants nothing to do with sales. They don't want to talk about money. It's uncomfortable. And I've said this before, it might have even been on our last filming together, but it's almost like they're two opposing roles within the same person. As a provider, we are caring. We are patient first.
- [14:22]
A
Right.
- [14:23]
B
We are educators. And that's the differential. Providers are not salespeople. And I don't ever want them to feel like they're salespeople. I think that's probably every clinician's worst nightmare, you know, because they're coming from a point of taking care of people. And a lot of injectors I've seen have come even from hospital work now. Right. So it's a completely different role than being an employee at a medical practice. When you go into esthetics, it switches to concierge medicine. And so you do have to learn a different way of consulting with the patient, taking them through the risks of the treatment and then explaining their options. And your role as a provider is not to sell, but it is to tell that patient everything that you have for them that is the correct answer to their ailment and walk them through the injectables, the lasers, the topicals, and the post care that makes sense for them. And if at the end of that there's a big sale, great. If at the end of that you've booked a patient for another treatment of any kind, that is a win. And but your, your pricing has to be in line. So that's kind of the first thing I do is audit. Is pricing in line? Are the, the metrics within our office in line with what we normally see in a med spa? Do we have over 50% of our business in injectables and fillers? About 10% in lasers, about 5 to 10% in retail. Do we have those metrics? If we do, then I know in general we're in line and so we can just tweak little things. Could be pricing, could be how we talk about pricing at the end, could have someone dedicated to talk about fees at the end. There's a lot of ways to make that fluid, but provider has to talk about everything that is appropriate for the patient and then patient decides.
- [16:01]
A
Do you find that of making sure that as part of that process you're not over promising and under delivering, like, hey, I really think you should do this laser. And then you know the risk there is. You push something that maybe it does improve the result for the client by 10 or 20%, but the price is not going to be worth it to that person. For some people it is, hey, I'll pay the extra $500 for a 15% improvement to my results today. Or hey, I'm just happy if these like 11, the 11 lines of my crow's feet are kind of gone. I don't really care about the other stuff. So how do you balance that into the sales process?
- [16:32]
B
I'd say that's in the consultation, right? So one of my most popular trainings that I offer as a consultant is called art of the consultation. And so I take people through the buying process, the psychological process of someone sitting in your chair. What questions do we ask up front to establish what is the patient's real concern? Not our concern. We don't look at somebody and see something and ever point it out, ever, ever. So if the patient offers that, then we drill down, how long has it affected them? How soon do they want it gone? Is there an event that we're prepping for or a timeline to get this done? Do they want to go low and slow and don't want anyone to know? These are all the things that we need to uncover in the consultation process and that should give you most of your answers. If someone just says it's these lines, that's all I'm worried about. I need them gone next week. Well then we might have to do toxin and appeal or toxin and a laser to get them gone for next week. So I think it's all about educating. We can say, look, we can do this low and slow, but you told me you have an event in a month. If we want it done by a month, this is what has to happen. Right. It's all about just being honest and making sure you understand their goals in their timeline.
- [17:39]
A
Yeah. So the balance there is being honest, being educational. Don't not tell people about the other things they can be doing. That's where you miss a major opportunity. But you don't need to go to the the extent of pushing things that somebody doesn't maybe want or need. So it's all about transparent, educational approach and let the chips fall where they may after that.
- [17:55]
B
Absolutely.
- [17:56]
A
This episode is brought to you by MedSpa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help med spas and aesthetics practices grow with more effective marketing strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase, right? It'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 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 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 medspa magic marketing.com so just going back to that sales conversation, the last thing we were talking about there was how does someone balance the difference? You said most people, they're, they're uncomfortable talking about it in the first place. So they're not. Usually the nature of the industry, which I totally agree with, is people are not going to be pushy salespeople the providers don't want to do that. So was the consensus there like the difference between educating and incentivizing sales? There's usually not a gap there in terms of like behavior of providers.
