In this episode, Cameron is joined by Cam and Rechelle Trejo, owners of Auri Aesthetics, and they discuss key factors that contribute to medical practice success, such as a strong team, excellent patient care, and data-driven decision making. They highlight the importance of understanding the patient’s perspective and focusing on the emotional aspects of the business. They emphasize the need for a strategic approach, a clear financial ambition, and a data-driven decision-making process to guide business expansion. They also talk about the importance of a shared vision, ambition, and drive within the team, as well as the need for a personalized approach to care in the aesthetic industry.

Transcript

This is medical millionaire the podcast, helping your Med Spa increase in status, visibility and profitability. Join your host as he dispels myths, shares trends and gives you actionable steps today that will take your medical practice to the next level. Here’s your host, expert marketer and founder of growth 99 Cameron Hemphill,
Hey, what’s up, everybody? Cameron Hemphill, here your host for medical millionaire. Hey guys, thank you so much for taking the time to tune into the podcast. Our goal is to give incredible value and insight into the esthetics market. So if you go to med spa, you’re looking to scale your Med Spa, scale your Med Spa, these podcasts are 100% designed for you and to help you take your practice to the next level. So today I have some guests on they are clients. They are friends. They are from Gilbert, Arizona. They own an incredible practice re esthetics, and they’re a duo. So they’re a true team duo. I have Rachelle Trejo and Cam Trejo here. These guys are awesome. They’ve grown this practice for the past four years. Rochelle has been in the industry for 13 plus years. Gal Derma trainer, Allergan trainer, they have an academy, they have a Patreon course, like they are taking this to new heights. Guys. And I wanted to have them on because they have a really cool story on how they run the practice, and they’re just doing a lot of exciting things, and I think it’s worthwhile to share with the community and to get insight. So guys, thank you so much. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having us
absolutely so let’s get into it. Guys, we were just talking a little bit offline. We were kind of talking about technology and how it’s evolving, and private equity, but before we go down that whole path, right? Because the data that I recently showed, and even though this whole private equity conversations come up so much, I think, recently, is, truth be told, there’s only 3% of practices are owned by private equity, right? So it’s still very early on, and practice owners are becoming more and more intelligent as there’s evolving technology, as we figure, like, all this stuff out and how to run and scale a practice. My first question for you is, is, how, like, what has made you so successful at the practice? What gets you up in the morning? Like, what keeps you going? What got you here? And then we can kind of get into, like, technology and where the future is, and the Academy and those sort of things. But talk to us a little bit about more on your background and what got you here and what excites you.
So I think initially, what it was is, obviously, for everybody, probably is a love of what you’re doing, right? If you don’t love what you’re doing, you are not going to put energy towards that. So a love for me, and it’s twofold, because I have to love my patients. I have to love the offering that I have to my patients, to be able to provide care for them, provide something of value for them. So they come in and they have their concern, I have to be able to look at that and create an offer a value that they can see and then be able to execute on that offer. So that’s the patient facing side of it, and then from the practice facing side of it, it’s different, because now I want to create a place, an environment in which others can succeed, that this team that I brought on, that they see their pathway to their goals and their ambitions, and whatever that means. It can be something simple, from I just need a paycheck to no I want to grow this. I want to scale this. I want to become a trainer. I want to become an educator. And everybody’s different in that role. And so really, truly coming to understand your team, who they are, what their ambitions are, and then be able to create an environment in which they can succeed. So that was initially how Ari started, was with those goals in mind, Cameron will laugh, because he’s like, Well, what about making money? I was like, yeah, yeah,
that wasn’t. That wasn’t my goal, which I know from a business standpoint, is awful, right? But that wasn’t my goal in starting Ari. It was I care about these people that I’m bringing into my team, and I want them to succeed, knowing full will that, if they succeed, will succeed as well. But that wasn’t my true ambition. Yeah, isn’t that interesting? I love that. I just want to build on that for a second, and then cam, obviously, I’m going to give you the floor too.
So let’s talk about, like the team structure for a second, because you kind of, you talked about that when, you know, when you guys first start out in any business, you know, it’s, it’s usually you, you know, wearing multiple hats. Maybe you have a partner, maybe you don’t, you case, you know, in your guys’s case, you that’s kind of by default, in a way, right?
But as you build the team and you invest in the team, what are some of like, the call outs that you have seen that really like, make the culture successful? Everybody is like, has the same dream, the same vision, understanding the.
KPIs, the objectives, those types of things, because it’s hard to build a great team, right? And looking at your website, you guys can go to their website, it’s a beautiful website, and they have a great team, and it’s looks like it’s grown, obviously, over the years. So talk to us a little bit about that, terms of team culture, how you did it, and what the atmosphere is like,
I think first and foremost is acknowledging that you’re gonna have successes and you’re gonna have failures, and learning from those experiences on both ends, I’ve had team members where and I think it’s really listening to people when you’re making that interview, and they will tell you things, and if you are aware enough to hear them and to actually believe what they’re saying. Like, I hired somebody who’s like, I just want a team environment. I just want to be able to come and have, you know, that experience with people that I care about that’s great, but there was no work behind that. It truly was. She wanted to come and just hang out, right? And I didn’t listen to that. And then after time went on, I was like, Wait, this is not working. Like, I need somebody who can come in and work and do something.
