Med Spa Marketing That Actually Works

What Every MedSpa Owner Needs to Know About Growth Marketing with Guest Rick Diaz

Bad marketing advice can cost a med spa months of momentum and tens of thousands in wasted spend, especially when you are new and trying to “just get patients in the door.” AJ sits down with Rick Diaz of Tier 3 Media to get brutally practical about what works in med spa marketing, what fails quietly, and what’s just a shiny hook designed to separate you from your budget.

In this episode of MedSpa Unlocked, Ashley James sits down with marketing strategist and Tier 3 Media Founder & CEO, Rick Diaz, to break down the realities of medical spa marketing, patient acquisition, and what it truly takes to build a profitable, sustainable aesthetic practice.

Whether you're launching a new medical spa, struggling to generate consistent leads, or trying to scale beyond your current revenue plateau, this episode delivers practical insights and proven strategies that every medspa owner should understand.

Ashley and Rick discuss:

• The biggest marketing mistakes medical spa owners make
• Why marketing should be viewed as an investment, not an expense
• How to identify marketing gimmicks and avoid costly agency mistakes
• The truth behind "30 Patients in 30 Days" offers and lead generation programs
• Startup marketing strategies versus growth and scale-stage marketing strategies
• Why before-and-after photos, reviews, and social proof are critical to success
• How Google reviews impact local SEO and patient trust
• The role of websites, SEO, Meta advertising, and paid media in medspa growth
• How to calculate patient acquisition costs and marketing ROI
• Membership programs that increase retention and recurring revenue
• Strategic partnerships that drive referrals and long-term growth
• How successful practices use marketing to dominate their local market

If you've ever wondered how top-performing aesthetic practices consistently attract new patients, convert more consultations, and create sustainable growth, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can implement immediately.

About Rick Diaz

Rick Diaz is the Founder and CEO of Tier 3 Media, one of the nation's leading marketing agencies serving medical spas, aesthetic practices, and healthcare businesses. Since 2016, he has helped hundreds of practices increase patient acquisition, strengthen brand positioning, improve conversion rates, and scale revenue through strategic marketing systems and data-driven growth initiatives.  For more info about Rick or Tier 3 media, visit www.tier3media.com

About Ashley James

Ashley James is the Founder and CEO of DermAesthetic Consulting Group (DAC Group), a nationally recognized medspa consulting firm specializing in medical spa startups, business development, sales training, operational systems, and practice growth. With more than 25 years of industry experience and hundreds of successful practice launches and transformations, Ashley helps aesthetic business owners build profitable, scalable practices through proven strategies and hands-on guidance.

Learn more about DermAesthetic Consulting Group at www.dermaestheticconsulting.com.

#MedSpaMarketing #MedicalSpaGrowth #MedSpaConsulting #AestheticPracticeManagement #MedicalSpaPodcast #PatientAcquisition #MedSpaStartup #AestheticMarketing #MedicalSpaBusiness #PracticeGrowth #HealthcareMarketing #MedSpaOwners #DermAestheticConsultingGroup

If you want clearer metrics, smarter budget decisions, and a marketing plan built for long term growth, hit subscribe, share this with a med spa owner who needs it, and leave a review so more practices can find the playbook.

DermAesthetic Consulting Group
DermAesthetic Consulting Group: Your partner from seed to success in building and scaling medspas

Amspa
American Med Spa Association: Education, compliance, and resources for medspa success

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Transcript

Welcome To MedSpa Unlocked

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to MedSpa Unlocked, the podcast for ambitious medical spa owners who want to build, scale, and dominate in the world of aesthetics. Each episode delivers the strategies, tools, and insider knowledge you need to create a thriving multi-million dollar practice. Hosted by Ashley James, known to many as AJ, former award-winning multi-practice aesthetic owner and operator, international speaker, sales and business mastery expert, and best-selling author of the MedSpot Growth Formula. AJ is also the founder and CEO of Derm Aesthetic Consulting Group and the visionary behind MedSpot Business Builder, a cutting-edge performance and sales system that accelerates growth and drives real results from medical aesthetic practices. Today, she's one of the most highly sought-after aesthetic practice consultants in the nation, widely regarded as one of the industry's top authorities, and she knows exactly what it takes to rise above the noise, outpace the competition, and build a truly profitable, sustainable business. Join AJ and industry leaders as they unlock the secrets to success in aesthetics right here on MedSpa Unlocked. Now, let's get started.

Marketing Is Trust Before The Visit

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I am your host, AJ, CEO of Dermacedic Consulting Group, widely known around the nation as DAT Group. I'm also the CEO and co-founder of MedSpa Mobile Solutions and CEO and founder of the National MedSpa Training Institute. I am so glad that you guys are here today because we have an episode that is going to be talking about one of my favorite things, which is marketing strategies. My very, very special guest on the show today is Rick Diaz from Tier 3 Media. Rick, I'm really excited to have you here. And for those of you guys that don't know who Rick is, he is a marketing strategy guru. Rick and I go way back. We go back what, like seven years. And Rick and I have worked together with many of my projects. So when I am launching a project, um launching a new med spa, Rick and his team have uh worked with our team to really just kind of help get them off the ground. And um he's just brilliant when it comes to execution for marketing. And if you guys have listened to my podcast, if you're a previous client of mine or if you're a current client of mine, one of the things that you're always going to hear me say is that, you know, marketing is not something that should be looked at as an expense. It really is something that is ongoing because marketing is really kind of, you know, the the blood in the business. It's it's really what helps you kind of get your name out there. It is what helps to make you competitive. And it is really just how you are building trust with your client. And the reason that I say that is because the consumer today, the patients now, they are are going to decide if they're going to do business with you based on if they trust you. And so before they ever even come to the practice, before they ever decide to do business with you, they're looking and researching and educating themselves about your practice and your providers before they ever set foot in the door. And so marketing is really something that, again, like it's it's an investment. It's something you're always doing for your practice, like having good providers and always doing training and always, you know, investing in the right areas of your business. Marketing is one of those things. And, you know, it is how you get your brand identity out there. It's how you communicate to your customers. It's not just about marketing for a launch, it's it's marketing for long-term success. So, you know, what do you want to tell your customer about you? What do you, what are you advertising? What are you promoting? Um, you know, it has everything to do with who you are and what you want your customers to think you are. And so I brought Rick onto the show today because um not only is he a really good friend of mine, but he's just a genius when it comes to strategy with marketing. And um, he's been in the space for a really long time. Um, he started uh tier three media in 2016. And since then, he has um helped hundreds of practices with sales coaching and marketing. He has taken empty room receptionaries and transitioned them into multi-million dollar practices like I have. So um we we kind of joke around. Um his partner Fred and him, I we always call ourselves like the Mario Brothers and the Princess because they look like the Mario Brothers. And um, I'm the blonde girl. So, Rick, with that being said, I'm super excited to have you here. Thank you so much for making time on your business day. And with that being said, Rick, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

