101: Why Estheticians Feel Broke (Even When Revenue Is High) — And the System That Fixes It

We dig into why money feels scary, why software isn’t the same as mastery, and how three simple metrics can calm your nervous system and guide better decisions. Confidence rises before revenue when you track weekly and decide by quarterly averages.

• client testimonial on business growth 
• new year focus on money habits and tracking 
• psychology of avoidance and nervous system stress 
• difference between software data and knowing 
• three core metrics to write down weekly 
• benefits of quarterly averages over single weeks 
• systems and self-leadership for solos and teams 
• simple accountability to build the tracking habit 
• upcoming coaching call and bookkeeper deep dive

Guys, I have a simple tracking sheet that is a really basic one. Just to get you started, you can click it in the show notes below. I will leave a link for it in the show notes below. Use it, mess it up, come back to it. It doesn't even matter. The goal is just to get started. 
Remember, software is not leadership, and hope cannot be your next business plan either. 
Please subscribe and leave me a review. This show exists to help estheticians stop guessing. And those reviews help other estheticians find it.

GRAB the free weekly tracker download here -https://stan.store/EstheLaunchAcademy

To learn more about Kari Jo visit: https://www.karijopatterson.com

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Book a Free Discovery Call - https://stan.store/EstheLaunchAcademy/p/free-20-minute-consultation-

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Links You May Want to Check out:

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Transcript

Client Win: Business Transformed

Client 0:00

Hi, my name is Rachel. I am the founderslash CEO of Ultra Rate, a luxury spa. I have worked with Kari Jo in the beginning of this year, and she has transformed my business. Everything has increased. All of her tips, all of her tricks, all of her advice has been the most helpful, and my business has transformed exponentially. I want to thank her for her honesty. I want to thank her for her help. And if you're struggling with your aesthetics business or if you need help hiring or any of the sort, Kari Jo is the person that you should definitely work with.

