How to Get More Client Referrals as an Esthetician

Your clients love you and keep rebooking—so why aren’t they referring their friends? In this episode of The Esthetician Podcast, Kari Jo Patterson explains how to build a simple esthetician referral system that helps you get clients without automatically discounting your services.

You’ll learn how to capture referrals, review them during your CEO time, thank clients in a way that fits your brand, and use your numbers to decide what you can actually afford to give away. If you want to make money, grow your esthetician business, and turn happy clients into a consistent source of new clients, start here.

Want to make sure your prices can actually support discounts, referral rewards, and profit? 

Get the Profit-Driven Pricing mini course HERE for 50% off with code Podcast at checkout. 

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

Welcome And Big Promise

Announcer 0:00

Welcome to the Esthetician Podcast, where passion meets prosperity. Your host, Kari Jo Patterson, transforms 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. Get ready for some empire building wisdom. Now welcome your host, Kari Jo Patterson.

Why Happy Clients Still Don’t Refer

Kari Jo 0:24

Okay, guys, today I want to talk about referrals with you. Sometimes I get asked, like, what do you do for referrals? What do you recommend? Like 10% off, 20% off? Or like, think about it. Like, if you were to go to, say, a Facebook group or friend, and you were to be like, what do you do? The conversations they always go towards like, give them a free thing show if they refer somebody you. This is honestly where my brain goes. Is I'm like, wait, you want me to decide how much money you should be giving away when, or even going to the groups, like you go to the groups and you're like, what referral system do you have? And they're like, give them this and this, this. And I'm like, wait, you're telling them to give away a bunch of money. But like the problem is, is like I said, I feel like we try to solve one problem, but it's really actually another problem, right? And I feel like we need to talk about what the actual problem is. Because the truth is, is if it's not like how much you should be giving away to that client. It's really if you actually have really happy clients that continue to rebook, clients that tell you I love you so much, you're like the best esthetician in the world, clients that they continue to come forever and ever. They're your OG clients, but they're not referring people to you. My question is, why? Because sometimes I think that we assume something that isn't necessarily true. We assume, like, hey, because I have a really happy client, she loves my services, she's going to refer a client. And then that doesn't happen. And like, here's the thing I think people need to understand. She can truly have a really, really, really happy client that absolutely loves you, and they never send you one person. I did. I think about still to this day, I'm going to talk about this episode, but I think I have a client that she's like my OG client. She loved me, but she never forever me a client. We all have those, right? You can have a client that comes to you every single month, and she's gonna buy her skincare from you religiously. She's gonna buy every product that you recommend. But then she is still in her head, she never thinks, hey, I need to tell Sarah about Carrie. Because here's the thing: being happy with you and actively putting her name behind you, those are two totally different things. That's ultimately what we're gonna fix today. Truth be known, I don't think that you guys have clients that don't like you. I think you definitely have a client that is extremely happy with you. And I don't think that your first problem is you need to offer her a better discount in order for her to refer to you. The truth is, I just don't think that estheticians actually have a referral system. And so they just hope that their client's going to refer them, but again, hope is not actually a system. So now I want to explain something because I think that we mix a lot of things together in our industry, right? So I feel like people think the thing that I could see getting mixed together is a loyalty program, a discount program, a punch card. I feel like we like tangled those all in together as a referral program. Also, sometimes I feel like we use our software systems as a way, like if someone types in who they're referred to, that means we have

The Three-Part Referral System

Kari Jo 4:39

a referral system because the software is like tracking it for us. But ultimately, here is what I want you to do. I need you to develop a system, and the system has three key parts, three pieces. Okay. First one is you need to answer this question. How are you going to capture all of your referrals? Maybe that's a software system. Maybe you use paper. I don't know. How are you going to capture it? That's your first question that you gotta solve. The second thing that I want you to answer is how are you going to review it? Like, when are you going to review it? That's part of the system. And the last one is how are you gonna thank the person that sent you the client? That's it. Okay, it's three steps. That's all you need, which is gonna be capture, review, and think. That's your referral system. And we're gonna dive into each