- [19:18]
B
I haven't run into a situation where a provider has been so aggressive, you know, because of their want for commission that it like put off a patient. You know, honestly I still feel that even with career salespeople having that conversation about money and kind of pushing to that next level. Super unnatural. And I don't think a lot of people really overstep that. Where I do find commission problems can pose a problem or commission plans can pose a problem is if somebody's brand new putting in a commission program for the first time. If we just say give someone 10% of sales, which isn't legal in a lot of states anyway. So you have to make sure you know that you're allowed to incentivize your team and in what way. But if we don't add any key performance indicators or any metrics or any change in behavior, you're just paying another 10% for what you're currently bringing into the practice, which just eats right away at a med spas profit. So I, I found like the best commission plans have those KPIs like percentage of retail, percentage booked return rate. Right. Things that we can monitor. So if those start to slip, we can say hey what's going on here? And cat before it, you know, becomes a problem.
- [20:28]
A
Yeah, absolutely. That makes a ton of sense. And yeah, on that front with, with the sales side, do you find that there is. I guess the thing I'm assuming that's happening here is you're letting the averages play out. So it's not that because someone didn't upsell or cross sell an individual prospect. If you're educating people, the numbers will play out a certain way. If you're properly educating people about their options, you will naturally see the byproduct be higher initial ticket sales essentially or higher per visit sales numbers definitely you'll.
- [20:59]
B
See a reflect in in a few different ways. Average ticket percentage retail return rate and average customer lifetime value. So I'm less concerned. Like a thousand dollar tax visit is, is great if they're going to come back four times but if that's so expensive they can only afford two and we could have charged them 750 and be more in line. You know, it's almost like a dollar smart or penny smart dollar foolish, you know what I mean? So we, we do have to make sure we're in line, not out pricing ourselves. And if we're in line with the industry, then that's the price. But I would rather have someone in four times a year and make 550 a visit than once a year and lose them.
- [21:40]
A
Yep. Yeah. You got to play the long game and not be super short sighted. The goal is not to extract maximum value out of that first visit because you could be doing that so potentially at the expense of lifetime value. Because people will, I think people will say yes to things they're not super comfortable with in the moment and then regret it later. And you won't really know that. You'll just see it reflect in retention numbers.
- [21:59]
B
Yes, exactly.
- [22:01]
A
On this note, do you find that there's any sort of like on the sales side strategy difference between the area that you're in? Like if you're in an area where the medium median income is lower, like you should probably be cognizant of the budget of the clients that are coming in a little bit more so than if you're in a super high end area. Does that ever come into play? Like, hey, I don't want to oversell someone who I know probably can't afford this because they're, they're not going to come back. And is budget ever part of the conversation?
- [22:28]
B
Of course, of course. Now look, I think some people have no idea what these things cost, right. So I've had like laser hair removal patients think it's supposed to be $50 a visit. They might have seen that on Groupon or something. So when we talk about, you know, 350, $400, sometimes, you know, your eyes glaze over. And if I'm in an area that the Median income is $25,000 a year, am I going to bring in, you know, a seven or $10,000 package off the bat? Probably not. Right. So I think it's, it's understanding your, your patient base to begin with. It's understanding the area that you're in is understanding the demographics of your patients. So income, that's skin type. Because that's going to determine what lasers we bring in. It's age that's going to determine if they're corrective or preventative and where we need to fall. So everything has to be in line. Pricing services mix for your patient base and their, their skin type. And then we have to have a good experience for them to come in. They have to like and trust your provider. The provider's got to give them good information. They've got to be in a position to book and then they book. So a lot has to align in the stars, you know, to get somebody at a point of, of booking and purchasing. And that's why systemizing, training your team, making sure that they can deliver the message of your med spa without being salesy and off putting, you know, making sure your pricing is in line to convert those people. This is all so important to have in place before you even start spending on marketing because you can get again 100 leads. But if these systems, if these are not set up appropriately, we're not going to convert those people.