The Psychology Of Avoiding Numbers

Software Metrics Are Not Mastery

Why Your Nervous System Panics

Avoidance, Fear, And Delayed Clarity

Hiring Forced Real Tracking

Systems, Self-Leadership, And Accountability

Numbers As A Language You Learn

What To Track Weekly And Quarterly

Averages Calm Emotion In Business

Decide To Lead: Next Steps And CTA

Kari Jo 0:42

Welcome back. Hello. It is January 2026. I am super excited for this new year. And when I was trying to decide, like we're starting off this new year, what is the most important thing that I should talk about? What should we dive into first at the first of the year? And immediately I knew we needed to talk about money and tracking because let me tell you, that is the number one system I give to every single coaching call on day one, they walk away with a number tracking system. And they love it. And literally the they're like, oh, this is what I needed. That's literally, I could almost I should like pull up a bunch of my clients, and that moment I give it to them, that's literally what they're gonna say every single time. And so, since that's so important on the first call, I feel like that's what's so important on this first new year, like the beginning this year, we need to dive into it. So I want to ask you something right now, before we go into number tracking, there is psychology behind money and tracking and looking at your numbers. And this is ultimately what I feel like we have to dive into. I want you to think about this right now. Okay. If I was to ask you, how many people do you know right now who are constantly stressed out about money? Like, really think about it. Your friends, your family, coworkers, other aestheticians. How many people do you know right now that say things like, it just feels really tight right now? Or I have no idea where all my money goes, or dude, I am making money, but like I feel like I never have enough. Like it's never enough, but I make good money, or maybe I just make money and it's never enough, right? Here is like the interesting part that I find so interesting about that. It's almost never because they don't make money. Like, think about that. All these people's problems are all around money, but they're actually making it. So, what is the problem? And let me tell you what I think the problem is. It is because we are not looking at our money, we are not looking at our numbers. We don't want to know the numbers most of the time. And I feel like that isn't just an industry problem. I feel like it's like a people problem. I know there's so many other people in this world that my husband, he is, I'm gonna call him out right now. He is the type of person where he's like, I don't want to sit here and budget and follow something like that. Like, I just want to look at my account and know what I got. You know what I mean? There are so many people, and it's not so like this is not just an us industry thing. I think it is a people thing, but it is what is happening so often in our industries with aestheticians, especially when I'm getting on the phone with them. I feel like what most aestheticians, when I get on the phone with them, they actually think that they know their numbers. Most of them. I would say it's half and half. Some people are really open and they're like, yeah, dude, I have no one, no idea. And then there's the other half that is like almost like a shame to admit it. So they're like, Yeah, I'm I'm about like an 80%, I think, rebooking. The other thing is they feel like they know their numbers. Some feel like they do, some feel like they don't. But the other thing that we have to address in this podcast is the software system knowing your numbers. Because what I get so much is that people are like, yeah, yeah, I know my number. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know my percentage rate or rebooking rate. And I'm like, great, what is it? And they're like, I'll just have to pull up in my software somewhere, it's somewhere in my software. Pause. That is not the same thing as knowing your numbers. Your software system is not you knowing your numbers, that's your software system that knows your numbers, not you. So let's get to the truth. I'm gonna ask you right now, and you tell me what is your rebooking rate for last quarter? How much did you bring in per week on average last quarter? And last but not least, how much retail do you sell per client or even just weekly on average? Now, can you answer those questions for me? If you have to log in to your software system to go figure out those questions, then you actually don't know your numbers, but your software system does. Congratulations, thank goodness, Picaro, and and glasses there. This matters not because you're actually doing something wrong, but it's because your nervous system doesn't trust what it can't see. And because of that, that is why you are constantly stressed out about money. That's why you're constantly like, I don't know, like I don't know where it goes. I don't know, I have enough. Not, and that's not just you, that's everybody. If you're not constantly looking at your numbers and budgeting and doing all those things, yeah, your nervous system, it is on high alert because it can't trust anything because it can't see it. Let's talk about why people are avoiding looking at money. And it's actually not because you're lazy and you don't want to do the work, it's actually psychology. So people studies show that people avoid tracking numbers when they already feel behind. So when you already feel like you're not making enough, right? You don't want to look at. When you feel like things are tight, like when you're like, oh yeah, it's getting tight. Like I've been using my credit card a lot. I don't even want to look and see what the balance is because I know it might be a little bit more than I want to know. Or they feel like their numbers are basically going to confirm their greatest fear. Congratulations, you way overdid it this month. What happens, and this is like total human psychology, is that the brain does something that is so natural that happens to everyone. It says, Hey, listen, if I don't look, then I don't have to fill it. The brain is always trying to protect us. That's why, like, I wrote this book called Fearless Prosperity on how to conquer your fears. You have to conquer your fears in order to get the prosperity. And it's because your brain's always trying to keep you safe, so it gives you lots of fears. Well, the brain is always trying to keep you safe here, and it's like, dude, yeah, let's not look. Then I don't have to feel it. And then it creates your nervous systems on high wire. This is why you're stressed out. So that is why people that are living paycheck to paycheck, they don't ever track their spending. It's not because they are actually irresponsible, but it's because awareness feels painful because they don't really feel empowered quite yet, if that makes sense. So that is the same kind that psychology applies the same thing to business. Avoiding your numbers isn't actually protection, it is just delayed clarity. Because eventually you're gonna have to go look at those numbers and it's not gonna be great. My story, a little my story and why I didn't track my numbers. I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't track my numbers when I was a solo esthetician either. And mostly I think the reason why I didn't track it is because I just felt like I never made enough. Like I