How to Track Your Esthetician Business Numbers So You Know What to Fix

In this esthetician podcast episode, Kari Jo helps a spa owner figure out why her esthetician business is growing but still feels unclear. They talk about tracking weekly numbers, improving rebooking, getting clients through referrals, and using business data to make money instead of guessing what to fix.

If you’ve ever said, “I don’t know my business numbers,” this episode is for you.

Today’s episode is sponsored by GlossGenius

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If you’re booked but not making money, you need to start with your numbers.
Download my FREE  “Diagnose Your Business” tracker in the show notes and I’ll show you exactly what to track.

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Transcript

Client Win And Quick Welcome

announcer 0:02

Hi, my name is Rachel. I am the founderslash CEO of Ultra Ray, 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.

Cyntia 1:04

Thank you so much for having me. I've been listening to your podcast for the last few months since last year. I found you through like the grace of God, and it's helped me, it's been helping me so much. And I recommended it to some of my friends. I'm like, you guys need to follow her advice.

Kari Jo 1:24

Well, thank you.

Cyntia 1:27

You're

The Real Struggle Behind Growth

Cyntia 1:28

welcome.

Kari Jo 1:28

Tell me a little bit about your business. So what is like the number one thing that is that you're struggling with?

Cyntia 1:38

Okay, so um, I don't know how to do KPI reports. My numbers, I don't know my numbers, I don't have a system. I think I'm good at the consultation, uh, recommended products, but I think there's gotta be something that I'm overlooking that is not helping me move forward.

Kari Jo 2:04

Why do you feel like there's like something missing? Like what's like giving you the red flag that you're like, this isn't working?

Cyntia 2:13

I've been growing a lot and like I no one ever showed me how to do anything. So I just you know just went in with like a blindfold into this. I think I've been doing good, but I could do better. Like I just know I have it in me. Like, yes, I need to help myself more.

Kari Jo 2:38

Okay, yeah. And if you would say like there's like one thing that you feel like would make make or break your business make the biggest difference, what would you say it is?

Cyntia 2:50

I would say uh having a system that works and implementing it.

Kari Jo 2:55

Okay. Is there any certain system in particular that you feel like would help the best? Because there's lots of different systems because you, I mean, we could go into, for example, we could go into rebooking, fix the rebook numbers. So we could go into what numbers to track. We can go into retail all of those different ones. So is there like one system that you're like, I feel like this part of my business isn't working that great?

Cyntia 3:27

Yeah, it's definitely rebooking. Rebooking.

Kari Jo 3:30

Okay, so you don't track your rebooks yet, right?

Cyntia 3:35

I don't.

Kari Jo 3:36

I don't know how okay, that's okay.

Weekly KPI Tracking That Diagnoses Issues

Kari Jo 3:39

Yeah, no, I get it because nobody taught us how to do this, we just learn as we go. Okay, first and foremost, what I'm gonna tell you to do is uh after we get off the phone call, if you go to my podcast and in the show notes, there is a link that says download my tracker and it's free. And so I want you to go down and download it, and you don't have that yet, right?

Cyntia 4:07

I don't have it.

Kari Jo 4:09

Okay, you're gonna want it. This is gonna be the biggest game changer for you because this is where you'll actually learn, because in business, like you're saying, like, I don't I need systems, I'm not totally sure what system I need yet, but this is where you're gonna be able to diagnose your business and figure out what you need to work on first. So you're gonna download this tracker. And in this tracker, what it's gonna have you do is every week, and what I always did is I always did it on a Wednesday, but you you need to pick whatever day you want that you're like, I'm gonna work on numbers on this day. So on Wednesday, I would come in to work and I would pull all my numbers from the week before, and you're just gonna plug them into this tracker. So it's gonna be like, how much did you do in services? And then like the next category is like, how much product did you sell that week? And it's just broken it into week by week. And then it's gonna be like, how many clients did you see? How many clients did you rebook? And it's gonna go through all of these different categories, and then at the very bottom, and you'll see on the tracker, it's going to tell you your weekly average. And the reason why it's gonna tell you the weekly average is because sometimes in business we have like our really good weeks, and then sometimes we have our really bad weeks, and so we want to know the average because we want to know average out, how am I doing? So once you see those numbers, you'll be like, oh, I don't like that number. That's not very good. So, for example, if you're like looking at your rebooks and your rebooks is like, say, 60%, you'll be like, oh, that's not very good, right? I want I want to hire rebooks, so I'm gonna work on my rebooks. Or you might come in and you might see that your average service tickets is like below $100. And you're like, okay, that's not very good. But the first step is obviously tracking it to know what section of your business, what system you need first. But we're gonna pretend today that it is your rebooks just because you said rebooks. Okay, okay. So download the tracker, but we're gonna go into your rebooks. If you were to guess, like just take a guess, what and do you use like a booking software like Figaro or Gloss Genius or anything like that?

