The Esthetician Podcast

Beyond the Basics: Why Education Is Your Secret Weapon for Client Retention

• Kari Jo

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Knowledge—not marketing—is what separates struggling estheticians from those who are fully booked. Most beauty school graduates emerge with just enough training to pass state boards, but lack the deeper understanding needed to create true client loyalty and consistent rebookings.

When you can explain to a client exactly why they're seeing under-eye bags—how facial fat pads shift downward with age, deepening nasolabial folds and creating jowls—you transform from service provider to trusted expert. This educational moment builds the foundation for long-term client relationships. As Keri Jo Patterson reveals from personal experience, watching a medical professional break down skin concerns for clients completely changed her approach to consultations.

The hard truth? Your rebooking rate tells you everything about whether your consultations are creating those essential "wow moments." One esthetician Keri recently coached immediately saw clients rebooking and purchasing products after implementing a more educational consultation approach. The problem was never her technical skills, but her ability to demonstrate expertise during the consultation.

Rather than investing more in marketing to attract new clients who won't return, focus on deepening your knowledge in one specialized area. Whether it's acne, pigmentation, or aging concerns, becoming the undisputed expert in your niche will naturally differentiate you from competitors. Kari's Fearless Prosperity Mastermind offers exactly this type of education—the knowledge that helped her build and sell her own successful esthetics business within eight years.

Ready to transform your practice? Try the Fearless Prosperity Mastermind free for your first month with code "TRY" at checkout. Your journey from struggling to successful starts with education that goes beyond the basics.

To learn more about coaching please visit: https://www.karijopatterson.com

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Links You May Want to Check out:

Join the Client Building for Estheticians group to go deep in learning all the latest tips and strategies https://www.facebook.com/groups/clientbuildingforestheticians
Check out Kari Jo’s courses here https://esthelaunchacademy.com

Announcer:

Welcome to the Esthetician Podcast, where passion meets prosperity. Your host, Kari Jo Patterson, transformed from a solo esthetician into a successful business owner, achieving ultimate time and financial freedom by the age of 38. Kari is the author of Fearless Prosperity, empowering estheticians to build their empire and achieve financial freedom, and the creator of the Empire Growth System for Estheticians. Get ready for some empire-building wisdom Now. Welcome your host, Kari Jo Patterson.

Kari Jo Patterson:

If you're an esthetician and you're struggling to build your clientele. Well, I'm about to tell you something that might just sting a little, but you need to hear it. You don't know what you need to know and, no, it is not your fault. You were taught just enough in school to pass your state boards. You learn the basics, but when it actually comes down to fixing skin, getting clients and building a real business, that knowledge, that comes later, and if you don't go out and get it, you are going to struggle. So today I am pulling back the curtain on why your education was not enough. I'm going to tell you the things that you need to learn to actually get you fully booked, and the one investment that can get you there sooner, faster. You can buy speed. Today, by the end of this episode, I want you to know exactly why your skills, not your marketing, is what's keeping you stuck, and I'm going to tell you how you can fix it. Okay, I will never forget. When I first got out of school, I started working for a medical spa and I thought I was the best of the best right, because when I went to school, I was the one that gave the best facial and I was the one that I don't know. I just had a lot of ego in school. I was the best of the best, you know, young and innocent, like you don't know what you don't know. Anyways, I had my license and I was like, oh yeah, I'm like ready, like everyone's going to be so impressed with me. Well, at this medical spa that I ended up working with, the doctor had on every Thursdays I don't know, it might've been Tuesdays he used to give like these seminars that were open to the public once a month and you know all the we'd market it and all these clients would come in and the doctor would go through all the different treatments and he would break down everything. Treatments, and he would break down everything gels under eye bags, facial volume loss, hair removal, all of it. And the thing is is I thought I knew what I was doing, but I actually had no clue. What was actually happening under the skin is like I just got schooled by a doctor Makes sense, right? He has more education than we do with our. Like in Utah it was 1,200 hours, I think. Like in the state of, in the state of Iowa it's only like 700. So, yeah, like there are people that are smarter and know a lot more than you and will school you real quick. Anyways, I was sitting here one day and I was thinking how many estheticians there are that are listening to their clients complain about their under eye bags, but they actually have no clue what is actually going on with the under eye bags. Right, here's the thing in school, nobody taught you and this is the exact kind of knowledge that is going to separate a struggling esthetician from a fully booked one. I want to like break this down, because I really want to help you understand what I'm talking about. So I want to teach you something right now, something that you probably weren't taught in school.

Kari Jo Patterson:

I'm going to talk to you about what actually causes under eye bags. To talk to you about what actually causes under eye bags this is from my who is my employer, but my mentor, dr Aaron Barson. He basically broke this down in his seminars. Think of it like this your face is made up of three major fat pads, so you have one that's underneath your eye, you have one in your cheek and you have one down by your jawline. As we age, these fat pads they start to shift downwards and it's really because of gravity and just we start to lose collagen and elastin. That's like holding them all in place, right, it's tired, your skin's tired of holding everything. So basically what happens is that fat pad under the eye. It moves down and that's what creates your under eye bag. The cheek pad moves down, which is an which it basically is going to deepen your nasolabial fold, and then the jaw fat pad moves down and it's what creates that little gel. It's these fat pads that are moving in your skin.