We're really excited to have you. And if you guys are just tuning in, you know, this season is really just kind of digging into the strategies, you know, what really makes a business work? What do you need to be aware of the first year and the second year and the third year? You know, after you're open, you're excited, you know, kind of shit hits the fan. So, you know, now what? And a lot of owners get upside down because they don't really make the right decisions once they're open. And marketing really pays a big, a big role in that. And so what I really want to talk about today is, you know, med spa marketing, what actually works, what doesn't work, and and and kind of honestly, like what's a scam out there? Because I really feel like a lot of new owners, especially doctors, they're not marketing experts. They don't really know what they need to be doing or what they should be doing to really get their business um past that ramp up phase and into that scalability phase. Um, so you know, you know, Rick, let's talk

Gimmicks Agencies And Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 6:20

kind of like about that. You know, we're talking about, you know, marketing today. I mean, it's just everywhere. Like, let's talk about like I I feel like it's changed, right? Like there's so many marketing companies and out there. There's just, yeah, I mean, what what are you saying?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

I mean, I I think it's more of the same, to be honest, as far as what you see out there in the marketplace, um, where you see agencies popping up all the time, right? Um if you're on this podcast, you're in aesthetics, and I guarantee you've seen 30 patients in 30 days pop up, you've seen all those, you know, pay per lead. We don't get paid until you know you get paid. It sounds great, but the reality is that they're gambling with your money and you're trusting that they're going to use your ad spend wisely. And one of the most common things that we have is you know, clients coming to us and saying, Listen, I I've used five, six different agencies in the same thing, what makes you different? Um, so we'll we'll get into that today. Um, but I would say this before any practice ever discusses marketing, I like to kind of bring up the fact that if anybody's ever used Uber or Lyft before, you can't even figure out your pricing for how much your trip is going to cost without putting in your destination, right? I like that. And so many practice owners will dive into a marketing agency and have no idea where they want to go. Yeah, sure, you want to make money, sure, you want new patients, but who do you want to serve? Do you want to serve somebody that is just looking for price? Do you want to look at uh clients that are um not going to appreciate the value that you offer? Um, and where do you want to go as a practice? I was just having a conversation with one of my clients uh yesterday. I did a 2026 strategy session with her. One of the things that we uncovered is she's a female black business owner and it's an underserved market in her area. And one of the things that we started doing is saying, forget about every other piece of marketing that works for everybody else. Why do your clients come to you? And she was like, They come to me because they want my skin, they want my skin texture and tone. And 85% of my clients are black. And so I said to her, like, that's what we need to focus on. Nothing else. If 85% of your clients are saying, I want what you have, you know where you want to go now.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

And so I I digress, but that's like that's the most important thing. Before you talk strategies um or tactics, I should say, you should know where you want to go.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I love that you said that because it, you know, if you're listening right now and you're one of my previous clients, this is something that I say all the time. You know, you know, I I love doing the startups from from first idea to launch, get you out the door, get you growing. But I always talk about you, if you don't have a strategy, you don't have a business plan, if you don't have a financial performer, you're growing blindly. And, you know, marketing is the exact same way. You know, when when, you know, Dak does a little bit of marketing too, but but not to the caliber that you do. You know, our our mission is let's get you open, let's get you the revenue, let's get you kind of a head start to you know what to do. And then, you know, typically they transfer to another marketing company that can then take them, you know, take them the distance. But what we say is like that's exactly what you say. Like you are competing with everybody. There's a medspa in every corner. So what is going to differentiate you? What is different? And then you have to start doing that before you actually even open your doors. You have to get people familiar with your brand identity, who you are, what you are, and what you want to be. And then from there determine what's that look like in six months and what's that look like in a year. So I love that you said that because I think a lot of people don't understand. I think a lot of owners that are listening, they open and then they want to market, or they open and six months later, there's no revenue and then they want to market. And that kind of brings me to my next point is that a lot of owners look at marketing as an expense and it really is not the mindset that they should have.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

No, your light bill, your water, that's an expense. Marketing is an investment. It's the only thing that you can put into your business that's going to have a return on its investment. Even the products and devices you're buying without marketing or a market, marketing, all marketing is is connecting your story and value proposition to a market.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

And so without that element or without whether it's an agency or not, whether you want to do it yourself, that's fine. I'm not talking about tactics or methodologies, but you have to connect your story to a market. And that's that is the crucial component of why an agency exists and why you have to connect with your buyers, right? Because without sales, it's really you just have a vision, right? Right. Right. That's really all you have.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah. I so I really want to get into the different strategies. I also want to get in the different types of business scenarios. So, like one of the things that you said the other day when we were talking is, you know, there's really three categories of med spas. You said that we have your startups, which is something that we specialize in. Then you have your stability, which is the ramp up and kind of kind of finding your way in industry. And then you have scaling. And so, you know, to your point the other day when we were talking is that there's really three different ways to market based on where your business is. And so before we really kind of get into that, I think I really want to start first talk about just what to identify as like a gimmick out there. I mean, we we kicked off the episode today talking about, you know, 30 patients in 30 days and, you know, do this or you pay for free. And I think that's really important to talk about first before we get into the different strategies. Because, you know, for you and I who've been in this industry for such a long time, we can identify these scams right away. And to but to somebody who's never been in the industry or is a doctor or it doesn't specialize in marketing, these sound very, very enticing. And I really, you know, I've had the same thing where, you know, people come go to different consultants that, you know, are trying to do startups but have never owned a mud spot or might be marketing people trying to do startups. And it's like that, that's not, that's not the right person to to invest in. When can you talk to me about some of like the red flags that you're seeing? Maybe even share some like horror stories you've heard about what happens when people do trust the wrong company and talk about some of these gimmicks that you and I both see out there all the time.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

For sure. Yeah. And and I want to I want to be clear in this also. I'm not gonna knock every company that does 30 patients in 30 days, because there are some companies that are good out there that that do that because it's a hook and it's attractive, right? Just because I don't do that myself doesn't mean that it's not a smart tactic for a company to get that initial phone call, right? It's a it's a hook,