Cyntia 6:45

I use Pocket Suite, but I would like to maybe explore into something different. I don't know if you recommend another.

Booking Software That Simplifies Everything

Kari Jo 6:55

Hey, really quick, just like in this episode right now, everyone asks me what software I recommend. And the one thing that is interesting about hosting this podcast is I start to notice patterns. And one of those questions over and over again is what software do you recommend, Carrie? And let me tell you, there are so many options out there that it can feel super overwhelming. But one thing that I noticed when I started coaching estheticians is that a lot of my clients end up choosing Gloss Genius because they're looking for just one system to handle absolutely everything instead of piecing together multiple programs. It takes care of scheduling, payments, marketing, follow-ups, all of it. Basically, the things that end up stilling your evenings at home after you've worked all day long. More than 120,000 business owners and wellness businesses trust GlossGenius to run their businesses. And if you've been thinking about simplifying your systems, then they're offering my listeners 50% off for the first two months of a premium plan. Just head over to glossgenius.com and use the code Kari Jo. Now, let's jump back in today's episode. When you have that booking software, you can just pull numbers from your business instead of you having to go in and calculate everything yourself. But if you had a guess, like just take a wild guess, what would you say your rebook percentage is?

Cyntia 8:42

I would say maybe 30 to 40 questions.

Kari Jo 8:45

And how do you feel like your consultations?

Cyntia 8:49

I think my consultations are good. Sometimes I feel a little rushed because sometimes I have a lot of clients, thankfully. So I'm rushing, but sometimes I try to do another consultation while I have the client on the chair just to go over some other things.

Niche Marketing And Referral Expansion

Kari Jo 9:09

Okay. What would you say that you're known for? Like in your business? Like, what do people come to you for? What are you specialized in?

Cyntia 9:17

I specialize in Korean facials, but I mostly see Latino woman. That's my need. Um but I do want to break down from that and branch out to not just doing Hispanic woman. I want to do everyone because I have experience doing other types of skin, so I don't want to just do it.

Kari Jo 9:47

Yeah, and I actually did. I went and I researched you on Instagram beforehand, and I saw that. I personally I love your marketing to the Latin, like the Latinos. I love that, and I wouldn't mess with that marketing because it is working, it's getting clients in the door. I don't think you have to stay with that clientele only. But once that clientele comes and like they love you, then they're gonna talk, start getting to into like recommendations, they'll start recommending you, and you can do anyone. But if you start changing your message too much, then you're kind of mudding up what your message is, you know. Like the clearer your message, I feel like your message right now is really clear. Like you do help Latinos, and it's so clear. And I'm like, yes, there's somebody. This niche down, like this girl, like is has a good funnel. So I would stay with that. But like how I would venture out into bringing in new clients is I would start building up a really good referral system where after a client has been with you for a certain amount of time, and I would say usually it's about like four treatments, then I would start personally asking them for like referrals. And then anyone who came in with a referral, I would celebrate the client that referred them massively, especially if it's a good one. Like I used to send flowers to the person who referred somebody to me. I used to send that person flowers and then they would always like take a picture of the flowers and post about it, which was that extra promotion.

Cyntia 11:35

Oh, yes.

Kari Jo 11:37

Yeah, so I would try to get referrals and I would expand my clientele with that. But I like your messaging of how you're getting people to come in. But as far as like the rebooks, so there's this really cool quote that I love.