Capture Referrals Without Relying On Memory

Kari Jo 5:42

one of those. Okay, so we're gonna tap out the first one. Capture. You need to know where your clients are coming from. Period. Every single new client that comes through your door, somewhere in your booking process, in your intake forms or whatever, you absolutely need to have how did you hear about us? So if you have online forms, if you have paper forms, I don't care where it goes, but you need to figure out where in your system do you find out how they heard about you? Did they hear about you from Google, Instagram, Facebook, friend, referral, whatever makes sense, do that. Now, if they choose referral, we need to know who referred you. That's where the whole entire thing starts. So think about it. If say Jessica comes in, she's like this brand new client, she gets a facial, and then she buys three products, and she spends $350 with you, and then she's like, Oh yeah, just so you know, Sarah told me to come in and see you. And you're like, Oh my gosh, I love Sarah. Okay. Now imagine Jessica then leaves, and then immediately after Jessica, because you know this happens, you have your next guy that's coming in, and then you do facial after facial, you go do the laundry, and then you have to go home and you have to cook dinner, all of these different things, and then three days later, you're like, I forgot. Sarah sent me Jessica, and I was going to thank her. Do you know why you forgot? You forgot because your brain should not be your business system. And that's exactly what happens when you don't capture things and you're trying to remember everything in your brain. I don't want you to rely on yourself to remember, hey, Sarah sent Jessica in. I want that in the client information somewhere so the business knows. And here's the other reason. At some point, I want you to be able to answer me like, where are your clients actually coming from? Because I think a lot of aestheticians we think that we know where they're coming from, and they're like, Oh yeah, Instagram's not working. Okay, well, do you know that it's not working? Or how do you know? And then sometimes we think, well, I'm not getting any lights, I'm not getting any comments. That doesn't necessarily tell me anything. So what we really need to know is we need to know what's bringing you in clients right now. And if you say, Well, I don't know, well, that's the problem. Because if you're gonna go spend $500 somewhere to get new clients, meanwhile, your existing clients are constantly sending you your new clients. Wouldn't you want to know that? Wouldn't you want to know? And that's ultimately why we track. Now, I know you've been with me a long time and you always hear me track this. And I'm sure you're like, oh my gosh, Kari wants me to track another number. No, I don't believe you should just track numbers just to track numbers. But a number needs, like, if a number isn't going to help you make a decision or take action, then I don't think we need to worry about it. Just like forget about that number, right? But with this, we are going to track it because we need to do something with it. So when somebody is actually referring you a client, it means that they trusted you enough to send another person into your business. And I want and I think that you should know that.

Discounts Get Dangerous Without Your Numbers

Kari Jo 9:34

Now, let's talk about the money part for a minute, because that's where I think the Facebook advice or people asking other people what they should do or how much they should get off can get a little dangerous. I just think if you ask and they're like, oh, well, I give 20% off to a new client and then I give 20% off to another client who referred them. Could that work for a business? Absolutely. Right? Let's say another person is I get after five referrals, I give them a free service. Could that advice work for a company? Absolutely. Well, now let's say someone else is like, I do a, I give $10 to the client and then they get $10. Could that work? Absolutely. But the truth is, unless you know your numbers, unless if you're asking me what one you should be doing, and I don't know your numbers, and neither do you, that's the problem. So you can't go into like a Facebook group and be like, how much should I be giving off? And have someone be like, Well, I give 20% off. And then you're like, Well, that's what I should do too. Because no, because your numbers have absolutely nothing to do with hers. For example, your rent should not be above like 7% of your income, right? Yeah, that's ideal. But let's say in California, like your rent's astronomical and you're at like 12%. Well, we gotta take that into consideration, right? So, like, let's say you have two estheticians, right? And they're both offering a facial, and one of them is charging $150, and the other one is charging $85. Okay. They're both new estheticians, they're both trying to grow their practice. And let's say, just for the sake of making things really easy, and they both know that their base price of what they have to charge is $70, both of them, right? 20% off of $150 is $30. So if that esthetician collects $120, she is still $50 above her $70 base, right? Now, let's say an esthetician is charging $85 and she takes 20% off, and that is $17. She collects $68, but her base price that she had to charge, right, was $70. Now she's below it. It's the same advice, it's the same 20%, but you have two totally different outcomes. That's why I want you to stop asking what does everyone else give for referrals and start asking what is it that your business can actually afford? I know someone is sitting here listening, they're like, base price? What are we talking about? Carrie, I don't know what my base price is. Okay, that's okay, but don't get us. And I don't want to turn today's whole episode into pricing lesson because we're talking about referrals today. I do have earlier episodes on that. And I do have a mini course called Profit Driven. I think it's called Profit Driven Pricing. Anyways, it's normally $20. But if you're listening to the podcast, I'm gonna give it to you for 50% off. So you can just go get it for $10 and then you can learn your base price. It comes with an Excel sheet, you just put your numbers in and it helps you figure out the minimum your services need to be based off of your expenses, how much you want to get paid, and the time that you actually have available to work, right? Because before you start handing out 20% discounts, just because someone in the Facebook group told you to, or a friend told you to, you need to know that number. So I'm gonna put that in the show links the note below. So go figure that out. Don't make this harder than it needs to be.