So I think ambition, hustle, drive is going to be huge. I can teach somebody to how to inject I can teach somebody how to
operate the phone and operate the front desk like I can teach that. But if you don’t have internal ambition, drive, and what’s the word that you always tell our kids, the way they have to be able to see, that perception, that ability to see and act, anticipate. That’s the word. If you can’t anticipate the needs, I don’t have time to babysit you, and I don’t have the energy to give you drive, you have to have that yourself, and you have to be able to anticipate so I think those are things that initially
need to be there. But like I said, we’ve learned from previous employees that there’s things where it’s just not going to work, and then there’s other things where it’s like, yeah, I can teach you how to inject. I can teach you. I think it’s important to call out as well that somebody needs to lead that and Rochelle, it’s one of her gifts as a leader, is creating an environment, an atmosphere where people sort of just feel they just naturally feel they’re there to succeed, right? And that is really what, like the team environment is what really drives her and and makes her an amazing leader. Interestingly enough, though, so she started, she said she’s been injecting for 13 years. She was in a previous situation where the injector side of the business was just sort of minor subset, and it was just sort of naturally growing, and she was naturally building a team. And part of the reason we decided to say, hey, let’s let’s explore like, does this have potential? We dove into the numbers. And she laughs that she wasn’t thinking about the numbers. But thankfully, we had a good enough relationship to where we literally, for, I think, about six months, just started to really dive into the data and say, Hey, this has a ton of potential. Rochelle was motivated by the financial potential, but really, what she what she really had her eyesight on was, hey, I can go build a space where I could take this little team that started to develop, create a space where we can just, you know, the sky is the limit. And interestingly enough, it didn’t work out. It ended up being something that showed that. Again, ambitions didn’t align, and it was pretty demoralizing, especially the way it came apart because she had developed relationships. We had invested, you know, capital into these individuals. We had obviously made a big jump. Leases were signed like the whole nine yards, hours and hours of training and truly caring, like I say that, and I know it was like, Oh, I care about my team, but truly, I couldn’t just walk away from this other practice and let them go and do their own thing, because they they didn’t have a place to go. Yeah, so I carried with Ari because I cared about them. And then when our ambitions didn’t align, as time went on, theirs was more, you know, financial focus, like, I just want to make the money and I don’t really care about anything, which isn’t a bad thing. Yeah, it’s not a bad thing.
But our ambitions didn’t align. They weren’t looking for necessarily growth together. It was just, how can I make the most out of what it is I’m doing that it was okay, it was okay for those relationships to not continue, and it wasn’t a bad thing, right? And so now, as I am able to meet with people and bring people on, it’s you. You attract your tribe, you attract your people. And I think being able to speak your ambitions very clearly and speak have them do the same, and be able to hear them and understand what those are. You’re going to attract the people who will continue with you and help build those together. But the and this is like a lesson you constantly learn in business as well as in the failure. We learned to refine again what what it was that there were adjustments we needed to make in culture as well. And just like everybody needs to sort of state their ambition, we needed to have a clear offer. And also, it’s interesting that.
Those failures really cause you to step back and reassess and look and say, Okay, where are we headed? And again, it was, it was very demoralizing, because it was a great team. I mean, just amazing human beings, and they had experience, and they had sort of come up, or they had come up through the industry together, and had, you know, mutual relationships. And so it was, it was very demoralizing. And in hindsight, you know, hindsight is always 2020, we learned some very valuable lessons that allowed us to sort of just level up on Okay, time to rebuild, and now we kind of know what we’re looking at. And thankfully, you know, after that big change, we more or less have the new team has been in place for well over two years, and all incredible human beings, you know, with just great trajectories. But it was interesting that, you know, you, you sort of jump off the ship, and you’re, you’re treading water, and it feels good, and all sudden you’re drowning. You’re like, Oh, crap, I went back on the boat. But great lessons came out of that, like, really great lessons. And that’s what Cameron, you know, spoke to how we learned a lot in the process, too, we were able to refine our offer, which we, especially, I did not have a clear picture of. So through those experiences, we learned where we were falling short, in communication with the team, in team meetings. I mean, we weren’t really doing a whole lot of any of that, and it showed us where we were weak, yeah. And I think having a team is one of the most humbling things, because it shows you where you’re falling short. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, for the audience guys, I mean, you know, as you grow your practice, as you get into becoming a practice owner, you know you never know what you’re going to face, right? Like you may bring like a team that you had before at a previous, you know, atmosphere, and come into your to your world, and things may shift and change. And that’s like, Hey, you may look at it initially, it’s like, oh my gosh. What are we going to do? But, you know, just be prepared for failures, because what comes from failures is learning and overcoming those learnings and then begin to modify, change and enhance. So there’s you guys both said a word that I was curious to just kind of build on a little bit, which was, what your offer is,
can you kind of share that with the audience really quick? When you say, hey, what our offer is, I’m just curious. You know, it sounds like it’s embedded in the culture. Now,
I’m part of a study group, and they were very specific on language and the power of language and and offer, you know, by definition, is just help. That’s really what it is. And in order to succeed, we’re constantly making offers, right? We’re making offers to our clients, we’re making offers to our employees, we’re making offers to vendors, we’re making offers to each other. I mean, that that’s how we grow, right? Others in the community being a resource to others in the community, yeah, and it’s just, it’s all narratives, right? Like, offers are really like, when we hear offer, it’s like, oh, there’s, like, some deal, you know, at the store. That’s not what this is all about your offer. It’s all language and building narratives around that. And when you and again, that’s a constantly evolving process, right? Is building your narrative, understanding what that narrative is and how to clearly and efficiently speak it to others, with the idea that, hey, you may have an offer of help to me, I may have an offer of help to you, and it just goes back and forth. And that’s really how we operate with everybody. It’s just, and it’s just a constantly evolving thing. So, yeah, very, very much. A part of the sort of just the the language of Ari, so you’re transacting on those offers, is really currency is. And when I say currency, it’s not actual dollars, a lot of times it’s right, this is the currency. This is a transaction. And what is your offer? What is my offer? And how can we work together to be able to achieve our ambitions? And those, those offers we’re making are based on an understanding of ambition, right? Understanding the ambition. I mean, that’s what makes it so unique. When a client comes in, I can almost guarantee every time they come to see Rochelle, she listens, right, and she understands, okay. This is my life situation. This is my ambition for being here, and it can be tied to life situations. Maybe it’s tied to something, you know, yeah, emotional, whatever. And when we under understand that, we can craft the narrative and the offer that’s given back, and it really creates, you know, really great relationships. The same thing with with employees. Like, Sure, they’re there to inject and all that, but they have lives, and they have ambitions, you know, built around their lives. And the more we understand and hear and assess their narratives, you’re just constantly transacting in that space. And again, that doesn’t necessarily just mean money, like, you know, sometimes in business, we just turn to that, but when it’s grounded in just true ambition. I mean that that’s what that’s what business is, right? We’re all trying to achieve something, and it sort of ebbs and flows, and so it’s just constantly listening, I think is a really good skill, both in your offers to you know, those that are paying you money, that’s how they choose to transact, but also within, you know, your business. And I believe that creates culture.