Four Client Motivations That Drive Rebooking

Kari Jo 11:54

It says, People they don't buy a service, they hire to solve a problem. And I love that because the truth is, is in order to get the rebook, our goal is to figure out what is the problem of this client so we can solve it. And where I think the aesthetics world goes wrong, and where I feel like we've been overtaught, is our goal is to give results to clients. That's the only thing that we're supposed to be doing, which by the way, like I got into this 20 years ago and it was not a result-oriented industry that it is today. But I feel like that's what we've been pushed into, and that's what we sell is like results. If you actually look at the studies of people, and if we're trying to solve people's problems, there are like four different problems that people categories that people fall into. So the first problem that people fall into is they try to solve for pleasure. So, like relaxation. There's people that just want relaxation. The other category is the achievers, right? These are the people that are the result-oriented and people that want to get the results, and then there is the security group, and this the people that they care about trust and safety. And then there is another category, which is efficiency. So I care about my time and I care about my money. And so once you like kind of learn that all of your clients, your goal is to solve your client's problem, and they all fall into these four categories. Your job is truly to figure out what one they are. Because if you can figure out what one the client is, you can get the rebook. Does that make sense so far?

Cyntia 14:03

Yes.

Kari Jo 14:04

Okay, does that feel overwhelming or anything?

Cyntia 14:07

No, I'm just thinking because usually correcting acne in a lot of melasma because Hispanic women tend to have more melasma than I feel like anybody else. But I think a lot of my issues come from my ad that I have running on Facebook. It's like a my Facebook price at $84. I feel like I should change it so that I can attract people who are willing to pay more than that because I can solve the problems.

Kari Jo 14:43

Yeah. So when it comes to pricing, do you know what your base price is? Okay. All right. So what you I always like to find out like how much I need to be charging bare minimum per minute per client, right? I actually talked about the base price on an earlier episode. So I will send that to you and I will put it in the show notes below so you can figure out how to do your base price because that is kind of a longer how to get your base price. So if your clients, like your main thing is acne and pigmentation, these clients already know in their head that they are going to need to consistently come back for another treatment. I don't think there's any woman that actually has acne, has pigmentation, or is aging and they think that it's a one-time and done treatment. Those clients, they all know that they're going to need consistency. And those people are tend, those two people tend to be really easy to rebook because again, they're result-oriented and they already know in their head that they have to come back. The people that become a little bit harder to rebook is going to be the ones that are like in it for say relaxation. Do you feel like you have any people that come in and they want relaxation from you? Yeah, yes.

Cyntia 16:12

A lot of my clients are like, oh, you know, this is my first time. A lot of them are like, Oh, you know, there these are women in their 40s or 50s and or even 80s, you know, they're like, This is my first time. I just wanted to try it. And just because, like, in our community, uh in our culture, especially if you're like first generation or second generation, that wasn't like just something that you do, you know, for yourself. So they're like, Oh, now we can try it. You know, now the kids are grown, I have a little bit of extra money. So they don't know that. So I'm trying to educate them. But some people are really hard to educate. And a lot of people, a lot of the people that I see are they're like, is my skin gonna look like yours when I'm done? I'm like, no, I've had a lot of work. Yeah, I do have treatments on myself, like this is not a one-time thing. I'm like, not even with plastic surgery. There's just like a lot of miscommunication out there, and they're confused. I'm like, no, I'm not magic. But I do I a lot of people come for relaxation and to try it out, see what it is. But that wasn't a lot of my community. That's not like a thing that they do that they're like, it's not a necessity, it's just they see it more as a luxury. Yes, yeah. That yeah, yeah, that's why I feel like I need to change my message because if it's a luxury for you, then I'm not in the business for that.