CPA LTV And Conversion Tracking

SPEAKER_02 13:09

right? Um, but this the things that you really need to look for is their success rate, right? Like do some research about the companies. Um, understand what their typical cost per lead and cost per acquisition is. Any good marketing or any marketer really worth their salt, they should know what the average cost per acquisition is. Um, and so I'll I'll just kind of share it. Um, even if marketers are out there listening, you know, don't use this unless it's true on your side. But we look for about a $100 uh to $120 cost per acquisition. That's with all conversions in the door, right? Now, the average med spot patient spends anywhere from $1,200 if they're just a TOX patient. That if you have devices, it can go all the way up to $35,000, $6,500, right? Right. So your average client is really what we're looking for, but we also need to know what your average client's lifetime value is. So maximum lifetime value or MLTV, and I'll I'll get back to I'm not going off track, but I wanted to kind of explain this so that that way we can talk about where the scams kind of fall in. If we don't know as a marketing agency what your maximum lifetime value is for a client, whether you're a startup or not, right? A startup might not know what those are, but industry-wide, we we have numbers, we have metrics, right? If you're spending $100 to acquire a patient that's gonna spend $1,200 with you, there's two things that you really need. It's not just a person in the door. If you don't know how to quote unquote sell, you just spent $100 for somebody that came in for potentially an offer, but they're not gonna spend any more money with you and they're gonna deal hop and they're gonna jump somewhere else. That's not necessarily a scam, right? The agency itself isn't at fault for that necessarily, but the agency relationship should track the entire journey of that client. They can't just say, I'm washing my hands, it's it's four dollars per lead. We're crushing it, it's four dollars per lead. That means nothing in a vacuum. Yeah, because if that company can't get that lead to convert and that conversion to stay, then it's a revolving door and you don't really have anything other than a colander versus a business because all that money is gonna run right through.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I agree with you 100%. And and you know, to that point too, you know, anybody can get you 100 leads, but they have to be quality leads, and then how many of those leads are actually converting? And if you have a marketing company that's getting you, let's say 100 leads and you're converting, let's say, 40 of them, how many of them are purchasing? And if and if you're getting them in the door and they're not purchasing, that also identifies that you have a break in the sales process. So your marketing company, to your point, should be able to say, okay, we're doing this, this, and this. There's a break here. And that's when you call Dak for sales training or work with you guys for sales training as well. But it's it's a whole process. It's not just throwing money at an ad and getting leads, it's an entire process from leads to in the door to converting to then building that long-term relationship. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 16:23

100%. And and I'll say this also is I don't I don't want to poo-poo the industry. Like I love my industry, I love what I do. I think that a lot of marketers go into it with the best intentions. They just don't have the skill set. You know, I I I kind of say this in jest, but I mean it. It's kind of the liberal arts of the professional world.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

You know, like they don't really know what they want to do, but marketing seems easy. I I I have a Facebook, I have Instagram, so I can start an agency. It's low barrier. I don't need an office, right? I can do all of this wherever I want. So I'm a digital nomad. You know, you want to make sure that the company that you're working with has the foundation to scale with you and they're not a one-trick pony. Yeah, a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

So some agencies might do a really, really good job for one client because they're coaching Michael Jordan, right? And there might be another agency, or there might be another client that just doesn't have the differentiators that the other client had, and they don't know how to pivot. They don't know how to make that person successful. And so, with the startups that you work with, a lot of times they don't know what their differentiators are because they're still trying to figure themselves out. So, how do you how do you help them without putting them into a cookie-cutter formulaic kind of conveyor belt marketing?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Right, right. Well, and you know, and and that's where it comes with trust. Like to your point, you know, our clients trust us because of our experience that we can give them some of those, those questions, we can help to answer some of those questions to make sure that they're headed the right way. But the same thing with the marketing company, you know, I I had a client about a year ago who, and I obviously won't name names, but worked with a very, you know, well-known marketing agency. And um, we we were doing some other stuff with them. And so I connected with them and they did not know the cost of Botox. So, you know, it that just little things like that. You know, if you're marketing a service, if you're in the med spot industry and you're trying to figure out how to develop a strategy to get clients in the door and how to grow a practice, shouldn't you know what these services are? Shouldn't you know what the cost is? And it's crazy to me, you know, like this person didn't know what a PDO thread lift was. How do you market something if you don't understand what it is? And so there is value in working with a marketing company that is in the industry, that can understand, that can talk the talk, walk the walk, has been in a med spa. That's the other thing, too. One of the things that I love about your company is that you actually have been into your clients' med spas and you'll go do visits and you'll actually meet with them in person and we'll learn events.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

We'll like we're in the thick of it with our clients for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And I'll be honest with you, Rick. Like, I don't I don't know that I've ever met any other marketing company in the industry that has done that. And I think that speaks a lot about the results that you provide and the dedication that you have to your patient or not your patients, your clients.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

I I think we're a little bit different in how we're structured. I don't I left a really high-paying corporate sales job. You know, I was in corporate sales um for most of my career after I got rid of the, you know, and I didn't sell the entertainment company. Um, I started it when I was 16, but it was it's a good faith sale. And so nobody's gonna buy Ricardo Diaz Entertainment because they're not Ricardo Diaz. Um, but so I I got into sales, I cold called into my first job, and then um when I started this company with Fred, the first thing that we said is, what's an industry we can really integrate ourselves and our skill set into? We didn't want just a money play. A lot of the agencies that are out there, they'll say they're med spa related. And then all of a sudden, in six months, when it doesn't work well, they're doing roofing or they're getting chiropractors, or they're doing dentists, and they just kind of you know hop all over the map of industries. And and the truth of why that happens is because in the marketing world, there are coaches and consultants and gurus that will teach these kind of like prefabricated or you know, pre-put together packages that a marketing startup can pay for their course and get immediate results. That's really why you see all the 30 patients in 30 days because there are companies out there, agencies out there that had slim success with it, created a course, and then students started having some success with it. Yeah, but the challenge is they have no fundamentals of marketing, they have no background in marketing or sales, and they see it as I'm gonna go for the path of least resistance, right? That's fine, right? I'm not gonna knock them. They're making money, they're they're building their businesses however they're building it, but we have a responsibility to our clients, and it's a very small industry. You know, if you go into forums, you're gonna see really, really big names get trashed, and you're gonna see really, really big names get lifted up. And that has always terrified me, right? Like I don't want to put all of my roots in an industry that I just see as a money grab. That's just not how I see it.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Well, and you know, in this industry, you know, one of the things I always say is, you know, I I work with a lot of doctors that are transitioning from traditional medicine into aesthetic medicine. And it's it's a different, it's a different mindset because these doctors are not used to talking about money. They're not used to having to earn their business. You know, a patient is sick or they have a specialty. Need, they go to the doctor, the doctor's there, they write a prescription, whatever. But in this industry, everything is based on how you make a patient feel. You have a million med spas that are out there. And what's going to make them choose you? It's how you make them feel from the marketing, from the first phone call, from the first step that they put, they put into your business. You know, do they trust you? Do they believe you? You know, I always talk about the two pillars of purchase and, you know, the one is emotion, the other one is logic. And so that really does come back to marketing from the very beginning as well. You know, going back to like marketing is not an expense. It's, it's, it's something you have to do. It's an investment. It's it's part of what puts the breath in your business because that is your first brand identity. That is the first moment they get to know you as a business. And consumers today, I mean, I always joke about when I first opened my first med spa, I was, you know, 23 and we had to market in the 2A of the newspaper. Like, I don't even think Facebook, Facebook wasn't there. I think we had MySpace, but it wasn't, you know, anything like it is. And so, but the thing is still true is people want to research you before they commit. And so now things are moving a lot quicker because information is so accessible. And the best way to get information about who you are, what your brand is, what makes you unique, why clients want to come to you. Are they going to trust you is through the marketing, whether that be on social media, whether that be a real, whether that be, you know, how you're advertising. And so I think a lot of owners miss that marketing is just really kind of it's the foundation of kind of how everything starts. And so, you know, that being said, let's kind of shift into like the three types of businesses and business strategies you talk about.