As well. There’s something just, you know, amazing that comes from that. And it’s just, again, always ebbing and flowing, like you’re going to fail sometimes, and usually those failures are exposing gaps and understanding. And we, again, when we we fail in those offers, we realize we need to go acquire some new knowledge or lean on our networks. And that’s what just continues, just, you know, that growth. And so that’s a, that’s a loaded word to say the least. No, I love it. I mean, shoot, I’m, I’m learning just listening to you guys go, I love, I love the offer scenario. It’s like the givers gain, type of philosophy, right? Yeah, so, and I think, you know, you made an interesting point. Is listening, you know, and I think when you anchor something such as the terminology around offer or givers gain or understanding someone’s purpose, their drive, their motivation, their ambition, and you just sit back and listen and you’re there to actually execute on that and help them achieve results, whether it’s A patient, right? That’s looking to achieve self confidence, or something emotional happen, or it’s a team member or employee, or something like, once you have an understanding of that, and I’m going to use your word, once you understand the offer and how you can give each other offers back and forth, that’s just going to build rapport and relationships and a complete understanding of how to communicate, to achieve, I would say, even a great marriage, a great business, great loyal patience and an evolving team structure. So that’s amazing. So let me just pivot, just for a second,
and I want to talk about Cameron, your background for a minute,
because I’m pretty sure it’s nothing to do with esthetics and anatomy, right? It’s more my association.
Yeah,
my face needs work. So yeah, for sure, maybe a lot I see this very successful, yeah. And the reason why I wanted to point it out was because I see like the husband that comes in, and I have a couple other practices that I work with that I could call out, but we’ll, I’ll table the names, you know, but when I see the business aspect come in with the injectable background, you know, All the understandings of anatomy and how to build confidence in this industry and specialty, you combine that with business background experience. Michelle, I’m not saying you don’t have that. I’m just saying
without the right and that’s really interesting.
Well, yeah, so like, you know, I go to several shows, and I speak, and my entire background is business, you know, and I’ve learned, obviously, esthetics and the vocabulary and terminology, and I’ve had treatments done and and I’ve explored many practices, and I’ve learned a lot, but at the same time, it’s not like, anchored into my history right where It is yours. What’s anchored into my history is like business process, profit and loss, P and L, margin, all this stuff. How do you look at a financial statement? How you look at a balance sheet? And so it’s really, it’s awesome that you guys have, that, you know, together to bring those backgrounds to create, you know, re esthetics and the academy that you have. So Cameron, just on your background, like, give us, like, a synopsis on that. I know we’re talking offline, like you’re big into real estate and but I think like having that background, combining it with her craft, your craft, you’re able to make decisions that are backed by data, which is awesome. Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and put this out here. Whoever’s listening. At some point we should create a husband’s group where we
can do a supporter. There’s lots of like injectors that interact with at some point we need to create a group. I actually write all jokes aside, I think that would actually be a really sort of just fun network to, you know, to learn and yeah,
yeah. So I went to school, Arizona State University is school of Accounting and Finance. And so I was taught very early on that accounting is the language of business, and if you can read financial statements, then you understand whether or not a business is healthy or not. And very early on, starting that space, and ended up working for a family business that was in fuel wholesale and and gasoline and kind of doing, also real estate investment, and I’ve been attached with them for almost, I think it’s been about 21 years, 20 years, something like that. In between there I launched a very successful commercial production business. And so I have a creative side of my brain, which is strange, because I enjoy numbers, but I also love creativity. And just that was helpful, because I started my own business and kind of understood sort of entrepreneurialism and how that sort of, you know, ebbs and flows with with life and what it requires and but also it really got me.