was making money, but I was never making enough because like I didn't have everything that I wanted. Like I remember my studio that I was in when I was first started off before I hired anyone, like, and I hired my first employee in this little dinky guys. It was it was nothing fabulous, it was a crap little little studio. And I didn't have like and I saw all these other estheticians with big beautiful studios. In fact, like at the time, I think I at the time I used to follow Kim Janes, the founder of Borboletta, and she was all over on social media, and then she was like a big role model to me, which now it's like so great. Like I have her number in my phone still today. Like, I know she's just like a normal human being, but like because she was like my inspiration, it's just like so fun to like have her number and be like, Oh, hi, Kim, which is really okay, that's beside the point, but I'm losing track. But, anyways, well, I I was following her and she like was big, and there's all these other aestheticians, and she was friends with them at the time, and I was following all them. They got these big beautiful studios, and mine's like this little crap little thing, you know what I mean? So, like I was just I just never felt like I had enough money. Ultimately, I was working and I was busy, but like I really just didn't feel stable because I didn't have what I wanted the life that I wanted, you know, and I and I didn't know what I was doing either. So, like to me, tracking just felt completely pointless. And then the craziest thing happened is I hired an employee because at the time I had a really big, I had a like my clientele was pretty 50. I had like a lot of lash clients and I had a lot of facial clients. And the lashes were really starting to take off for me because I was like one of the first in the area to be doing them. So I was going, I planned this family vacation because me and my husband we'd always wanted, well, we'd always wanted to go backpacking to Thailand through Thailand before we had kids. And then I found out that I was pregnant and we didn't get to go backpacking through Thailand. So, like at our 10-year anniversary, we were gonna go backpacking through Thailand and we were gonna be gone for like over two weeks. I had this business and I had a last client, so I was like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna have nobody. And so I was like, I didn't hire because I was ready to in any way, shape, or form. I hired at a necessity because I was gonna be gone and I didn't want to lose my clients. Well, it wasn't even about losing my clients. I think my biggest fear was not, I'm gonna lose my clients if I'm gone. My biggest fear was what are they going to do? So I've got to solve that problem. So it wasn't even, I was just forced into doing my first hire because I needed to solve that problem, which that's what business is about, solving problems. I hired somebody on, and suddenly, surprise, surprise, guessing isn't an option anymore when you have to pay someone else's paycheck. Like I couldn't just say, Oh, here, yeah, you can have a raise. Let me give you this. Oh, here, yeah, let's buy this for you, let's do this for you. Because I actually didn't know. I had no rules, I had no structure, I had no criteria or anything like that. And that's when I actually started tracking numbers, and that's when I learned something uncomfortable but super important. And it's a psychology piece that I feel like most of us miss, which is guys, we will show up for other people before we show up for ourselves. I see this. My best, okay, my people that track their numbers and actually learn to read their numbers. You want to know who they are? They're the ones that have people working for them. Because they have to show up for them, right? My aestheticians that are solo and whatever, it's a harder game for them to track their numbers. Sometimes they do it, sometimes I have to stay on them. Do you know what I mean? And the truth is that it is true, we will show up for other people, but we are okay disappointing ourselves. Accountability, it always feels safer if it's for someone else. And responsibility always feels so much clearer when it's because someone is depending on me. It's like when you have kids, you might not have many, but you're gonna figure it out real quick because you got kids, you gotta afford them. Same thing with business. Self-trust is harder than an obligation, period. So many aestheticians they never actually go into creating systems for themselves because the truth is, is nobody's requiring it of you. But no business is built without systems. Every large company that has ever succeeded has systems. That's like truly what I'm about, guys. Is there you got to systematize your business, every single thing in your system? You have to systematize that. That is why so many solo aestheticians struggle, is because they don't show up for themselves and create the systems. But if they hired someone on, yeah, you bet your butt, they would make a system, they would make a protocol real quick that this other person had to follow, but they're not gonna make one for themselves. And that's really sad because the truth is, is you deserve the same kind of structure that you would create for a team. Tracking numbers is not about discipline, it's about self-leadership. Numbers, like when we get into numbers, guys, numbers, I feel like is ultimately a language. And most aestheticians are trying to read them without understanding the basic numbers. So you can't open a book, around a book halfway through on page 67 and know what the story is about. You just know the words on page 67. That's the same thing you're doing with your software system. When you when you aren't literally every day reading them, you're not reading a page a day just like a page a day in a book or whatever, then you're not, you don't actually follow along. You're just opening page 67 and you're expecting to understand. Sure, I can read every page on page 67. Do I know what it says? Nope. And that's why people are like, I don't get what it means. I don't get why I don't know how to read my numbers. Well, it's because you're not reading it, you're just pulling up your software system and it's telling you your numbers. You can't recognize one Spanish word and then claim you're fluent. That's what I feel like it kind of is. So tracking every week, tracking your numbers yourself, writing them down every week, that's how you learn the language. And once you do, the numbers stop feeling scary, they actually start becoming informative and they start telling you where your business is actually leaking. It also will tell you where you are the strongest, and it will also tell you where you need to focus. So I remember because I did a lot of MMA, I love MMA, and uh like I used to train for it, and I hated kickboxing, and I think I've told this story so many times. I hated kickboxing. Like, I my kicks, they still to this day they suck. Can I kick? Yeah, can I kick hard? Nope, but I can kick high. You bet your butt I can kick high and I can kick, but it's just not powerful, it ain't gonna take anyone down. But I loved being on the ground, like I love jiu jitsu and stuff like that, and the I'm really good at clenching. Well, I loved being on the ground because I'm good at it, I know it, and I didn't like showing up for kickboxing because I wasn't good at that. So naturally, we just choose to do the things that we are good at, and we