Startup Stability Scale Marketing Shifts

SPEAKER_01 23:43

I think you mentioned it being a startup, stability, and scale. So like talk to me about that and and the different types of strategies that you would recommend for each one of those categories.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah, absolutely. So um that's exactly it. It's there's just there's startup, and that could be pre-revenue or it could be existing revenue. But typically we see startups, uh, startup is not just, by the way, it's not just when you start, right? Like you could be a startup and be in your third year of business or fifth year of business because you're still working in the hospital, right? So that's I I want to clarify that the way that we look at startup is the sophistication or the the mentality of the business owner and the revenue that they're producing in the business. Typically, a startup is like anywhere from like 10 to 15,000-ish, and then it goes into stabilizing.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

That's when you're like You're talking about per month, right? 10 to 15,000 per month.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, once you kind of hit that 15 grand per month, you start saying to yourself, the confidence starts building. You might start making a decision. You know what? I could do this. I actually have a business and you're stabilizing, right? Think about like a baby deer, you know, yeah, just kind of trying to learn to walk. Like that's a stabilizing business. Some people do it really fast, and some people might take a little bit longer to do that. Nothing's wrong with that. There's just different things that happen at each phase. So we'll start with startups. So, startup, the the most important thing for a startup, get revenue, right? You need revenue. Otherwise, you have your first purchase with Alargan or Galderma or MERS or and you, you know, it's a $17,000 to $20,000 pop just for buying your first injectable order. Right. Right. We're not talking about device or build out or anything else that you're doing. And so you're investing all of this into your startup. You have to have a growth plan, right? You have to have a strategy that's going to get you from point A to point B. And so we recommend typically for startups to do something we call profit first. Okay. And profit first, we call it that for a reason. Um, we we do a lot of different types of marketing, right? We do uh YouTube marketing, SEO marketing, um, you know, Instagram meta marketing, uh, which is Instagram and Facebook. We do email marketing, text marketing. So we do all of that stuff. But the most common way for a startup to get out of the trenches of trying to be noticed is with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

And talk about that because you and I have talked about this over the years. Um, explain to the listeners why that's more effective versus like Google.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Yeah, for sure. Um, first off, let's just think about how we approach things as a consumer. All right. If I'm a startup and I have zero reviews day one, or I only have 20 reviews day one, let's say I work on SEO for you for the next six months and you start ranking. Okay. You're investing money, you're investing time, you're investing in perishable days of your business because if you're not earning money in January and then you don't earn money in February, that's perishable, right? You can't earn that back unless you maximize that with paid ads and you scale, right? But you lose that opportunity in that month if you don't do it. If there are no reviews, even if we get you at number one, the practice under you that has 450 reviews, guess where I'm going. And guess where you're going, right? Like this isn't this isn't a knock on the business with no reviews. Let's just think about how we consume things and how we make decisions. If I wanted to go, I love pizza, right? I'm in New Jersey, love East Coast pizza. So pizza is always my example. Um, you know, if I'm looking for a pizza restaurant and one has six reviews, four and a half stars, and another one has a thousand reviews, four point nine stars. Where do you think I'm getting pizza from?

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah, and that goes back to earning that trust, that social proof.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

100%. Yeah. Yeah. So for startups, there's there's a few things. Foundationally, they need to get as many before and afters as they possibly can, right? So it's not, it's not a magic pill, right? You don't just turn on the marketing switch and things just start clicking. There has to be a differentiator, there has to be um, you know, uh social proof. There's two kinds of social proof. Well, there's there's more than that, but there's two major ones digitally reviews and um testimonials and before and afters, right? Yeah, those are I can I categorize those together because a testimonial, in my opinion, is the same thing as a before and after, because you have to see that with a testimonial to believe it. Right. Right. But a picture's worth a thousand words, right? In aesthetics, it's worth a thousand dollars. So every time you have a patient, make sure you capture your work because that's how you consume things too. Also make sure you get a review because if you're on Amazon and it could be the same exact product, right? Let's just say you're buying cat food. I don't know, I'm just making something up. My cat's near me. Let's say you're looking for cat food, it could be the same exact cat food, same exact price, but you're gonna get the one that has more reviews than the other one. Right. Nine times out of ten. Right? And so I I always recommend startups, you have to do that. Now, that doesn't mean that it stops when you get into your stabilizing and scaling phase, right? If you're doing SEO, a new report just came out that reviews are 20% of local signals. And it's not just how many reviews you have. You can start lowering in your ranking if you don't have brand new reviews, and another practice is starting to get brand new reviews.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

But it's how we consume things, right? So Google, the the way that things are shifting um with AI as well. People back in the day, uh, and I'll go back to startups, but this is important just kind of as a broad um philosophy. Back in the day, we could just load keywords, really load keywords, right? And we could hack the system because you could just put all of those keywords at the bottom of a website page in white, and it's a white background, and no one knows the better, right? Like no one knows that I just stacked a bunch of keywords that were irrelevant to anything I'm offering, but I was first because I stacked all that. Yeah, Google did away with that many years ago, but the the theory behind that or the the methodology behind that hasn't necessarily changed. It's just gotten more sophisticated. Okay. And so when people are putting in their keywords and their their blogs and their services, Google's not just looking for that specific term, they're looking for everything else around it. Right? I'll use iced coffee uh or coffee as an example. I like using this example because most people drink coffee or know someone that drinks coffee. If I have a website about coffee, I'm not gonna win against somebody that has everything about coffee, the best filters. What does coffee do? How long does caffeine last in your system? What's the best kind of iced coffee? What's the best coffee bean? Should I get whole bean or should I get ground beans? It's not just saying coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, because I'm not searching as a consumer for coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee. I'm looking for specific things and I need specific answers. Yeah. So going back to startups, I know I go off on a tangent on these things because I I love talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Oh, you're okay. I do the same thing. So that's what I love about us when we talk is that it becomes a very interesting conversation.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

It's all connected, right? Because it builds it builds on itself.

Paid Ads SEO And Website Basics

SPEAKER_02 31:48

So when you're building your website as a startup, it's great to have beautiful pictures, right? It's great to have all that stuff. But a great website, beautiful website. Let me back up. A beautiful website doesn't always translate into an effective website, right? This is really important for startups. A lot of startups will try and go around. Well, they'll do, and it works in some cases. So, again, nothing I'm saying right now is a hundred percent. Marketing is about testing and reiterating very quickly. But a lot of startups will try and start with like a Wix site or a Squarespace site or some type of site built on a custom easy builder that I can do. But what's inside of that site are thousands of lines of code that make it easy for you to change things.

unknown 32:43

Right?