Kari Jo Patterson:

Now I just want to know pause, did your teachers teach you that? Did they? So? When a client comes in to me and they're in a treatment room and they're like I hate my under eye bags, I don't say, oh yeah, you just need an eye cream. Or I don't even know what to say Like, oh yeah, that's really hard. We'll like put some eye cream on it, we'll do some lymphatic drainage, like whatever. No, I teach them what I just taught you. And see, that is the difference between an average esthetician and a booked out esthetician.

Kari Jo Patterson:

If you actually explain what is happening under their skin, like I just did for you right now, do you know what happens with that client? It's trust. They start to trust me, they start to listen to me and they start to rebook. Hey, even if I can't change their fat pads, but they understand and now they get it. I just wowed them.

Kari Jo Patterson:

This is why education is absolutely everything. Clients are coming to you not just because they want a service, but because they want an expert. They want someone who understands their skin. They want someone who can explain things to them in a way that actually makes sense and that they can actually educate them. So, instead of just selling random products or treatments, you can educate them on what's actually going on, and this is ultimately why so many estheticians are struggling to build their clientele. They spend hours posting and creating on social media, creating content, working on SEOs Maybe they were.

Kari Jo Patterson:

I don't feel like very many estheticians have a website. That's your first flaw. If you don't have one pause, go invest in yourself, get you a website, okay, but basically they don't have the skills right now to wow those clients when you just get out of school. And so those clients what happens when they come in? They come in, they get the treatment and they don't rebook. It's not that your service sucked. I mean it could be. If I mean, maybe you aren't as good as you think you are, but it's because you didn't show them that you're an expert. You didn't show them that knowledge. And unless you have that knowledge, well, that's why I say track your rebooks. Your rebooks are going to show you something. It's going to show you if your consultations suck, if you have really low or low rebooks, it's literally telling you you're not creating that wow moment when they feel like they have to come back. Listen, I know all this because I see it happen all the time. You are thinking that your issue is marketing, but really it's just your knowledge isn't deep enough to get your clients to keep on coming back.

Kari Jo Patterson:

I recently I had a phone call with an esthetician and she's definitely in the survival phase of building your business that I talk about in my book Fearless Prosperity, and she is struggling and what we nailed down, okay, well, what's your niche? You know, and she's acne and I just like I was like I'm just going to blow her away and I was like, okay, I'm going to give you, I'm going to tell you my acne consultation. When someone comes in for an acne and I want you to tell me if your acne consultation is anything like this I tell her my acne consultation and she literally was like wow, wow, yeah, no, my acne consultations are nothing like that. No wonder why nobody is rebooking. Then I literally got a message, a DM, from her, because she went and used exactly what I used and all of a sudden her client started rebooking and buying product.

Kari Jo Patterson:

It comes down to do you have the knowledge to actually sell? That is like the key point. How do you fix this? How do you go from feeling like you don't know enough to being the go-to expert in your area? You've got to invest in your education. Quit investing in the marketing. Otherwise what's going to happen, guys, is you're going to get a client come in they're not going to rebook and you're going to have to go work twice as hard to literally go market to bring in a new client. But like if you just worked on getting the knowledge and invest in your education of the knowledge and just pick one thing and become the expert in the one thing, that is when you will stand out. That's when you will break through the noise. That is when you will stand out. It's as much as a facial.

Kari Jo Patterson:

I designed this program for estheticians who are in the process of building their clientele inside. I am basically going to give you all the knowledge that you actually need to create those moments for all of your different services. I'm going to teach you acne, why you are actually breaking out, why the doctors put you on the things that you need to be put on. I'm going to teach you about pigmentation. I'm going to break it down so that it makes sense, because when you read the books, I had to read the book and read it and read it and read it about like a thousand times because Google each and every single word because I didn't understand what it was saying, but until I could break it down so that my brain can understand it. You don't have to do that. I did it for you because that's how I was able to build my business.

Kari Jo Patterson:

You guys, I built my company and I sold it within eight years from the time I started to the time I sold. The reason why is because I had all that knowledge. I was able to give all that knowledge to all of the estheticians that were working for me so that they could maximize their schedules. They could make a crap ton of money. It all comes down to how well you actually understand the skin.

Kari Jo Patterson:

So, listen, if you are serious about getting booked, then this education that I have in my mastermind is what is going to get you there. If you're tired of struggling, if you're wondering why clients aren't rebooking, and you're ready to actually become the esthetician who stands out, you got to join my mastermind. It's only 97 a month and it will change the way you run your business. You are going to gain the confidence and the skills and the knowledge to make you unstoppable. You are going to gain the confidence and the skills and the knowledge to make you unstoppable. You can join it right now, for free, for the first month, by entering in the code TRY at checkout. I can't wait to see you there, because I know I will blow your mind away. So I will see you next month in my mastermind and I can't wait for you guys to join me on Wednesday with another guest. Until next time, keep building your empire and I will see you soon. Bye-bye.

Announcer:

Thank you for listening to the Esthetician Podcast with Kari Jo Patterson. Each week, Kari brings you real world lessons on how to grow your empire. To learn more about Kari Fearless Prosperity Mastermind Group, one-on-one VIP coaching opportunities and more visit Kari. That's Kari. See you next week for more insights and strategies on the Esthetician Podcast.

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