Into marketing. I ended up working with some major marketing firms on both coasts, and sort of sort of understand the language of marketing as well. And, yeah, primarily focused in real estate investment and in several states, and just again, looking at long term investments and tax free exchanges and things that nature nothing to do with esthetics at the end of it, but again, constantly, you know, we say that, but it, but it’s the language of business, right? You learn to understand, you sort of build your networks, obviously. And there are base networks that I think are just critical for starting a business, like insurance, legal, accounting firms, like those things that are there to support and help businesses thrive that I think a lot of, especially people in the med spa space, where the barriers to entry are very low and it’s very easy to open up shop and just, you know, start generating revenue, which is great. I think it’s fantastic. But so often we hear of people in the space that don’t have, you know, those extended networks that are sort of just functional. They just, they’re required to help a business survive. And I, that’s what I brought to the table. It was great, because at that point I, I had been working, you know, in the field of whatever, for at least 1920 years, and I was able to bring all those relationships, which is a huge deal, because as Rachelle and I start to assess, it’s like, okay, we feel like we Rochelle had the identity and the accomplishments to be able to launch a med spa business in that space. Was very knowledgeable. She had a team. I had the business backing, as well as that network. And I think that gave us a lot of confidence to say, Okay, it’s a little bit of a jump, but we’re, we’re there, and we, we can, we can take this thing. So that’s sort of my loose background. That’s huge. You don’t, you don’t hear it a whole lot. I mean, it’s, it’s really hard. Like, I think being a practice owner, like, when you zoom out, it’s so it’s a hard objective. Like, it’s a hard business to run, right? Like, you’re trying to build confidence and patience. They’re not buying Botox. They’re not buying, like, the CO two lasers or other modalities. They’re not buying like, semi glutide, which is a very popular topic, they’re not buying that. They’re buying confidence, whether it’s external or internal, feeling good, looking good, you know. And Rachelle can focus on that, right? She probably thrives on, like, the smile of a patient, right? Like, I bet that’s like her joy. I can see her just light up when I even say that, right? And then you can come into the space and be like, Okay, well, let’s look at, like, some financial aspects of what’s going on, like, what’s selling the best in terms of our inventory? What are our margins at Should we buy that piece of equipment? What are the tax advantages of it? I want to talk about that for a second, because I don’t think it’s talked about enough. Like, what are some of the KPIs and metrics on the financials that you look for and that you you like? What are some of the benchmarks that you try to focus on as we go into, you know, I guess the second half of the year now? Well, let me back up. I think you know, the other thing that people miss like they don’t pay attention to is that running a med spa, managing a team, you know, training, running a Patreon, that takes up so much time and business also, and then, you know, accounting, like bookkeeping, we have somebody doing like the We call those tactics, right? And all of the tactical things that are just necessary to run business. People need to do those. And you need networks. You know, you need people, whether it’s your team or external networks. And then I think, really, you know, there’s the numbers, but then there’s having the space, we call it freedom and freedoms and autonomies, right? That space to be able to look and make assessments and build strategies around what you’re looking at. And I think that that’s really, that’s where a lot of people get hung up, especially like individual owners that don’t have a CFO. They have all the best intentions in the world, but they’re so task oriented. Yeah, they don’t have the bandwidth, yeah, to look at things at the high level, because they are so in the ditches, right? The day to day tasks. And seeing, not seeing patients, is awful, but they’re busy doing the tasks. They don’t have the ability, oh yeah, to be strategic. And the reality situation is, you gotta sleep. You probably have a family, you know, the exact but it’s interesting that having somebody that has the space to be able to look and we’ll talk about, you know, the the key indicators that’s important, because just again, even if it was just an hour a day that, and that’s that comes at a cost, right? Like, if you were looking at numbers and staring at spreadsheets and reports, something else is not being done. And they whether it’s a hard cost or just the cost of time, there is a cost to that. And I think that that’s a big thing to keep in mind. And I, you know, I’ve listened to the podcast, and I’ve gained a lot of knowledge as I’ve listened to outsiders sort of talk about what indicators they’re looking at. And that’s immediately what I think is, I wonder how many people actually have the time, and I’m sure they get into what we call, sort of like a crisis situation when somebody comes and asks, you know, what?
These KPIs look like, not only do they not know they are, they struggle that they even have the time to go figure out what that is. And so the only way they can do it is, you know, looking outward. So I think that was important to call out one other thing too. I think from a medical standpoint, you know, you talked about how I’m in the medical i There’s no business classes,
right? There’s one we’re taught this. And it’s interesting because I come from a family with a lot of medicine. I have doctors, pas dentists, all brothers, you know, in my family, so there’s a lot of medicine in my family. I’m actually in school right now, finishing up my NP. And it’s interesting because we learn billing, we learn basics. And somebody asked her, like, Would it be helpful to have a basic business course and in peace school? And I thought, yes, that would be because here you have and I look at it with all my family members. You have people who have been trained in medicine. We know how to care for people. We know their safety. We know how to prescribe. We know how to do these things. We don’t know how to run a business.
There is no foundational knowledge, and yet, they’re all going out and starting their own businesses, and they don’t know what they’re doing. So to be able to have somebody who has that business background, who can look at me and say, That’s great, Rochelle, that you made somebody pretty, but how are we going to actually transact on this? Like, what are the numbers? And I sit there, and I look out, I don’t know, I just made her pretty. So I’m good, you know, to have that foundational knowledge, I think, is absolutely critical, and I didn’t understand it before.