- [24:04]
A
So I think so many people think of marketing as like the, it's the solution to their problems, but it's really just fuel on the fire of an already well run business. Like it's, it's not going to do you much good if your clients aren't happy. They aren't retained at a satisfactory rate. They don't spend much when they come in. Like it might be doing more harm than it is Good. To some extent. Yeah, I think that's, that's great advice. Does the conversation of budget, like is it, is it always just kind of letting the client self sort on budget? So if you're presenting options, they can kind of choose the option that's right for them within their budget? Or do you ever have people explicitly talk about in the sales process, hey, what is your budget and what does the treatment plan look like within how much money you're wanting to spend? Or was the budget just kind of an unspoken about thing that the client will make a decision based on?
- [24:48]
B
So I see merit to both approaches. Some practices are very forthcoming with their pricing. Like sometimes it's right on their website, you know, it's in their menu of services and they're very open about it. And in that case, if a patient goes on and does a little bit of research, they should be able to see what those prices look like or go into their online booking tool and get a sense of budget. Occasionally you'll have someone that comes into a med spot and thinks, you know, a facial is $99 and Botox is 200 and that's not the case and they just might be totally off base. I find an easier way to kind of softball that stuff is when you're talking about the procedure with the patient in the consult that you kind of casually drop some pricing in throughout the conversation. So you know, skin health first we can take a look at just declogging the skin and getting it to place. We want it to be through facials generally you know, you'll need about three of them to get the skin in a better position. Each Facial is about $250, and we do have membership options. The other option is Botox. Botox is $12 a unit. We sell it by the area. Generally it's about 300, $350 an area. Areas can include your crow's feet, your forehead, your, you know, glabellar, blah, blah, blah. So depending on how many areas you know can go up from there. But we do have pricing and financing options available for you. If you go over a thousand dollars with Botox, then we have this option. Right. And I think just kind of casually and matter of factly delivering what these things cost and then asking the patient, so tell me your thoughts. What's sounding most like you? You know, that they're going to direct you and say, hey, I really only had about a $500 budget for this. I didn't realize it was so expensive. What can we do? Or they can say, all right, talk to me about your financing options. What does that look like? Right.
- [26:36]
A
Yeah, I love that.
- [26:37]
B
I think when we hold it till the end, it becomes this thing, this monster, and then everybody's afraid to talk about it. So I'm a fan of dropping it throughout.
- [26:47]
A
Yeah, Be transparent throughout the conversation. Don't talk about all these great things. Then pull out a price sheet and go. And so for all that great stuff I just told you about.
- [26:55]
B
Exactly.
- [26:55]
A
You're asking for sticker shock at that point.
- [26:57]
B
Exactly.
- [26:59]
A
Cool. Awesome. Moving on past the sales conversation. One of the other posts that you had on your Instagram profile that I know was one of the ones that got a ton of interaction was the break even math post.
- [27:09]
B
Yes.
- [27:09]
A
And bedspa owners really having to understand what their multiples need to be on a provider. And every business has their own version of this. And I think sometimes for providers, injectors, they don't understand necessarily the math around the business. And sometimes business owners can be shy around the math because they don't fully, maybe even understand it. So they become, they try to like, I don't know, like, find the gray area, walk around it without being direct about what they're trying to accomplish. So can you go into that post a little bit? The break even math, for sure.