Kari Jo 17:46

I would say it sounds to me like your main message is you want the corrective clients, and you want the ones that they know that they're gonna need consistency, and their pain point is like the pigmentation and whatnot. And so if I knew that that was my ideal clientele, then how I would be marketing it is you're gonna have to come back every two to you know, four weeks or whatever it is that you want it to do. And I would be like, this isn't for you if you think it's a one and done treatment. Because the truth is, is it's not. But when it comes to actually rebooks, like you need to figure out when the client comes in, you've got to figure out how to solve each client's problem and it might be different. And so there's really four categories of clients that come in. There's the corrective client, there's the relaxation client that comes in because she just wants to relax, and then there's a client that comes in because she just wants maintenance and she doesn't want to age. And then you also have a client that is like your value client that is about money and they care about money. And any client that comes through your door is going to be one of these four clients. If it's a new client, they're going to fit into one of these four categories. So your job is to literally sit there and when you talk to them, figure out what one this client is. Is this client, does she care more about relaxation? Does she care more about results? Does she care more about just maintaining her beauty? Or does she care about money? Because if you want to get the rebooks, you've got to figure out what one of those four drivers are driving her. Then you can solve for it. And you have to have a different way to solve for each one. For example, I was talking about how like the relaxation, if you have a first-time client, she comes in and you are just talking to her, you find out that the thing that bothers her the most is she's so stressed out. She's overwhelmed in life, she's taking care of her kids, she's doing all these things, and she's just overwhelmed and she just wants to relax, right? If you try to sell her that we're going to correct your skin and it's going to be a four-week treatment, you won't get the rebook because you know what her pain point is. So you've got to be like, okay, she wants relaxation. What do I need to sell her to hit her pain point? So those type of people that want relaxation, what they want is they want a ritual, just a ritual every month where they can come and they can relax and they can unwind. And that is the their ritual. And then it again, if let's say you have a client that comes in and she's your maintenance client. She just wants to maintain her, she wants to age gracefully, she just wants to look good. Her biggest problem that she sees is she doesn't want to all of a sudden lose progress and start aging quicker, right? So how you would sell her to rebook is obviously going to be we need to upkeep you, and you're gonna come in every four weeks or whatever it is. And then if we go on to the other client, who's the value client, and that client, she cares about um, she cares about money, like everything being a good value. What her biggest pain point is going to be like, I don't want to waste money, and so I don't want to just spend money on a facial and just waste it, right? So, like how you would have to do that is you would have to just in order to get her to rework, you would have to be able to justify why the price is such a good deal for her. You know what I mean? But if you can figure out any client that comes in, new time applient, if you can figure out what out of the four fork type of clients they are, then you can figure out what you actually have to sell them in order to get them to rebook.

Cyntia 21:59

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.

Rebook Timing Plus Deposit Debate

Kari Jo 22:03

Yes. And then it also helps when it comes to rebooking. If you ask for the rebook before you take their money. I don't know if you've done that yet, but normally what happens is they want to rebook them after they take their money. But you want to get them when they're in their state of euphoria, right? They just had this amazing treatment done by you. They love you. And let's rebook you. And they're like, yes, let's rebook. But if you check them out, in their mind, the transaction's done, they're over. Do you know what I mean? And so you like ended it, and then you're like, let's rebook. And they're like, no, it's like over. I'm done. So you want to ask for the rebook before you check them out so that they're still in that like state, that emotional state. Studies show that in order to buy, you actually need to have that emotional state lit up in your brain. Okay.

Cyntia 23:06

Now, so should I do it once I'm done with the facial? And I give them the mirror, don't give them the mirror, or how because most of the time I still have the client laying down and I tell them, hey, you know, I'm going to book you for two weeks or four weeks for whatever treatment we agreed on. Should I tell them the price right then and there?

Kari Jo 23:32

How I recommend doing it is when they're done, I'd be like, okay, so based off of your goals or whatever it is, like when we went through the list of different clients, whether it's I need to relax, so to get you on like a ritual of relaxation, or if it's we're gonna work on your acne, you know, I'd be like, based off of your goals, we're gonna need to see you back in like four weeks. And then I would just book the four weeks, and then right after that, then I'd be like, okay, and then for today, your charge is going to be blah blah blah blah blah.

Cyntia 24:07

Okay, and go ahead and ask for the deposit for the next appointment.

Kari Jo 24:15

I never do you normally ask for a deposit for the next uh treatment?