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Yeah. I mean, just kind of going back to that’s why I think it’s I was thinking the other thinking the other day I was on a run. I always I run. That’s, you know, one of the hobbies I have, and I think constantly. And the other day I was, I was on a podcast recently with Alex theoris, the CEO of am spa, and we were talking, and we were looking at numbers
and and I was blown away. Like, single practice owners, uh,
nationwide, the top line revenue is right around 1.2 million in in revenue sold. I mean, so this is a seven figure business. I mean, just, you know, like, I’m like, that’s a, I mean, it’s $100,000 a month in sales. It’s doing volume. Where do you find the time to analyze the numbers the KPIs, and they’re even asked a question, like you said. They’re like, I don’t even know what my KPI should be, right? Because I’ve done eight appointments today. I’m exhausted. I will tell you right now, yeah, we don’t, yeah, I will tell you that, right? And they don’t know the numbers. They don’t. There is no way to be injecting eight hours a day, charting on all of those, doing inventory, doing everything that you have to do, to just manage the practice, check in with your patients, make sure they’re okay, and then have time to do that you would be working 120 hours a week. Yeah, that’s crazy. It’s just it’s not awesome, it’s not sustainable, yeah, and, you know, yeah. And then I think, like, you can lose sight of your why, you know, like, if you’re trying to run it, you know that at that capacity, like, why I’m into this. Like, if, if you guys are, you know, and this is for the audience, if you guys are finding yourself in this position where you’re finding that, like, oh my gosh, like you’re kind of dreading the appointment as much as you may used to like it. It’s like burnout is real. You know it truly is. And if you think you can do everything, you know you can for a while, and you can run hard, but you know you will get tired no matter what you’re taking your, you know, supplemental stuff, working out, like charging your body, you know, wellness stuff. But like, you need a team and a team to support you. It’s so important. I mean, you hire people, yeah, you may look at it as an expense, but, you know, like, I’ve always looked at it personally as a way of getting my time back and making sure I can focus on my.
After what I enjoy doing in a business that way you have, like, It’s fun, right? Like, going to work should be fun, not painful, right? And so, like, you know, just for the audience, like, really, you take the time to assess that, you know, take the time. Like, if you’re working all the time and you love it, and that’s, that’s what you like to do, that’s great. But I think, like, zoom out, what is the forecast? What does the future of the business look like? How long can you sustain it? And it may be time to to hire people. I mean, there’s conferences, there’s networks, there’s groups, there’s all sorts of resources out there. Yeah, right. And so, yeah, to talk more on that. So what I wanted to get that from you cam was, was like, some specific benchmarks or caps, and just totally curious. So usually on a daily basis, just always tracking cash. It’s actually the first thing I do is, you know, just cash position and just always understanding, like, where are we at today? What does the next seven days look like? What does the next 1530 and then even out to a year, right? And just, sort of just okay, where are we at, with the idea that, again, always grounded in your ambition. What moves are we going to make as a business? Do we need to infuse a little bit of capital, like in our situation we’ve been leading up to, we have a pretty big location move coming up, an upgrade, tons of TIs. And so just, you know, managing cash and being able to speak to that, and it’s interesting that cash is also you can do a lot of cash management when you’re doing KPIs on like, what’s my average cash in per month? So I know, for the last three years, I know exactly what the average is. I’m comparing month to month to see again from a cash flow perspective and also income. Like, how did we stack up to June of last year and then the year before that? And then just being able to see again and understand averages, so that as we look out and again, whether it be purchasing a new piece of equipment or making a location move, or perhaps we need to hire on somebody new, knowing that the cash is going to be there to cover so that’s a day to day thing, always just constantly in the cash and just sort of just managing that, and then on a monthly basis, it’s a pretty big list, really well on a bi weekly basis. So we do payroll every every other week, constantly in the metrics of each of the providers, how much revenue are they generating per hour? You know, what do their margins look like? You know, there’s a ton of them, to be honest with you, and understanding that so that we understand, okay, are they being efficient? Are they capitalizing on their time? How do we need to sort of help them? Is there something we need to be doing to sort of help them be more effective? But really, there’s probably like seven or eight metrics per employee that I’m looking at on a bi weekly basis, also taking the data and understanding how many hours a day are rooms being occupied, and you know, for the hours that they’re being booked, like booking percentages and things that nature, how much money are we making per hour in the room, right? And looking at that. And then also just looking at margins and just performance, so that we can applaud where needed, and, you know, lift people up. And then also, if somebody’s falling behind, it’s, it’s, again, we have that data to be able to say, okay, and it’s interesting, you know, I’m looking at all of these and and a practice that I have found with somebody that’s not, you know, doesn’t have the sort of, just the accounting vernacular. Show
me, this is what this means your profit loss. I’m like, Oh, well. And it’s funny, because, you know, coming up in business, you’re used to, like, running a bunch of reports and then just kicking off a PDF. And like, I quickly learned that was a point of contention for my marriage, like it occupied too many dinners, and it sort of over inundated Rochelle, and I realize, again, just given her limited time, and especially now with school, family, running a business, all of the things I now have sort of built, sort of what I call condensed reports. And I’ll just do screen grabs and say, Okay, here’s this payroll. Here’s where everybody stacks up. And it’s just, it’s very quick and dirty, and I’ve customized it. And the practice I use is, okay, Rachelle, here’s the data and here’s the assessment that I made, and it allows her to sort of just read a two line assessment, see the data, and then we can talk about it, right? And but then it’s always top of mind for her, so that if she bumps in, you know, if she’s at the office, bumps into a provider, she’s got that data in just small, little, you know, bites, not like a huge like, I’m looking at tabs and tabs of reports, right? And for me, that’s the other thing I do on a bi weekly basis and on a monthly basis, is okay, I’m gonna take little condensed bits that I can give to Rochelle, because it’s great that I understand that. But that’s not effective. That’s not an effective or an efficient strategy. And so I will usually take those metrics, especially the employees, and say, Okay, this is payroll for this week. You know that we process. Here’s where everybody’s sort of stacking up. Things look great, like, you know, a note of like, we’re killing it, we’re crushing it, or, you know, just get did all the month end report.