- [27:41]
B
So I put up a post, I was just talking in my car, and the post was that if you have an injector and you're trying to set goals for them for their compensation programs, after peeling back the books on about 65 spas in mostly The Northeast, but an east coast region. But across the United States, I have yet to find a practice who is profitable on an injector unless they produce three and a half times their cost for the practice. So reiterating three and a half times cost of an injector should be the minimum revenue the injector produces for the med spot to break even. So that means if I pay an injector $60 an hour plus 10% commission, plus her benefits, her 401k, her health insurance, all of these things all combined three and a half times that on a monthly basis should be monthly revenue to break even. Not profitable, just break even. And I think it's important for practices to talk about their numbers like this because I think there's a misconception that med spas print money and that they're so profitable and you're going to be a millionaire in year one. If you open up a spa and a lot of injectors are going out on their own because states have opened that up where NPs can be their own. You know, medical directors in certain states and they've got a big book of injectable patients and they go out on their own. But most spas only profit healthy ones between 20 and 30%. So I think giving people those numbers and letting them see you're not like rolling in it, if they're producing three and a half times their, their value, you know, my best providers will do five or 10 times that. And it's, it's different for every practice. Some practices spend a hundred thousand dollars a month on marketing and so their, their break even point is higher. So it's just meant to be a guide. But if you're paying somebody $5,000 a month and they're only producing 10 grand for you, that's not going to be a profitable exercise. So I'm a fan of starting commission programs at that break even point or making that kind of like the baseline for any sort of bonus activity to kick in so that as you're growing, the med spot isn't bleeding. Paying their people. Yeah, before they've reached those metrics.
- [29:53]
A
Yeah, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I think anybody, like as a business owner, you kind of know the math around this. Do you recommend that owners provide transparency around profitability numbers in their med spa? Because I think when the imagination goes wild is the injector or the provider thinks that, hey, because you're charging four times, whatever they're getting paid for the service, they, they just, in their head, they Think you're just making all of the difference up as profit. And that's not the case. You start to factor in reinvestment in marketing growth, overhead, insurance, cash reserves, events, tools, systems, taxes. Like all of those things really eat away the profitability business. So you need those ratios to like any business operates that way. But as small businesses, when you tend to be closer to the numbers, you can tend to forget that a little bit more than if you're like, you know, maybe moving boxes in an Amazon warehouse.
- [30:47]
B
Totally 100. I'm a huge fan of transparency because I think knowledge is, is power. Knowledge aligns all of your providers under the same goal. They understand why the goals are in place. And it's not just to make more money, to make more money. It's to get to a place to sustain the business, to continue to reinvest in the business, to add new tools, add fun things to sell and offer your patients and then invest in things like education for your providers. So I'm a big fan of sharing those and I even have some of my practices in commission reports will have top line revenue, all of the costs associated with their treatment, all of the costs associated with the provider and then net profit on the commission reports. I think just to even further drive it home, that's, that's a really open practice. You know, the more, the more locations you have and the more corporate you are, probably the less of that you'll get. But I think when people understand that they're not contributing to the success of the business, they're less apt to maybe think they deserve a little bit more or ask for more or you know, dig their heels in about getting more, more money or more of a cut. I think when you're open people understand.
- [32:00]
A
So yeah, absolutely. Makes a ton of sense. Shifting gears to conferences, the difference. You posted something here about the difference between conferences that are really sales events versus value driven and what to watch for. Could you speak on that a little bit?
- [32:16]
B
For sure. So I was a laser bro in a past life and I worked for a major device company for about like four and a half years running a team in New York and New Jersey. And there are some events out there that are truly educational. They tend to be more user events. So like Saiton and Mode, all the big device companies will throw an annual user event that's only meant for people that already have bought the machines and they'll do some more advanced trainings, you know, how to use your machine with other machines, how to do combination therapies, how to push the machine a little bit further. Those are true educational events, but every single major device company is going to have several events over the next three months. It's end of year, it's buying season, when everybody shakes out how they're doing and needs to write something off on their taxes at the end of the year. And they're going to bill these as educational events, come learn about our technology and, you know, get great deals that day. Well, those aren't educational events. Those are events to show off every piece of technology the client, you know, the, the laser client makes and then sell them at the event using a story. And most of my clients know now not to wait until the end of the year to buy. I hear the same thing every single year. It's when I'm going to get the best deal. It's when, you know, the reps have to meet their quota so they're going to let it go for less. And while there is an element of truth to that, I would say all of fourth quarter falls into that category where people are trying to make their annual goals. The problem when you wait until December to buy is that you are now in line for training and support after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of practices. So you're probably not going to get trained on that device you buy in December until February. We have now missed all of laser season and the ability to capitalize on that equipment. And you're going to sit through it through the lull of spring and the lull of summer and then you'll use it again in, you know, September of next year. Now that's a, a very black and white, you know, example. Obviously it's not always that way. But for me, getting behind the line of all these people purchasing, getting in the line to train and then missing out on laser season is not worth it. You can already get those deals now and I can help negotiate them for my clients. So just don't be swindled by an end of year event as a reason to buy. You can get those deals now. You've got resources that can help you negotiate those deals. And now you can still take advantage of some of laser season. So I, I just makes me, makes me upset to see people wait till December. It just doesn't. It's just not smart as a business decision.