SPEAKER_02 32:44

So you can go in there, you can make edits because you don't have a background in development, and that's fine. That's great. It gets you visible. But when you start competing against other people that are built on a custom coded website or a WordPress website where all of that traffic line, uh, you know, or all of the traffic on those roads are clear, Google's gonna choose the faster website with the best content. It doesn't care about your images, right? It doesn't. It doesn't care about your video, it doesn't care about your images. Obviously, there's tags and things like that, but the quality of the images, Google doesn't care about at all for the time being.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

This podcast is brought to you by Dermasthetic Consulting Group. Whether you're launching your first medical spa or ready to scale an existing one, we help you build a business that is structured, profitable, and designed for long-term growth. From startup strategy and compliance to advanced sales training and our proven Convert More Consult system, we focus on what actually drives revenue, helping you increase conversions and improve operational performance to eliminate the gaps that are holding your business back. If you're ready to start scaling with a clear, proven strategy, schedule a private strategy call with our team today. Click the link in today's episode to schedule.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I love that you talked about websites because, you know, in in my industry, you know, when I have a client, you know, a lot of clients think they can build the website themselves. And I always tell them, yes, you're gonna save some money there. You're gonna actually save money on the build-out, but you're gonna lose money in the long run if you don't have a properly functioning, full-blown website that's built the right way with all the things. So um again, like going back to you know, the mindset, a lot of owners think that marketing is just an expense. And it really isn't. There's a strategy behind it and there's a way to do it, and there's a way not to do it. And this is not an area that you want to, you want to cut your budget. Um, that's another thing too, you know, talking about these startups, you know, you're you're talking about startups that maybe, you know, get to 10 to 15,000. Our startups, most of our startups, the first month, you know, they're generating 45,000, 50,000 because of strategy.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Because of strategy.

Stop Cutting Marketing During Slow Months

SPEAKER_01 35:05

But but that point as well is like, you know, if we have a med spa that maybe dips down, like for example, in January, as January is a very slow month, owners get nervous and think, oh, I have to cut my budget, I have to save money. And they always want to cut marketing. And it makes me want to pull my hair out because that is the last place you need to pull money. And so, do you see this happening a lot? And like, you know, talk to I I'd love to just hear your. I know what I tell my customers. I tell them, you can't do that. Like that's, you know, do something else. Like you cannot cut your marketing. But I see this happen a lot. I don't know why owners feel like that's the first place to cut, but that's where they want to cut. And again, like it's a lifeline to the business. So do you see that happening too?

SPEAKER_02 35:44

All the time. Yeah. I'm I'm the one that gets cut, right? Yeah.

unknown 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Yeah. I see it all the time. So uh a lot of times it happens because there's a there's a slow month, right? And it could be uh so many different things, right? It could be what's going on politically, it could be going uh because of the seasonality of aesthetics. Um, the summer is notoriously challenging for for businesses. So it's just a matter of pivoting your strategy, but not cutting your strategy, right? That's like marketing is like irrigation, right? You could you could hope for it to rain, right? You could hope for it to rain and make sure that your crops are getting fed and and you know, water is hydrating them and making them grow. But what happens when it stops raining? Right? You need an irrigation system that you could just turn on a switch and and let it all go in and start filling things up. Now, sometimes business owners get nervous because there's a trickle of water coming into those crops, even with the irrigation system. And so they say, This doesn't work. Irrigation isn't the problem. It could be the agency, it could be the time, it could just be a hump that you have to get over as your business is developing. Maybe you've saturated a market with an offer and it's time to pivot to a new offer. Maybe you have used the same messaging for so long that now it's time to pivot strategy completely and focus on a different channel because you've already pulled all the people that want that for that time being. A good example of that is like mail ads. That's the perfect example for this. It is right to stop marketing to male ads when you saturate that market. Sometimes it's a flash in the pan. I can go run ads in San Francisco for a client right now and probably get, I don't know, 20, 30 leads that are male clients. And then the next month you see it turn into six or seven because we've already grabbed the low-hanging fruit. It doesn't mean marketing doesn't work. You don't just turn it off, you pivot.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Yeah. Well, and it's consistency over time, too, because you know, people have to see you repeatedly. And again, it goes back to earning that trust. The more they see you, the more they learn about you. And and very rarely does the consumer ever start looking for something and then go to the first place they see. They think about it, they dwell about it, they research about it. I mean, we tend to find that if you have a first-time med spa customer, they've been researching and thinking about this for a good four months before they phone. Yeah. And so if you just stop your marketing, then you pull yourself out of the pool. And, you know, that's why I talk about, I mean, you know, two different, two different types of start

Bootstrapping Budgets And Funding Strategy

SPEAKER_01 38:32

startups. You know, you talked about the bootstrappers, you know, who are just trying to pay as they go and and do what they can. And then you have other customers that, you know, we work with a lot too, where they've planned this out, they've got the SBA funding, they're prepared for that ramp up, they know how much money they're gonna invest, and they're doing that up front because they know consistency over time, doing the right things, the right strategy over and over again. You'll get to the end goal quicker and faster. But not everybody can do that. You do have the owners, the independent injectors that are like, I've got $50,000, I'm gonna rent my space, I'm gonna buy my $20,000 of product, I'm gonna invest this in marketing, we're gonna see how it goes. And it gets very touch and go and it can be very scary because if you're not getting that return on investment to be able to pay for the marketing next month, to be able to pay for the additional products, you can get yourself upside down very quickly. So talk to me about like the different strategies that you would do for the two different startups. We have the ones that are bootstrapping, the independent providers. Talk to me about the the three main things that you would do and kind of the budget you think would be a healthy budget for them versus like a lot of the clients that I work with, where you know, we know ramp ups can be about four months. They're gonna be, you know, we we typically have them invest, you know, six, seven, eight thousand dollars a month in ad spend, just in the ad spend. Um talk to me about the different strategies and and and what is recommended for those two different types of boat owners.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

So I'll I'll start with the the bootstrap because that's probably 90%, 95% of the market. The bootstrappers are really the the the heart and soul of America, right? Like that's the American dream. You look on Shark Tank and you have all these bootstrappers. I know. So, you know, that's it's a big part of the market. A lot of them get scared and think that they have to have a huge budget. And the reality is that you can start with paid ads at $25 a day, right? At $7.50 per month. You'd scale that, right? Um, and then there's agency fees and things like that. I'm not going to get into super details about agency fees because every agency is different. Um, we try and make ourselves affordable but not cheap, um, so that that way bootstrappers can get great results. Um, but $25 per day will will get you started, right? You have to scale that. When you start talking about six, seven thousand dollars when you're going into Google and you're going into Meta and you're you're really kind of diversifying your platforms, then for sure you're gonna have to spend more money because you're gonna be competing on a different scale.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Um, and if you know, if you if your metrics are dialed in and you know what your cost per acquisition is, how much it costs you to you know bring a client in, um, then yeah, scale it to the moon for sure, right? Like if I'm making $4 for every dollar I'm spending, I'm giving you a lot more money than $25 per day.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah. Um I mean, in a perfect world, everybody would have funding to, you know, invest what they need to in the very beginning. Um, not everybody has that opportunity. And so it's important to know the different strategies for each. And I've done them both ways myself. I mean, you know my story. I started my first business when I was 23, had $50,000, did it myself, and I grew it to a multi-million dollar practice. But then by the time I got to my fourth clinic, I had all the funding needed and I did it the right way. And so I've been able to see how it, if you do it that way, the bootstrap weight obviously takes a little bit longer to build, but you still get there if you have the right strategy and the right team working with you. You get there a little bit quicker with you know funds.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