Thank Yous That Feel Like Your Brand

Kari Jo 13:45

Okay. But going back to referrals, now I want to challenge you on the way you think about rewards all together. Because when I own a business, I didn't build my referral system around discounting a bunch of services. And there is a reason for that. Because when I built my business, I didn't build a referral system around always discounting. And I think that when we hear the word referral system, our brains immediately think, okay, I got to give them something off on their next service. So you're like, okay, I'm gonna give them $10 off or 20% off or free facial, whatever it is. I'm not saying you can't do any of those things. I'm saying, why does the reward have to come out of your service? Your time is the most valuable thing in your business. Time is so stinking valuable. So, especially when you're solo, right? When you're a solo esthetician and you're doing everything, you only have so many hours that you can physically be in that treatment room. So when you automatically make your time cheaper every time somebody sends you a client, like I just don't know if that's very smart. That's not how I ended up building my company. So if I had a client who referred somebody to me and a new client came in and then they spent a ton of money with me, right? I might send that person a bouquet of flowers. And I've talked about this many different times. And I love doing it because imagine it, you're you send your friend to someone, and you weren't even thinking about it. You were just talking about her. And then all of a sudden, next day, flowers show up, and there's like this little no that's like, thank you so much for sending Sarah to me. I really appreciate you trusting me. That's completely different than you now have $10 credit on your account. Do you see how it feels different? Now, if someone referred someone to me and they came in for like a simple service, like a brow wax or something, I'm obviously not gonna send them a huge bouquet of flowers, but maybe I send them a $5 Starbucks gift card or maybe something small. It's not necessarily about the dollar amount. It's hey, I noticed what you did and I really appreciate it. Because think about it, what someone is actually doing when they refer to you. They're literally putting their name behind your business. They're saying, hey, dude, I trust this person enough that I'm willing to send you there. And ultimately, I wanted my clients to know that I don't take that for granted. And I think that there is a massive difference between a reward and a thank you. So, like a reward can start to feel just transactional. Like you're coming in, it's just transactional, right? You do this and I'll do that. You refer somebody, you get $20. You refer five people, you get a facial. And again, I'm not telling you that that system is actually wrong. If you run the numbers and it works for your business, then great. But I personally think about it like this: how am I gonna thank this person? Because then I can make it feel like my brand. And I don't have to discount my service and my time in order to do that. So I don't want you to think like, oh gosh, I need to send flowers, right? Kari wants me spending $75 every time somebody refers to me. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the thank you needs to make sense. So if someone refers you a new client and she comes in and she sends $400 with you, maybe you decide she deserves a bigger thank you. Maybe she spends $400 and she rebooks. That's what gets it, right? If someone just refers you $20 brow wax, maybe it's something small. But here's what I want you to like really understand is that the value of the thank you isn't always worth the price of the thank you. So let's say if I take $10 off of your facial right now, you are going to appreciate it, right? Well, honestly, you might not even notice that $10. So if your total was $150 and now it's only $140, okay, great. It's like not a big difference, right? But instead, let's say two days after you had your facial, instead, you get a text from me and it says, Hey, thanks so much for sending Jessica to me. I really appreciate it. Here's a coffee on me today. Okay. You just so you send them $10. Are they gonna notice it more than the $10 that you gave them off in your facial? Probably, right? It feels completely different because one is just a discount. The other one says basically, hey, I totally see what you just did. And I'm thinking about it. Do you get it? So, okay, also going down this route. Here's another thing that you could do. I wouldn't say like you have to go buy like 50 Starbucks gift cards. But what I do think you could do is you could go around your community, and maybe there's like a local drink company or a local coffee shop that your clients are always talking about. Everybody loves going to it. Maybe there is a local florist. I don't know, look around your community, and here's what you could do: you could literally walk into that store and you could be like, hey, I am an aesthetics business just down the street, and I love sending my clients to other businesses. And how I do that is I use small gifts to thank my clients when they refer someone. And so I was wondering if there's something that we could do together. Now, maybe that person says, No, you just have to buy the $5, $10 gift card, but maybe they're like, sure, let's all your gift cards, I'm gonna give them to you for $5. You know what I mean? But hopefully, what like those other business owners say is like they're like, hey, yeah, absolutely. If you're buying gift cards regularly, here's something that we can do. Or maybe they create a little complimentary something else that goes with it. Think about what's actually going to be happening for your client if you did this. Is now what's happening is your client gets something from you, the coffee shop gets somebody walking through their door, you're supporting another local business, and now that business owner knows who you are, and that is now networking, right? So maybe somebody one day is talking about something, and the coffee owner is gonna be immediately thinking of you when they're like, you know, talking about aesthetics. Now I could do like a whole entire episode around networking, because this is something that I've had to learn a lot about recently, but I don't want to get into that today just because I feel like that's just a whole nother rabbit hole. But ultimately, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get you to think instead of like how much should I discount my facial? I want you thinking outside of that box because there is a lot of ways to make someone feel appreciated that doesn't involve making your services cheaper. Okay, so the client comes in.