- [34:55]
A
Yeah, awesome advice. So that's a good segue into the, the last little topic here, which was originally just talking about like fall, but I think just a bigger picture of seasonal planning and dealing with the ebbs and flows in the med Spa space. So you're specifically in this post talking about fall med spas that strategically plan for the pre holiday rush. See revenue spikes of 40 to 65% in Q4. But here's what most med spa owners miss. Clients booking treatments in November for December events don't have enough time for full treatment outcomes. When it comes to summer cleanup and skin changes, your role isn't just just to book appointments, is to educate clients on the timeline, create packages that work within those parameters. So thinking about how you capture a rush period when you're in a busier period to create benefit with a plan that helps you generate revenue and repeat visits long term. Could you talk about that a little bit? Just how do you manage the ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys of the med spa industry since there is a decent amount of seasonality.
- [35:50]
B
For sure there is. So my, the med spots that work with me over summer we plan for winter. So in summer we're putting together packages and treatment outcomes. So say pigmentation correction. Right. I have a whole list of everything we can do to get pigment free skin by Thanksgiving. And that has to be started the second week in September because it's a two month transformation. Right. Those are the packages and services that I'm selling over the summer to start in the fall to have skin prep for the end of December. We're a little bit late for that now though. There are still things we can do before the December holiday. You know, we've got about six weeks left, so it'd be a good time to launch, you know, your, your talks and laser packages. But like making sure you sell to people that they have to commit it, commit to like a four week timeline where they're doing say a treatment every week. Right. I find those packages that are set up with a timeline for success by an end point, not only encourage people to buy them at that time because I got to get rolling on this if I want the outcome. But it's going to take advantage of laser season where people are spending, they want to look good for holidays, vacations, seeing family and friends that they haven't seen all year. And it's definitely a time where people are spending on themselves. January is tough after everybody is spent for the holiday season and you know, kind of fix themselves up for the holiday season. Usually there's a lull in January, February on treatments. We don't need our tox yet or our filler again and we've just spent a lot of money. So the practices that are really ahead of that either making you know, new year glow treatment packages, memberships that are carrying people monthly into the practice through the slow season, you know, or, or creating packages that extend into January. So, you know, we'll get your toxin, your initial lasers for the holiday season, and then we'll work on sloughing off dead skin and making sure we're turning over so that we're bright for spring, Whatever it is, we need to start talking about 2 month, 3 month, 4 month, 5 month, all the way to 12 months of plans, treatment plans for our patients that lock them into our practice. Make sure they're coming back monthly for their treatments.
- [38:02]
A
Yeah. Amazing advice. I know so many business owners from working with a lot of them thinking about planning ahead. Yes, I'm sure. A major adjustment for so many people. I think so many people are used to making decisions last minute. What special do I want to run this month? What text do I want to send out this week? And I think that illustrates the importance of really planning ahead. You're thinking about your winter strategies in summer, and I think you have to get into that cadence with how you plan your promotions and just your strategies in general.
- [38:30]
B
Look, it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame, but every, every solid business has a plan and looks past their nose, you know, even if it's once a quarter. Recap what we've done. Where are we going? Are we on track? Where do we need to edit? What can we do to support those efforts? Like, it has to happen. I would like it to happen monthly, but at least quarterly. Like, you owe it to yourselves as a business owner to have a tie to your business. See where you've been, see where you're going. Otherwise it's just, there's no movement. It's just keeping up with the day to day.