Cyntia 24:20

You do because yes, a lot of times they'll will cancel, they won't come back, or they'll change their appointments, reschedule. I always ask for a deposit. I don't schedule anyone without a deposit.

Kari Jo 24:35

Yeah, how is that? I'm interested. How is that working for you? Do you feel like it's working, or do you feel like it's causing a barrier to make people rebook? Because this is where I would challenge. If I just got a treatment done and I had to pay $100 for a facial, and then like you want me to rebook, but then I also have to pay a deposit for the next facial. I wasn't expecting to have to pay that extra fee. So then I would probably be like, yeah, I don't want a rebook, which could be one of the reasons why if you have a lower rebooking, I would almost challenge you to see what happens if you don't. But have a cancellation policy. You don't want them to take advantage of your time. And if you do have all those, how I would recommend it is having a cancellation policy. I would have them sign it when they come in. I would read it, like I would say it to them instead of just having it in a piece of paper that's like, okay, we're gonna need 24 hours notice for your cancellation. Otherwise, XYZ. And you cannot keep a card on file. And if they sign a consent saying you're they're okay with you charging their card for a missed fee, you can do that, but you do have to have their signature for that.

Cyntia 26:03

Yeah, I don't want to do that. Yeah, no, my special, even my new clients. I asked them for a deposit. I won't schedule anybody without a deposit.

Kari Jo 26:12

Yeah. Does it like it holds back your rebookings at all, or do you feel like it wouldn't change it?

Cyntia 26:20

I will have to try it because I feel like I don't know, that's just like what everyone does. And we all agree that if they don't pay the deposit, they're not gonna show up.

Kari Jo 26:33

Yeah.

Cyntia 26:34

So I don't know if it's just like a cultural thing, maybe I don't know, but that's just the way we do it. Like, yeah. Uh and I have a lot of clients that do pay deposit and they still don't show up. They don't like they won't respond to my messages or my calls. I'm like, you paid the deposit. Like, come on. So I don't know. I don't know if it's like a cultural thing, maybe.

Kari Jo 27:01

What would be really interesting is if you say you download the tracker that I gave you, fill it out your weeks every single week, and you'll have a month's worth of data, right? And you will have the month's worth of like the rebooking rate with you taking a deposit for your client. And then it would be really interesting if you then for one month you changed it, right? And for one month you didn't require a deposit before, and then see the difference in the data. So did it, did you get better rebookings when you didn't versus if you did? Data will never lie, right? It would be interesting. I would even suggest tracking the data on the people that no showed and see how many no showed in the different months, like month when you were pre-doing the deposit and the month when you weren't.

Cyntia 28:05

Okay.

Kari Jo 28:07

But yeah, and I would, I mean, that would be interesting. I'd love to know that data on yours. So if you track it, you're gonna have to message me. I want to know how that goes. Yes.

Cyntia 28:20

No, okay, because I'm having like a little hard time uh with that thought in my mind. I'm okay with not asking for a deposit maybe for like a new client or uh, you know, a service that's like only less than $150. But for my higher ticket item, I still wanna ask for a deposit because I'm a little, I don't know. I'm just I don't know. I I I guess I need to think about this. If it's like a wellness visit, then I'm okay with that. But if it's like a corrective treatment, I need them to be held accountable for that appointment. So I don't know. I don't know if I should say, you know, it's just like the ones that are coming in for relaxation and they're like the value clients because I have a lot of those. Um, I will be okay with maybe not asking for a deposit if they say no.

Kari Jo 29:29

Yeah.

Cyntia 29:31

I have it like on my social media that a deposit is required. I've always asked for a deposit. I don't know how some of my clients are gonna feel. Like, why are you doing this now?

Kari Jo 29:43

Like, yeah, yeah. Well, you don't necessarily have to. I would just get curious about as to if it is affecting your rebooks or not. It's just something worried. Does it affect it or not? Okay, ultimately, like when it comes to rebooking, I really hound to nail that rebooking and get the rebooking percentage higher. If you're like in the 70%, you're above industry standard. You know what I mean? And once you get there, then I'm like, yeah, it's totally worth it to start spending money on marketing because you're not just losing clients. I would just get curious as if it does, and it might not. For me, I would, but I'm might not be your ideal clientele either.