Review Referrals With CEO Time Blocks

Kari Jo 21:50

Hey, how did you hear about me? Sarah sent me great. Sarah now gets entered as the referral source. Then we We need time to actually review it. Okay. This is where some of you guys are gonna make this way harder than it needs to be. Because if you're thinking when I've gone through this this entire time, like great, I need to do this like every single day. Someone asks, whatever. No, daily is not reasonable. We can't do daily, guys. I don't work in dailies, dailies are way too hard. This is where time blocking comes in, right? So something that you have to learn in order to grow the company. You're gonna learn this, okay? At some point in your business, you are going to learn this when you are a fully booked aesthetician and you are broken because you just have no time and you're exhausted and you can't grow your company anymore. Or you can learn this early and implement it now, and then your company will just grow so much faster because you aren't capping yourself. But there's two things you're gonna have to learn as an aesthetician. One, you're gonna have to learn how to have CEO days, right? They have to be in there. So if you're an esthetician and you're fully booked right now and you don't have a designated day for a CEO day, that's your first bottleneck. You better start not blocking any clients on a Tuesday or whatever day it is, and it's your CEO day. Has to be done, right? You have to learn this skill. If you're not a busy esthetician yet, learn this skill. You'll be ahead of all those who are actually busy and not running their company like a real company because you cannot grow your company if you don't have time to work on it. This is like literally a skill. The most successful business owners, they do this one thing, they have CEO days, and then they learn to tan block, right? So on that CEO day, what I want you to do is pick a time. Maybe it's Friday at 10 o'clock. You now have 15 minutes on your calendar, and that 15-minute time block says referrals. So for 15 minutes, you're going to pull up your referral system that you already have capturing everything. You're gonna look who came in this week for my referral, who sent them, what did the client purchase? Who do I need to thank? And then go send your thank you. Done. That's it. Close it, moved on. Your referral system now actually has a home. You actually have a system now. You don't have to think about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Nope, you have Friday at 10. So if I'm coaching you and you have like if you're running your business like a real business owner and you're really time blocking and you're really having a CEO day, I should be able to say to you right now, when are you when are you working on your referral system? And immediately you should be able to answer Friday at 10. That's why I know you're doing it. It's because you actually have a time scheduled for it. Right? Your calendar remembers it for you. I'm telling you guys, I am such a believer in two skills, and I think you have to learn them in order to run a successful aesthetics business. You have to learn how to time block. And you will need some version of a CEO day. And you can build a business without doing that. I know because I see aestheticians doing it all the time, but also let me tell you, you are going to run your ass off someday. Okay, back to what we're talking about. Capture, review, and the last part thinking is the part that I feel like some programs miss the actual point. Sometimes I think we think our referral system is working because somebody referred to us. And I wouldn't say that necessarily means your referral system is actually working. So let's say that Sarah refers Jessica, and then Jessica ends up looking a facial. That's great, right? Did Jessica show up? Yes. Did she become unpaying clients? Yes. Did she buy? Yes. No. My next question is gonna be did she eventually come back? Because that is a huge difference between saying, like, I got 20 referrals and saying these referrals are actually bringing me clients who stay. Right? I don't want you to track 47 different things, especially if you are in survival loan right now. I just want you to know who sent her, did she come in, and what did she spend? That's enough