But sometimes, I mean, it it depends. It depends on if that the practice owner is a grinder as well, right? Like we have a we have a client in um in Missouri and we helped scale her business. She was inside of a gym called Physique Fitness. Um, and I remember our first ad for her was nobody could find her because she was inside of Physique Fitness. There was only a little window decal that said her business name. And so we did an ad where it was kind of like a walking in and then meeting all the team, they were all smiling so people could see them and it kind of showed their personality and showed a differentiator, right? Um, and so we took them from $20 ish thousand dollars to now they're on pace to do over seven million dollars this year, and it's only been four and a half years. That's amazing. So that's amazing. They have, you know, they have four locations now. The membership that we built for them, you know, that's doing over $200,000 per month just in the membership alone. So, you know, that I would consider them kind of bootstrappers as well. Now, if let's let's dive into the funding piece of it. If you have funding, then you need someone like an AJ, right? You need someone that can help you mitigate the risk of putting that funding in the wrong buckets, right? Because that's the that's the kiss of death. And I've seen it happen to many practices where you know they're deep in debt in their first couple months and they don't know how they're gonna do it. And they just start kind of scrounging up whoever they can to spend money with them. It dilutes their brand, and in a year they're no longer doing it. Yeah. So the the funding piece, you really need somebody that you can trust that can help you understand where to put those dollars in design, in um how to build your website, how to build your presence. Because people that have funding, to your point, AJ, and I will agree with this a hundred percent. Um, I just wanted to say that there are outliers within the startups that could scale very quickly as long as they have the right strategy, they have the right mentality. But practices that do have funding, they can hit the scaling phase in three months.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah. Yeah. If they do it right. You know, I've also seen I've had I've had clients come to us who've who've who've gotten the funding before they contacted us and gone through all their funding because they didn't do it the right way. They didn't have the guidance of education. They just think that they just throw money into marketing, or if they do this, or they, you know, then then it'll just grow. And I always laugh, you know, just because you build it and you have the most beautiful clinic and you're spending all this money doesn't mean it's not that I feel the dreams. You build it, they will come. It there's strategy. There's nothing that is going to grow without consistency in a strategy.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

So I I'd also say this is that where a lot of bootstrappers screw up. Um I don't want to say screw up.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

That that seems that they make a mistake because they don't know.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

They don't know. They get excited about the money that's coming in and they overextend themselves and there's not enough money left for growth. And so they start cutting things that will help them grow because they bought that new car or they bought that new place, or they did XYZ and they're going on vacations now. If that's if it's a lifestyle business for you, then by all means, right? Like, and there's nothing wrong with that, right? Like if you're having a successful lifestyle business and you have the car that you want and the house that you want, and you don't have to marry your business and you're not stuck in the business. Listen, if that's your dream, go for it. But it is the kiss of death for practices that want to grow. You have to reinvest back into your business's growth.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

I agree. That for I just have to mention this, you know, uh, this this brings back a memory, Rick. So, you know, for you guys listeners, like Rick and I have worked together over the years, and we had a joint client, I don't know, like six years ago. And we took him from $20,000 a month to over $120,000 a month in revenue. And I think in like three months with team with Rick's team and my team working together. And he ended up, just to what you said, and he didn't feel like he could buy angry with us. He fired us, didn't think we were doing our job, but it was because he bought a boat and he did all these things, and we're like, How do you not think that we've grown your practice? We just made a hundred, we just agree to $120,000 a month in three months. And you know, he's like, Well, I don't have any money. I'm I'm broke. It's like, it's not our fault. Like so you have to have owners that make great decisions too.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

There's a reason why businesses fail. And you know, our hope, you know, anybody listening to this this podcast is that avoid those pitfalls, right? Like these things, just be mindful of it, right? Um, it's not that you can't spend money, it's not that you can't enjoy things, um, but but reinvest in your business if that's what's going to help you get to where you want to go. Um, you know, so I I digress on that point. One thing that you said earlier, I think is really important for startups also. When you're trying to cut costs, the most it the most expensive website you'll ever buy is the one you have to buy twice.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Yes. Can we please talk about that? Um, this I we run into this all the time. You know, and again, there might be some companies out there that do you justice, but they're like websites in a box and you pay a monthly fee over and over and over again. And then when you want to leave, you don't own anything. That's very frustrating for me as a consultant, trying to help people grow. And, you know, they've spent all this money on websites that aren't truly their own. And um yeah, you know, let's talk about that too. These cookie cutter websites that are out there, I mean, that's really just what they are. You know, they're they're templates that just kind of plug and play your brand. And again, I kind of contribute those companies to very similar to like Wix, you know, it's a template that they can plug and play. But, you know, and if you're listening and, you know, it these companies charge you like anywhere from 300, I've seen up to $1,000 a month. And then they have it for a couple of months and they're not getting any traction from it. They don't have access to the back and they want to leave, and the only thing they own is their contact page.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

It's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

We call it the golden handcuffs. It's not like we made that term up. There's a lot of industries that have the golden handcuffs. Um, but it's I think it's an unfair practice. Um, you know, you shouldn't be renting your website, you should own your website, right? If I build you a house, I don't take it when you can't, you know, pay your, you know, well, that's not that's not true. If you can't pay your money, yeah, you can't take it and you don't pay your mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Yeah. Right. Well, but like you, if you want to change the pace.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

As the builder, like as the builder, I can't take the house back after I built it.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

You know, so it's really important that um you ask the questions, no matter what size of business you are, whether you're a startup, you're stabilizing, you're scaling, ask them, do I own the rights to my website? If I decide to leave, do I own the rights to this website? And will I get all the files that I need if I need to transition, whether in-house or to another agency? If they beat around the bush or they don't say yes to that answer, then I I recommend really weighing your options. Like if you're dead set on an agency because you heard great results and you're willing to take that risk, I'm not gonna stop you from doing that, but just know the risk. Buyer beware.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Yeah. And I would also add that you should read the contract before you sign. Don't just take the rep's word for it.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Um, because I've seen situations too where someone's told verbally something and then a year later they can't get out of their website or then, you know, have to spend another, you know, chunk of change to build a website that they own on their own. So, so I mean, let's let's talk about like the most important things. Like we definitely brand identity. You got to get your name out there, you got to differentiate who you are that makes you unique to your competitor. We we've talked about how people purchase with people, it's all about a feeling. So, you know, do they trust you? Um, do they believe in you? We talked about how important reviews are for new businesses and established businesses, because as you said, Google is now, you know, ranking you based on recent reviews. So that's something that all businesses need to be doing, focusing on reviews before and after pictures. That's your social proof. This needs to be on social media, it needs to be on your website and updating these things on a regular basis. So that's kind of you know your brand identity that helps get people to trust you. We talked about an effective website and why it's important to really not kind of, you know, chimp out on that. You got to invest in a website that that that's gonna be functional for you, that Google's also gonna see as functional, but that also you own and and and can grow with you as well. Um, what are some other areas that you think are just kind of like you have to do no matter what?