And cash is up, you know, 25% like, we killed it. So always tracking those, I’m able to go in and say, Hey guys, yeah, well done, right? I can act on all of those little things. Or, you know what, this person’s, this person’s having a hard time, like, what can we do? So then, instead of going saying, You suck, it’s,
what can we do to support you? Where do you feel like your gaps are? I can have a conversation with that employee based on the information he gave me and act on it. It’s building a just a narrative. It’s like a KPI narrative is what we build, and we’re making offers based on that data. Just back to the honors, yep. And then we’re, we’re always looking at membership revenue, so that’s always something that’s always something that’s really important, because it’s a key component. And is that going up and down, and then that automatically takes us to Okay, how many new members signed up this month? Always looking at that data. How many canceled this month? Always looking at that. How many, you know, visits? What’s the average spend per patient, you know, for the month, and how did that stack up again, always looking a year back, a month back, just sort of comparing, just again to get that pulse. And, you know, I, and I do, I track tons and tons of just data points, just to kind of see, on the marketing side, what are we spending for every phone call that comes in? How much did that cost? And then speaking that right? And I think it’s important to disseminate that information. Again, I think med spas are unique because you’re not bringing in individuals that have deep knowledge in business or financial statements, but giving like the front desk lady. Are two amazing front desk receptionists. They’re incredible speaking to them and saying, you know, we found some gaps in our marketing. And going to them and saying, Hey, that call costs us 150 bucks. You know. Let what can we talk about? What strategy do we build around to capitalize on all of these efforts and dollars spent? And it’s interesting that always having those in the back of your mind, you know, I talk about the the narrative, the language of business, you know it. I think sometimes it’s over inundating for people, because they’re like, Okay, all these numbers, what am I supposed to do? Sometimes you don’t do anything. You just have them in the back of your mind so that you know where the business is. And then again, as you’re as you’re speaking constantly and transacting outside or inside, you can speak and you have data to be able to speak from, as opposed to just speaking something that’s loose and baseless, right? Like we often talk about the difference between motivation and mobilization. You know, motivation can be a weak thing where it’s just like, oh, you know, you’re looking great today. It’s, it’s raining, it’s nice. It’s not a million degrees out, like we should feel good about that’s, baseless, something that’s base and ambition really, like, It mobilizes people, right? Like, again, back to the marketing conversation. It’s we spent $150
on that. There’s no guilt associated with that, but it adds some weight to every time that phone calls, there’s been some significant efforts, and then all of a sudden they, know, listen, my my team is trying to support me, and I’m going to really put some effort behind it. And so I, yeah, listing the KPIs, I, I’d have to have it in front of me, but it’s just cash flow, yeah. And then just looking at balance, you know, obviously, looking at income statement, and, you know, the the actual pulse of the business, and looking at, okay, are we profitable? And again, that that means different things if you don’t have an ambition, and truthfully, you’re just, you know, running a business, just to run a business, that that, that that paper is not going to mean anything. Sure, there may be a not red number at the bottom of that. But again, we’re really working on that. Okay, here’s top line revenue, here’s net income. What does that mean to us? And really building a narrative, like an actual narrative for Rochelle and I, and that’s been a real, key focal point to now start setting some real ambitions for growth and understanding, okay, we have that ambition. What does that mean for the number and this month, where are we at? You know, in that ambition, and that’s your, that’s your, that’s your, your, literally your North Star, right? Like your financial statements are the north star of your ambition. And just looking at those constantly, I think, is just, it orients you in such a way. And I use a lot of specific language, but it creates velocity as well with your ambition that you when everybody’s working together, you’re making offers, you’re looking at that data constantly, and you have that ambition, just as you’re driving force, man, like everybody, starts to work in motion, and it becomes a beautiful thing that isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imaginary. And you know, the cool thing with KPIs as well as I love that’s one of the I spoke it before, and I’ll speak it again sometimes I like, you know, from a general business standpoint, it’s like, yeah, I kind of understand what we should be looking at. But it was interesting to hear in one of your podcasts, you know, these private equity companies saying we’re coming from the outside, and they have a different ambition, right?
Like, obviously they have a set return they’re looking for, and they’re looking and they spoke some specific metrics, you know, KPIs. And I thought, Man, that cued me. And it was funny, the three times that happened on your podcast, came back to the office, wrote down a note, built a new report where I could just again. Nobody gave me this is the spreadsheet. But I just knew, Okay, this is actually something we should be tracking, and I’m going to start looking at that, and it’s great, because it starts to expose gaps in knowledge procedure, whatever it may be. That’s the beauty of those KPIs. And again, comes at a cost, because somebody’s got to have the time to generate them, and then somebody’s got to have the time to evaluate them. So that’s where I think that inspiration? Yeah, without information, you don’t have any grounds, right? You have no nothing to stand on. So you can have all of these great ideas, all of these fantastic but if you don’t have the information to be able to say, yes, we have the money do that, or, you know what, we’ve made enough, we are investing that money. It’s not we don’t need to buy any capital. We don’t need it, so we’re going to just invest that money for now, and we’re going to let that build up money on its own.