Track Client Value And Acquisition Cost

Kari Jo 26:58

information for you to make a decision about a thinking. Now, later, when you're not in survival stage, this is where we're gonna take this up a notch. Kind of like when you're watching um those workout videos, how they have like the guy that's like advanced, and then you have like the medium. Okay, let's say you nab that part. We're gonna take it up a notch really quick, okay? When your business is stable and you want to go deeper, then this is what you need to know, which is are my referred clients actually coming back? That's the next level. Because this is where it gets so super interesting is what does it actually cost you to get the client, right? I want to touch on that because I think most estheticians don't actually know. And there's this number in business, which you probably have heard about it, and it's the customer acquisition cost, which basically is saying, how much did it cost me to actually get this client? So let's say I spent $500 on running Google Ads and all I got was 10 new paying clients, then you spent $50 to acquire each one of them. Now you can start making decisions once you have that information because now you're gonna be like, was that worth it? Was it that $50 worth it? So if those clients came in and they only came once and never came back, was that $50 worth it? Probably not. But what if those clients came in, they became really great clients, they rebooked and they bought retail? Um, yeah, I would happily spend $50 for that. That's also why I don't want you to get caught up in is giving somebody $10 for a referral too much? I don't know. What's the client actually worth? And what did it cost you to get that client? Did she stay? Those are the questions that actually matter. I don't want you to track all that right now because I know that's probably overwhelming to you, but I just want you to understand that getting a new client really does have a cost. And sometimes that cost is an Instagram ad or Google or it's an event. The point is that you understand that you're spending so much, so you can eventually put more money into the effort that actually brings the good clients. So before you go out, take all of this and build anything new, what I want you to do is go look at your software. Some are better than others, and especially this, because a lot of times booking software is they actually already capture how somebody heard about you. So go look into it, see if your software system actually already does what we just talked about. If so, definitely use it. Go time blog, and then at your schedule time, sit down and review it. You guys. Like we're constantly saying my facial's worth $150, but here's 20% off for referring. Right? Well, if you book again, I'll give you a discount. Well, if you refer someone, I'll give you a discount. Come back this month, a discount. Bring a friend this month, you discount. At some point, we basically are teaching people, wait for us, and we're gonna make our own service cheaper one way or another.

Homework Steps And Closing Message

Kari Jo 30:50

So if I'm coaching you today, here's your homework. I want you to do three things. Number one, figure out how you're going to capture all of your referrals. Go to your booking software that you already use, find out where you can record it. You want to know how did you hear about me and who referred you. That's your first job. Number two, go decide when you are going to review them. Not every day. I don't want it floating around in your calendar or floating around in your head. I want you to find a time on your calendar, pick a time. Maybe it's Friday at 10 o'clock. Maybe your CEO day is a Wednesday like mine was. Don't care what day it is. I just care that it has a home. And then put referral system data on the calendar. And when the time comes, you're gonna pull up your referrals, who came in, who sent them. Simple, not complicated. That's it. Number three, decide how you are going to think them. Before you automatically decide to give a discount, right? I want you to stop and ask yourself, does it have to be a discount? Maybe it does, and maybe that is actually what makes sense for your business. Maybe it's flowers, maybe if it's coffee, maybe you partner with another local business, but it has to be something that says, I noticed and I appreciate you. But make sure whatever you are giving away actually makes sense with your numbers. And if you're sitting here and you're thinking, Carrie, I don't know my numbers. I don't know if I can afford to give it away. I don't even know what my minimum price should be. Well, then ultimately that's where I need you to start. So I do have my profit-driven pricing. It's a little cheat sheet of how to do it. It's normally $20, but podcast listeners can get 50% off. So it's only $10 for you if you go and enter in the word podcast at checkout. Remember, if there's anything you should take away from this episode, it is. Happy clients do not automatically refer, guys. And giving away more money doesn't create them either. You need a system, capture it, review it, thank them. That's it. That's a referral program. So I will see you guys next week on another Esthetician podcast.

Announcer 33:19

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 one on one VIP coaching opportunities and more, visit Kari www.karijopatterson.com. That's www.kar Ijo Patterson.com. See you next week for more insights and strategies on the Esthetician Podcast.