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Um as a startup, um know again, going back to that Uber Lyft, know where you want to go. Do you want to be a solo practitioner? Do you want to have staff? Do you like what is your goal with your practice? If your goal is to hire people, and I always talk to business owners about this. Um, there's two types of currencies that we're always, you know, trying to get um or we're working for. One of them is fungible, right? Like we can we can always earn money, right? And then one is non-fungible, which is time, right? I can never get time back. If I'm a new mom or I am um, you know, a business owner that loves free time and downtime, and I want to travel and I want to, you know, have fun. Know where you want to go with your business because there's going to be a certain point where you have to decide do I want to do this anymore?

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I got there. I was that way. After 20 some years, I was burnt out. I loved my patience. I loved what I did. I loved the money, but I was tired. And so that was my next transition was consulting. I still get to do the business stuff of it, but I have more time.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I mean, not really, but and you also know how to get them out of the same trap that you fell into before, you know, when you started getting sucked in and you you were married to the business, that burnt you out. And that's why you teach these kinds of things to to clients is so that that way they don't they don't fall into the same thing. Um, and and part of that is structure, right? So setting up the team structure, making sure that there's accountability for yourself and for your team, know your numbers. Oh, yeah, it's so important. Every no matter what business phase you're in, know your numbers. How much does it cost me to get a lead? How much does it cost me to acquire? How much do my average clients spend? What's the lifetime value of my clients? Um, adding a membership. How often am I getting brand new members? And what's my attrition rate of clients that are on the membership? That that information is like driving a car and being able to look at your speedometer and your your oil and your you know everything else. I um I like cars, but I'm not a car guy. So like I'm I'm done with the speedometer tack. Yeah. But like it's like driving um, you know, across country and not having any indication of what's going on with your vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah. And it is crazy to me how many people, again, like grow blindly. They don't really know. Um, that being said, too, you know, we've talked a lot about startups today, but it's also important to know that the way you market in the beginning is much different than how you market in year three or year four or year five. And, you know, I think you made a comment one time, you know, McDonald's doesn't have to market because everybody knows who they are. So the type of marketing or where you market or how much money you're spending is

Partnership Marketing And Membership Wallets

SPEAKER_01 54:08

different. I I think that as an established practice, more effective marketing is in like membership programs and events and community outreach and things like that. Um, would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 54:19

100%. Yeah, we have uh we have a process um and technology that helps with this um called uh Premier Partners. And so Premier Partners, um, we we have a system for it, but you know, like them getting the hand holding from you building relationships and partnerships would be ideal. Um, but it tracks those relationships. So imagine having a salon, okay, that's right next door to you, and they they match your vibe, right? It's not just some random salon, but they match the same vibe, same kind of clientele. That's a premier partner. You have maybe 10, 15 stylists in this salon that not only are potential clients, but have your ideal clients sitting down in their captive audience for an hour, two hours, right? And so they're they're coming and they have this relationship with someone. Once you find somebody that does your hair well, you're not leaving that place for the most part, right? You trust their recommendations, you have they know about your family, they know about your kids. So when you make a recommendation to them, they don't just throw that away. That's that's as big of a social proof as you could possibly get as a business. This high-end salon or this type of salon is recommending this place to go to. I'm gonna check it out.

SPEAKER_03 55:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

And so we track that with technology on the back end. We create a custom branded landing page so that that way it like fuses both brands together. Oh, nice. And then their clients can go to that, sign up, book an appointment, and then we could track every single stylist that sends them business, they can reward that stylist with points.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

That's amazing. I like that. Is this the new program that you were talking about that you guys are launching here soon?

SPEAKER_02 56:03

Yeah, we're we're close to launching the other one. It's called membership IQ, but this ties into that.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

Okay, okay. And we haven't even talked about memberships. I mean, memberships, I think, is something that every mud spa should have. Um, and and you're you're you're very passionate about meds about memberships as well.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Too I will fight tooth and nail for memberships.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

I know, I know. Well, talk, I know we're getting kind of in the we've almost been doing this for an hour. We might need to do another episode. Yeah, I'd love it. Yeah. You and I could talk forever, but memberships is, you know, I consider memberships part of marketing as well. I don't know if you do as well, but for sure. I I mean, a lot of I feel like a lot of owners know they need memberships, but they don't understand the strategy of a membership. They don't understand actually what it's doing, and sometimes they don't even develop a strategy that's effective. Um, what do you find to be a good membership program? Like what are the the nuts and bolts of that program that the owners should have in their program?

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Yeah. So so we we studied this for a long time because when we first started, we were doing a different style of membership and we we really dove into how the whole industry has evolved. And and memberships started out with like day spa style memberships, where it was an annual fee. Day Spa Country Club, that kind of started it. It was like an annual fee that you pay, and it was kind of expensive, right? Some places it could be 10 grand a year to be a member there, um, or some places even more. But that was the original style of memberships, and then it turned into kind of like a you pay for your monthly membership and you get a free hydrofacial, or you get a free through that, right? But people felt locked into that because what if I don't want a hydrofacial? What if you just got the new uh softwave? What if you just got the new whatever? And I want to put my money towards that versus doing my hydrofacial. Um, I know it's a different category, but like that's if you have a conversation with someone and their needs change, maybe they don't want a hydrofacial this month. Yeah, and so we created it the way that we look at like Prime and we look at Netflix and we look at all these subscription services. You're not paying per TV show, you're not paying per episode, right? You're you have access to anything you want to binge all month long, right? And I guarantee that anybody listening to this, even both of us, we have some type of subscription service that gives us unlimited access to whatever we want, right? Now, for for most memberships, the most successful one is a wallet or banking system because it gives you the most flexibility to create a treatment plan for that person that they're emotionally committed to. Right. And so that treatment plan, once that person feels committed to the path you're gonna take them on, it's way harder for that person to disconnect from the membership and cancel because the aging process isn't gonna stop. We only slow it down. Right. So if you're in a treatment plan and you're committed to your goals, and you obviously have this the discretionary income in order to sustain that lifestyle, then a membership is the only way to go if I trust that provider.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

So so the wallet system, just to kind of answer a little more succinctly, the wallet system is is hands down the best style of membership.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

And you're talking about to people that don't know what a wallet system is. Can you kind of go into detail about what that means?