But you have to have the information to be able to act no. Well said, I mean, you know, I think, like, you know, sometimes we want to act off of emotion and just say, oh my gosh, it’s cool idea. I saw that on Instagram or social media. I should totally do that. I went to a conference that sounds great, and having the information and the data points to back it up, then you can really drive the ship and understand that North Star metric for sure. I love that. I mean, you made some great, great points in terms of how much the providers are making per hour. That is such a key metric to track.
And I don’t think I know not you know, nearly enough practices are tracking that. And so that brings me to my next my next point, you guys are building out this new facility, right? And based on the conversation I’m just hearing now, there’s reasons why you said, You know what? Let’s go do a build out. I’m sure it’s more space. I don’t typically see people go to a smaller space and those are contracting.
I’m sure that was fueled by ambition. I’m sure that was fueled by information, and I’m sure it was filled by desire and offers. So like, talk to me about that, because I know just talking with you guys, that was fueled by everything that you’re trying to achieve, to hit your North Star.
So I think also in 100% with all that too, it’s also founded in the patient experience, which I think is critically important as well. Yeah, you’re gonna have the walmartization, and then you’d have the Tiffany experience, right? And these are luxury walmartization. That’s a new word. I love it. I love it. We’re gonna trademark that.
I think that dividing is going to become more and more apparent.
And I personally don’t want to go to Walmart for my face, like that’s not where I’m going to go. If it’s my face, I’m going to go to the place that knows what they’re doing, and they are going to give me that luxury experience. It doesn’t have to have the Tiffany price tag with it, but it’s going to be that experience. And I think that is another in conjunction with the things that you mentioned, but that is going to be that is another reason that we are moving to the space is because
we want that offering to be exceptional, that when people come in and they come to Ari, that there’s a reason that I chose Ari is the name. It is gold in Latin. It is the gold standard. That we are going to have a exceptional offering that our patients recognize the value in. They see the value and they feel that value in it. And that was another reason that we are
expanding to this space. So that’s the fluffy, feel good part of it, right?
And then
building out spaces. It’s funny, she, yeah, it’s one of her true talents is, is she creates, you know, and all different domains, but that space is, I think, is much a part of her resume, as her, you know, just her accomplishments in the injecting space, the move is also a part of a strategy, right? Like, again, we talk about that. Again, the North Star of business is like, what is the ambition? And we have a growth strategy. And now that we know this is what each room, you know, can generate in terms of income, and if we add a couple of rooms, and you know, again, we increase our capabilities in and being able so we’re going to make some moves and and also, it’s not just to move to the space. But also we realize we need to one up some of our software that schedules and allows for us to be efficient and take that data and really act on it. And so yes, we do need additional space, and yes, we want to increase the patient experience, but also it’s very much grounded in the ambition that.
It was necessary to be able to reach that ambition, you know, that we’ve set for ourselves and and that also requires capital, right? Like we, we’ve been very much aligned with that over the last few years, positioning ourselves in such a way that that we’ve got the capital to be able to make, you know, that type of a move we got the networks and banking and finance to be able to make that happen in kind of a crappy, you know,
borrowing environment, to say the least. But also it’s grounded in the fact that we’re very keen on making sure that our providers, which we we we think, is family. I mean, they are an extension of our family. We want them to be we want their experience to be elevated, and we realize that their families are growing, you know, their ambitions are growing, and this space allows for them to do that. And so truthfully, it’s what we kind of call a full move, you know, it really is sort of ticking all the boxes that are grounded in ambition and a strategy that we’ve been speaking for over a year now, yeah, I love it. Is it? How far is the new facility from where you are now, two miles,
right in the hot, hot pocket of Gilbert, which is, you know,
it’s huge. I mean, the growth in Gilbert is ginormous. I mean, it’s just, it’s huge. And we and also, again, it was strategic. We’re looking at what is annual income per door in, you know, a 10 mile radius, and is there more foot traffic like there? There were a lot of different decisions. It wasn’t just, hey, this is the only space available. Like we we looked at it critically. And also, it was interesting, you know, one other, again, another practice we use, as we looked at it, is we took patient data from esthetic record, which we’re in currently, toss it into Google Maps, and sort of built a perimeter and sort of understood, okay, this move is going to affect existing clients. Where is in searches, you know, geologic or geographically? Where does it make most sense? So that we’re honoring, hey, we value the relationship. We want to continue that, and we’re moving in a place that’s still accommodating, but also facili facilitates growth. And it was interesting to see that again, another metric that I had never even eyeballed, but because we were in this new situation, I needed to build a new practice around that. And so we looked at it. And then as we went out with the broker, we’re keeping our eye on that map
within this zone. This is the zone. And that’s not spitballing right there. There’s like, there’s a reason why. And again, the data, like, what an amazing day and age that we I call it, the language I’ve been given, is we’re in the industrial revolution for it’s all available, and all you have to do is design a practice around that, that, again, elevates that ambition that you’re just always geared towards. And, yeah, it’s, it’s been a really fun and it’s also scary, you know, scary thing, because this is not a laser. This is not, I mean, we’re in the Big Boy real estate, but it’s a great investment, for sure. That’s awesome, guys, congratulations. I love it. I i love that all the decisions are made
off of anchored ambition information and you know, Rochelle can just shine at her craft build out an awesome new space and facility design around patient experience. I’m sure that’s got to be so much fun. My wife loves love design and making places just look absolutely beautiful. So I can totally relate to that. She can too,
and then just backing it up by data point decisions. And I think there’s so many practices out there that make decisions on emotion too quickly,
without really just like, hey, take a second. Let’s just hold back for a minute. Let’s really analyze a couple points here and see if this truly does make sense for us. Right where I’ve seen some like the most successful practices grow in scale is they start small, simple, easy, 10 by 10 room, just doing injectables and like creating great profit margins for themselves, and then build off of that, you know, and not run too fast by the expensive laser that they can barely, you know, afford spend a ton of money on marketing. Think patients would just come and then go do this massive build out, and think patients would just come like, you know, you guys have done it very, very correctly. And I think, like, you know, for the audience, for you guys tuning in, like, there’s so much to take away from this conversation.