- [39:03]
A
Yeah, for sure. I think you. I think you start to feel a little bit lighter when you do that too. I know it's a hard habit to break for a lot of people. Last question. Following up on that, talk to a lot of practice owners that have maybe been in business for a year, two years, three years, and a lot of people seem to have a struggle, and I don't have a good answer for them. Like, we've pulled stats from online and tried to look at our client roster, and there seems to be some inconsistency with when certain practices experience seasonality. And I don't know if some of that's like post. It's hard to measure things post. Covid too. You're like, well, last Last one of this was hot. This one seems slower. Seasonality. If you had a blueprint, what does seasonality look like in a med spot on average? And do you see that it is volatile or most of the med spots you're working with seeing pretty consistent, like, hey, January, February, or the slow months, end of summer or the slow months and like mid late fall is a peak season and maybe it rebounds again late spring. Is there some standard to that that you see?
- [39:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, if you'd asked me two years ago, I would say normal med spot is going to have its boom quarter, fourth quarter, it's going to reset a little bit first quarter, it grows back again, second quarter, you know, then declines again in summer. Fourth quarter is where we make the most of our money. So it's. It's spring and fall, winter that are our peak seasons, and then dead of winter right after the holidays and summer that are slow. I will say in general, I think people feel slow right now because of the number of med spas that are open. So somebody that even opened two years ago, you know, might have had a nice start to 2023 and 2024 is a little bit of a setback or they didn't grow as much. And part of that is just because of the sheer competition. Part of that is with all of these major chains popping up, you know, and injectables and fillers being the bulk of most people's practices, we're losing some of those to lower cost providers. So again, making sure that we're not completely out pricing ourselves, it's kind of a loss leader, which is unfortunate. But there are GPOs that you can use to take advantage of better filler pricing and other ways that you can get your costs down to compete. You know, I think now it's less about seasonality as a, as an overall theme for aesthetics. I think certain practices find their own seasonality based on their marketing strategy, the treatments they offer in the office, and then who their competition is around them. And so, you know, I think it's a full audit of what's going on in your area. Where are people spending? Do we offer all the treatments that people are spending on with other people around us? Or how can we be different? How can we offer something no one else around us offers that is not seasonal? So when I talk about the future of the market and branding yourself and looking for that niche, you know, it's not going to be Botox and laser hair removal, right? It could be peptides, it could be, you know, a huge cocktail of IVs. It could be functional wellness, it could be exosome and salmon DNA therapies. You know, the future of this industry is moving towards functional esthetic medicine and more holistic options. Right. Anti aging on a cellular level, anti aging from the inside out. So I think adding things like that that aren't tied to skin type, that aren't a laser, that aren't something to externally heal from, those can be done year round. And adding more treatments like that is a very easy way to kind of curb seasonality just based on your offering.
- [42:27]
A
Yeah. And especially challenging post Covid because you had that post Covid boom and like simultaneously like that was, that was kind of an anomaly. Right. People were just spending a ton of money post Covid stimulus checks. It was just a. Most businesses in a lot of industries were seeing a big boom and you have naturally a leveling off back to norms and spending that's paired with, like you said, 20% growth in the industry just in the last few years even. And it's just, it's competitive. It's not that businesses can't succeed, but you have to be dialed in, like being, being A rated in most of the things you're doing operationally, marketing, system, structure, sales. You have to be A plus and you have to be striving for excellence, I think to, to make this stuff work. So that's a great, great way to end there. Gina, where can people learn more about you if they want to work with you, what you're up to, what are the sites and links? And we'll make sure those are in the show notes as well.
- [43:18]
B
Thank you. We'd love to connect on Instagram. I'm @medspa_Matchmaker. There's a link to book a free consultation with me in my Instagram bio. You can also find me at www.themedspa matchmaker.com awesome.
- [43:33]
A
Gina, thank you so much. Thanks for working through the technical difficulties with us again. But we appreciate it and yeah, look forward to having you on again.
- [43:41]
B
Likewise. Thanks so much.
- [43:44]
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.