just say we hate something because we're not good at it, but you don't get good at it by not doing it and showing up all the time for it. So when you guys, when I tell you guys to like track your numbers, like those three numbers that I gave you earlier, your rebooking percentage, your weekly average service ticket, your weekly average product sales. I want to know what the quarters are, and the reason why you do it in quarters is because things fluctuate, and I'll get into that. But every single week you should be writing these down, whether you're doing it in an Excel document, which is what I would recommend, or doing it on a piece of paper yourself, you're gonna start noticing, and trust me, you will eventually start reading it, but you're not gonna read it, be able to read it the first month or two, maybe month three, you'll start being able, oh, okay, I see what's going on here. Oh my business, I see that. So here's the truth about tracking numbers is most aestheticians they don't say I don't want to track numbers. I've never heard an aesthetician ever say that, ever. I feel like what they do do is they just don't do it, they just don't track them because it feels unfamiliar, that feels uncomfortable. They like use I don't know how to do it. And ultimately, like I said, you're not going to understand the numbers for, I don't know, maybe three months. And so you're constantly doing work without the payoff of understanding why you're doing it. Which is why sometimes it is good to have a coach that you have to literally show up and check in with them because they're making you track their numbers because they're like, where's your numbers? You didn't do your numbers. And it makes you it forces you to do that. Kind of like if you're going to the gym, sometimes you need a personal trainer because you're not going to lift the weights. Sometimes you need a coach because you're not going to track the numbers. But if you can do it without, then I mean there's no reason why you can't do it without a coach. There's no reason you can't go to the gym and lift weights without a personal trainer. Here's what I see every time is normally what happens is the moment someone starts tracking consistently, even if it's imperfect, the confidence that they get goes up so quick before their income does. And it happens every single time. Every single time. Like I said, this is the first system I literally give to anyone who jumps on a coaching call with me. That's why we're doing it the first of this year. But because it is the one thing that like they do that, and the next day they are happy, they are confident. That was like the golden moment is learning how to track those numbers. Their confidence goes up way before their money does. And when your confidence goes up, everything becomes easier. You can sell better, you understand your business better. It's it's because clarity ultimately is calming. And the truth is, is I don't care who you are. The person that wants to come to me and say, I hate numbers. No, I don't believe that. You actually don't hate numbers. What you hate is feeling stupid around them. But once that goes away, you become massively empowered. Here's what I want to add without overwhelming you. Tracking weekly is going to give you awareness to the problem. But averages are going to give you the truth. And I want to say this because, like, when we talk about tracking numbers, and I'm like, okay, you need to track the numbers. I feel like people want to, they think that I'm just talking about the weak numbers. And for so long, that's what I thought when I started learning how to read my numbers. But in truth, like when I what I learned in business, and this is like what I want you to really understand, is that mostly in business, I look at averages. I that's what I focus on is my averages. Average four quarters. That's what I look at. And the reason why I focus on average, not just like every week. My when I'm like, what's your rebooking rate? And you're like 80% this week. Well, I don't want to know what your average is this week because maybe last week you had a crappy week. You know what I mean? So the truth is, is the reason why it's so important to know averages in quarterly versus like yearly, because quarters kind of tell a better story. It's more clarity. The when you start going smaller, like year is large, and you go into quarter and it's smaller, smaller, smaller. Anyways, the reason why is because you're gonna have your good weeks and you're gonna have your bad weeks, and you're gonna have your weeks that are so slow. But like your averages will smooth the emotion out. Sometimes you might have a really bad week and your rebooking rate might be 50%, and your emotions are like, I'm awful, I suck, my business is going down, nothing is working. But if you actually averaged it out with the whole entire month, maybe your rebooking rate is like 70%. When the standard in the industry is 65%, so you're above the standard in the industry. So it will help take the emotion out of it. And also when you're looking at your averages in monthly or quarterly, you're well, yes, you stop panicking over one bad week, but you also stop overestimating one good one. So this is how business owners think. This is how I want you to think. I don't want you to be reactive, I don't want you to be emotional. I want you to be grounded, and you don't need to do it perfectly, but you do need to just start tracking your numbers. So let me leave you with this: you don't drift into clarity, you don't drift into confidence, and you aren't going to drift into profit, but you decide, you decide to look at your numbers, you decide to learn your numbers, and you decide that you're going to lead yourself just like you would someone else. Guys, I have a simple tracking sheet that I this is a really basic one. Just to get you started, you can click it in the show notes below. I will leave a link for it in the show notes below. Use it, mess it up, come back to it. It doesn't even matter. The goal is just to get started. Guys, on this next episode, well, actually, this next episode, we're gonna have a coaching call where I'm gonna coach another esthetician through one of their biggest pain points. So tune in for that. And the week after that, I'm super excited because I'm going to be bringing in a bookkeeper, and we are going to dive into more about what we talked about today. What matters, what you need to be doing, what you don't need to be doing, when do you need a book? Do you really need a bookkeeper? We're gonna dive into all of that. So that is the plan for the next two shows. Remember, software is not leadership, and hope cannot be your next business plan either. So if this episode helped you think more clearly about your business and tracking numbers, then the biggest way you can support me with this podcast is please subscribe and leave me a review. This show exists to help estheticians stop guessing. And those reviews help other estheticians find it. And I would appreciate it. I love it. Please, please, please go like and leave me a review. And I will see you guys next week on another episode of the Esthetician Podcast. Bye guys.

Announcer 27:26

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's Fearless Prosperity Mastermind Group, one on one VIP coaching opportunities, and more. Visit www.karijopatterson.com. That's www.karipatterson.com. See you next week for more insights and strategies on the Esthetician Podcast.