And to be clear, there’s been a lot of mistakes, you know, and a lot of but that’s, that’s the beauty of business, right? Is just a constant learning, and it it just fuels growth, like you have to build some resiliency. And part of that resiliency comes from having, you know, just passion and ambition and an amazing offering and knowledge and just knowledge to back it up.
And so it was started that way, exactly.
You said, it was started in my brother, who’s a physician, in his office, in a little 10 by 10 room, just me,
and then I brought on other injectors. I was training them, I was teaching them. And it grew and grew and grew to the point where we were not fitting in this 10 by
10
room anymore, and we’re smooth out. So important to realize you don’t ever have to do it all. Yeah, yeah. It is okay to just stay an injector only practice. That is okay, and you will do well, you’ll be successful. I think so many times people look at it and they say, oh my gosh, I want to start my own, and I want to have lasers, and I want to have all this. And I’m like, you were crazy. Like, just start small, a you can be very successful and do that and and be able to create beautiful results. You don’t have to do everything totally. And I think, like, what happens is they, you know, practice owners, will start looking at competition and be like, Oh my gosh. They have this CO two laser. I need those services. I need, all the services to stay ahead of competition. And again, I, you know, that’s a decision based upon emotion, right? It’s not like you can hone in and like, go to all like, visit the best injectors around the country if you want to, and get all the certifications. And people come to you to get, like, the InVEST result, the best result possible, right? And they know what they’re getting, and they can go elsewhere to get, you know, other services and treatments done. I think it’s an excellent strategy, Michelle, question for you, and I, you know, I’m just curious, because you spend a ton of time with the patient, right? Like, one on one time. I know you have other providers that do as well when you are conducting your craft. Like, what are some of the things that help build that relationship? Right? I mean, you’re, you know, you’re up close and personal. There’s conversations, you know, my wife was in the salon business for many years, and it’s almost like she was like, they’re, you know, therapists, in a way,
interesting things would come up in conversations like, oh my gosh, can’t wait. They said that. What are some of the things that has helped you
have those conversations and then be able to, and I’m sure you document them, right? So like when they come or you take notes that when they come back, and you kind of build on that, because it’s hard if you’re doing a ton of appointments and remember everything, can you lean on that for a second? Yeah, I used to be able to, but now, no, so yeah, I think one of the biggest things is, and we spoke about it earlier, is, is truly listening. People want to be heard, they want to be validated, and they want to feel love like those are basic needs, that people human needs. Yes, basic human needs. And so truly, when they come in and I don’t rush my appointments like I am not a which I know, again, from a financial profitability standpoint, would be better to have a 10 minute, you know, Botox appointment. I don’t. I used to for a period of time. I did, and I didn’t like it, because I wasn’t able to ask about their last vacation and what happened with their child and, you know, and to be able to connect with people I’ve had patients for 13 years, the entire time because I care, because I’ll listen to them and and truly invest in that relationship. So I think that is one of the key things, is just
taking time. And time is our, our most valuable
um offer to transact on, because it’s the most limited. And so taking that time to be able to listen to them, to give them a little bit of ourselves, and to be able to truly understand what their ambitions are what their goals are. So that way you can create offers that meet them. If a patient comes in and, you know, they they’re bubbly, and they’re having fun, and then you start asking questions, and all of a sudden they’re breaking down, and you’re like, Okay, wait, like, this is the real this. This was not what you came in with, was not real. I think it is important to be able to do that. And you can’t do it if you were rushed, if you have three patients in rooms, and you’re going, bing, bing, bing, bing, you can’t do that. You may make a lot of money that day, but your long term investment is short. Great point. Yeah, great point. I think it’s a quick win, right? You could look at it from bouncing around and quick wins and like getting I get those patients from other providers, that’s what ends up happening. There you go. Eventually they get tired of not being heard, not being listened to, not being felt, they come to me, and then they end up being my patient, because now they feel validated, now they feel heard, now they feel understood, investing the time listen, give them the love, document it, and then I’m sure you guys, I know you guys have to go on. You’re very you’re very busy, and I really appreciate you guys spending the time. I’m sure you have a wonderful like SOP for the checkout process, the checkout experience as well. And that’s yes, transitioning all the way through we’re this is something that we’re still currently working on. But.
From the time they walk in, making it a great experience to I’m done instead of just like, all right, check out at the front I’m walking up to the front desk. I’m handing them off. I’m making that entire experience from beginning to end where they are the priority. Love it. You guys are amazing. This conversation was very powerful. I really appreciate it. The audience is going to love it. Thank you guys so much. Congratulations on everything. I know that we didn’t get too much into the academy, but and the Patreon page that you have. So thank you guys so much. So there you have it. We have cam and Rochelle Trejo. They have an incredible business and practice. Lots of insights KPIs here, talking about patient experience, talking about the KPIs. This is incredible. Thank you guys, so much for your time. Until next time. Happy injecting. You.