Cyntia 30:35

Okay, I will take your advice, I will sleep on it, but I will probably do it because it's you. Oh, yeah. You're telling me because everything that you've talked about has worked for me, so I know that you know what you're talking about.

Kari Jo 30:52

Oh, you're so sweet. Yeah, I love that. Well, is there any other big questions that you have before we jump off?

Cyntia 31:02

That's it. Okay, thank you so much.

Referral Rewards That Stay Fun

Cyntia 31:05

Have you ever helped anyone um else that was just like somebody who catered to just Hispanics or Asians or yeah.

Kari Jo 31:19

So I I had one girl, she was a Muslim, kind of remember how I was telling you how there were different people who want different things. What she marketed to was safety because for her, it was uncomfortable to go into different spas. She wanted to feel safe because they cover themselves up and they're very modest people. And she learned a lot about marketing to her ideal clientele. I love how you're marketing. Like, I think you have a really good funnel system to bring people in. You should just double down on using the clients that you have and starting to like build up a referral system in your business to get their friends.

Cyntia 32:07

I have a lot, I think I have a really good rapport. Like, I can create a really good rapport with my clients. I've always been able to do that because I'm like a very I'm like an introvert, but I'm also very warm and very friendly, and I'm very honest. So people can tell I really love my job, and they'll just refer me their clients without me asking them. Yeah. They're like, I'm gonna send you such and such. Or, you know, they send me so many clients without me asking. Because I'm not someone who asks, like I never asked for referrals or reviews. I just give my best, but yeah, I don't have a problem with referrals. But I do have a referral considerative program that is, oh, you know, like if you refer me a client, I'll give you 10% off. For the second client, it's 20%. No, said first client's 10% off, second client's 15% off, third, it's 20 and fourth is 25th, and that's the cutoff. And then I'm like, once you've been with me, you know, once you've had 10 treatments, I'll give you a free facial or something like that.

Kari Jo 33:20

Yeah, yeah. No, that's super good. I always changed my referral system around every year. Kind of like you were saying, when you kind of get to you've referred me so much, and it's the same thing over and over again. So I change it up, and like each year, like I had a new referral system for that year. One year I did flowers. If like they referred a client and that client spent over X amount of dollars, they got flowers. Or one time I just sent out Starbucks gift cards, which is sometimes it saves you money on the like a five-dollar Starbucks gift card is less than giving them the discount on the facial. But yeah, I always like to kind of change it up because then they're always super surprised and it just keeps it fun. Yeah, and it means for the the client.

Cyntia 34:16

Awesome. I was thinking of also doing something called like soul points, um, because I do Korean uh services, so maybe I could do 10 points for each time that you come in, and then uh, you know, they can uh get a product for 50 points to have like the volunteers.

Kari Jo 34:39

Yeah, yeah, I love that, and I love the Korean skincare right now. I love that you're niche down in that. That was so good. I really did love your Instagram when I went and I looked at it. Well, so the goal is for you is to download the tracker, fill out your numbers, and then you're automatically going to see what's part of the business will is not working. Because you'll see like your percentages and you'll be like, well, that's really low. It might be need more clients, it might be rebooking. You might actually have a better rebooking than you think you do, because it sounds like you have a great clientele. So you might actually your rebooking might be really good. Maybe you need to work on your retail. But if you download that tracker, I'll send you an email with what is what to look at, and then you'll know what is broken based off of the numbers.

Cyntia 35:38

Okay, thank you.

Kari Jo 35:39

Yeah, well, thanks for coming on, and we'll see you guys next week on another esthetician podcast. Bye, guys.

Download The Free Weekly Tracker

Kari Jo 35:47

If today's episode hit home for you, the next thing I want you to do is go and download my free esthetician weekly number tracker. Most estheticians are trying to fix everything all at once. When really, it's usually one number that is quietly breaking the business. This tracker, it helps you figure out what number is actually hurting your business first. So when you know what to focus on, instead of feeling like you're all over the place, you can start changing your company. You can download it at carryjopatterson.com forward slash start. And remember, you don't need fix everything at once.