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Yeah, sorry. So there's um we have a great relationship with aesthetic record. Um, and so in aesthetic record, and this is in other EMRs as well. So I don't want to be um I want to be agnostic in my approach to this question. EMRs that have a membership module inside of it that allows you to get monthly payments and stored inside of the client's account is what I find to be the best, most effective way to keep memberships going. You have options, obviously, like repeat MD, love them or hate them. You know, it was smart how they approach the market, but a lot of a lot of EMRs already have that baked inside of the EMR.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Um, so that's that's what a wallet is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Well, and I mean that's effective because it's just it's it's automatically bills every single month and it keeps them loyal. They're committed. Um, but like the structure of of the member of the memberships, you know, what I find to be, you know, to your point, how memberships have changed. I mean, when I opened my first med spa, I did what you just talked about. I had style. Yep, I had the $99 a month, you get this or this, and you get a discount on retail, and it was successful for a very, very long time. What we're finding now in in our med spas is that, you know, people don't want to just be like you said, just get a few services. They want to have options. And so doing almost like a prepayment, like one of the memberships we just put together for a client of ours is, you know, they pay 90 or they pay, they pay $100, $120 a month. And no, I'm sorry, that's not right. $299 a month, and they get and they credit that to anything that they want. So they can bank that dot, they can bank that $299 a month and they can use it towards anything. They can use it to Botox, they can use it for a treatment plan. And then they also get, you know, bigger discounts on other things like laser services, maybe like 15% on laser services, 10% on Botox. But it's it's it's a way that they're they can save it and they're get they get to save it, use it whenever they want. But then as a member, they get exclusive discounts. And then it in a way, if we do it that way, it's not, you know, you're not offering these huge like 30% discounts or 20% discounts that cheapen the brand. You're only offering it exclusively to the members, and you can only get those types of discounts if you're a member. So what we're finding is that the client can use their money whenever they're wanting. They're not just paying money to be in a membership, they're actually paying for services that they can use when they want, how they want, on the services they want. And on top of it, they're being rewarded with discounts for being a member. And we're finding that to be extremely effective, whether it's $99 a month or $120 a month, or this clinic that we did was $229 a month because they're, you know, in New York and and the market bears.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

Like they're the market bears, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Exactly. Exactly. Would you agree that you're finding that those are are tend to be a little bit more successful versus just like pay for a membership to get a discount?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

For for sure. I mean, here's the deal: every every market is different. If you have a high-end market, they don't care about the discounts. So I position memberships differently for high-end practices than than just the discount itself, right? It could be priority booking, it could be VIP exclusive events. There could there are additional perks to it than just a discount. Um, it could be locking in that provider that you that you're working with, and that's the only provider that you see. It just depends on the practice, but I think the way that you position a membership needs to ensure that there is long-term value and instills loyalty. Discounts are a big part of that, right? Like doesn't matter which the market is. I still would always include some type of reduction of normal rate for a member, but I wouldn't lead with discount if you're a high-end practice versus a more accessible practice.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

Okay. Okay, that's good. That's good information. Well, we're gonna start to wrap up here.

Rapid Fire Advice And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

I do have a couple rapid fire questions um that I know my listeners would want to know. Um, so if we were to say the top three things that med spa should do in marketing, what are they?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Before and afters, reviews, and know where you want to go. A hundred percent. Yeah, that'll that will dictate everything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

And this is a loaded question, but how much should med spa owners be investing in marketing?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

There's numbers that are all over the place, depending on the consultant that you talk to. My rule of thumb is 10 to 15% of revenue. Um, and if you're a startup, what is the revenue that you want to be at in the next three months? Have have a runway so that that way you can invest that 10% of your goal into that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

And then if owners were to increase versus maintain um to reduce speed, um, like let me say that again. When owners are wanting to increase or maintain or reduce, what would be the avenue for that? So, like when would they increase their ad spend? When would they decrease?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Yeah, great question. So just think of it like stocks, right? Like if if the stock is uh it's a at a low price, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, right? So if you're getting good results and you know your cost per acquisition and you're able to start predicting what it would cost to acquire a patient and how many patients you could. We we call it um reverse engineering ad spend. Um, and so I would look at what your cost per acquisition is. If it's a healthy cost per acquisition, add more money into it until you hit a diminishing return. And then either pause there and keep it there. Or if you start seeing that that cost per acquisition is going up, there's a couple of different options you have. Reduce the ad spend and then start diversifying the types of ads because you might have hit a saturation point. Um, or you might have to pivot all together um and go in a different direction with your ad spend. It doesn't mean you turn ad spend off, you just go in a different direction and you're conservative with your tests.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

Okay, I love it. I love it. This has been amazing. I mean, I love chatting with you all the time. I mean, we're friends and colleagues, and um, I always learn so much from you. And and, you know, I I love what tier three has done. It's been really fun watching you grow. I mean, I you started tier three a little bit before I started DAC, but it's been really fun to watch you guys grow as well. Um, to everyone listening, can you tell um our listeners how they can find you if they're interested in reaching out to tier three?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Yeah, please uh visit us online. We are the Cobbler's kids. Our website is not what your website's gonna look like. It's tier3media.com. Um and uh please feel free to email me at rick.diaz at tier threemedia.com. I'm a very accessible business owner. We have about 56 employees right now. Um, and we're at 180 clients now, by the way. So but I'm accessible. So please feel free to reach out to me directly. And if you have questions, I'm happy to hop on a call and answer them for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

I love it. I love it. Well, Rick, I'm so um happy that you were able to make time for us today. Um for all of our listeners. Um, you know, thank you for joining MedSpa Unlock today. You know, you know my purpose is always to empower forward-thinking owners and provide um as much as I possibly can to help elevate beyond the day-to-day to help you build, scale, and endure um the long stand of practices. Um, true success in aesthetics is never accidental. It's intentional and it comes with consistency over time, with vision, precision, and an effective strategy. I am Ashley James. I invite you to continue unlocking what's possible for your business, your brand, and your legacy. And until next time, lead with intention, operate with excellence, and never stop evolving. Thank you for joining, guys, and we'll talk to you next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Thank you for listening to MedSpa Unlocked. True success in aesthetics is never accidental. It's the result of vision, precision, and disciplined execution. If today's episode resonated with you, we invite you to subscribe so you won't miss future conversations and to continue unlocking what's possible for your business, your brand, and your legacy. For more resources, education, and strategic support, visit us at dermasthetic consulting.com or connect with us on social media at Dermasthetic Consulting. And if you're ready to take the next step in building your aesthetics practice the right way, we'd love to help. Until next time, lead with intention, operate with excellence, and never stop evolving.