In this episode, Cameron is joined by Summer Layton and Lexie Engel, from Habit Med Spa + Facial Bar, and they discuss the importance of consumer experience, day-to-day operations, understanding business metrics, and effective marketing strategies. The conversation highlights the significance of technology in tracking performance and making informed decisions to drive growth in the medical aesthetics industry.

Cameron, Summer and Lexie discuss the intricacies of client acquisition, the importance of consultations, and the role of customer experience in building trust and retention in a med spa business. They emphasize the need for effective marketing strategies, understanding KPIs, and leveraging Google reviews to enhance credibility and attract new clients. They also highlightsthe significance of teamwork, delegation, and creating a positive culture within the business to drive success.

Transcript 

Lexie Engel (00:00.123)
you

Cameron Hemphill (00:01.206)
Hey, 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 for practice owners. So if you own a medical aesthetics practice, a wellness clinic, all of these episodes are 100 % designed for you and help take your practice to the next level. So guys, today I have two incredible guests on. I’ve been wanting to have this episode and this recording for quite some time now.

These two ladies are amazing at what they do. They’re entrepreneur driven, have a very successful practice. They’re out of Virginia. And I want to welcome Summer Layton to the show. Not only is she an entrepreneur, she’s had a very successful med spa for year over year and seeing growth, which is amazing. So she’s not a doctor or a provider. So this is somebody that’s coming in and going to talk to you guys from like listening in as the audience and understanding what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Lexie Engel (00:31.238)
you

Lexie Engel (00:41.882)
So,

Cameron Hemphill (00:58.432)
Again, this is a business mindset podcast. And so I think it’s a really cool story that summer is going to get into. then of course we have a Lexi Engel on, she runs day-to-day operations. She’s big on marketing KPIs, patient experience. And so she, basically runs all the operations. what was interesting is before I had them on, obviously we have conversations offline and summer was actually in another country while we were having these conversations.

Lexie Engel (01:20.778)
Okay.

Cameron Hemphill (01:27.602)
And Lexi was on her like third time as you’re about ready to have a baby, right? So the business is still running and that’s why I wanted to call that out. So ladies, thank you so much for taking the time. Welcome to the show.

Lexie Engel (01:40.397)
Thank you. Excited.

Cameron Hemphill (01:44.214)
Yeah, so talk to us about habit med spa and facial bar. What like, I don’t know that I’ve had too many people on that are entrepreneur first over like, I know you’re not a provider or doctor, but you obviously know all the nuances around that owning a medical aesthetics practice. But you know, being an entrepreneur, it’s usually the reverse. You’re either provider, doctor, and then you figure out how to be an entrepreneur. This is the other way around, right?

Summer (02:11.374)
It is the other way around. Yes. So before I opened Habit, I owned an insurance agency and I worked in the insurance industry for 17 years. And then I dabbled in real estate and did some other things, but yeah, I’m very much an entrepreneur at heart. So.

Cameron Hemphill (02:27.658)
I love that. love that. think like, you know, what’s so interesting is, you know, I go to a lot of conferences around and speak and, you know, the, the skillset that providers have that doctors have that these academics have.

It’s amazing, something I could never do. And I really take my hat off to them and they have such a cool job, but they have to learn how to be an entrepreneur. at the end of the day, the practice is a business that has to produce profits, it has to deliver a value proposition to help patients with great experience and retention and marketing and tech and finance and all the crazy stuff. So did you like, it’s almost…

Is that to your advantage of being entrepreneur first? I would think it is in some cases, but maybe also a downside in others. I’m not, I don’t know. Talk to me about that.

Summer (03:17.742)
it’s an advantage because I built my entire business on the consumer experience where I think if you’re a provider or you know whether it’s a nurse or a doctor or anesthetician and you get into this industry you really just are coming at it from your own experience and you kind of lose sight of that consumer experience and so I built the business

solely based on my experience as a consumer. And I built it based on what I wasn’t getting and what I wanted and what I expected. And so when I designed the business and put it together in the beginning, back in 2016, I really took all of the things that I would want when I go into a spa, whether it’s a med spa or a traditional spa, and I kind of packaged it all together and

You have to remember at this time, aesthetics and skincare was not a trend. It wasn’t something that was all over TikTok and Instagram. And so now, you you fast forward seven years later and it’s very much on everyone’s mind. Like anytime you go on social media, you are going to see something skin related. You go into Sephora and it’s crowded with like year old girls. And so the entire industry has changed where I think

Lexie Engel (04:24.864)
Okay.

Summer (04:44.758)
we looked at skincare from a very traditional aspect. And I think a lot of providers still go into it with that mindset. And you really kind of have to step out of that and be a consumer and craft the experience that you want to give to anyone that walks through your doors, which is exactly what I did.

Lexie Engel (04:56.856)
.

Cameron Hemphill (05:03.66)
Yes, that’s super interesting and I think it’s amazing.

Like a couple takeaways that I hear there and something that could help the audience even you guys for tuning in. Maybe take the time to, you know, to go secret shop some other well-known practices in your area. Go there as a patient. Go there and go through a consultation purpose, not in the, with the intent of like stealing trade secrets, but with the intent of, you know, how do people run their, their day to day from a, think of it from a consumer standpoint.

You know, and shoot, think like that’s really important because I look through that lens too. Probably not as extensive as you, just because I’m a male and my, I don’t go to providers as often as my wife does.

Lexie Engel (05:51.483)
Yes.

Cameron Hemphill (05:52.608)
Right. But I do go, you know, but I think that there’s so much value in shopping and experiencing who you are and really knowing who your ideal customer profile is and tailoring it to that. So I think that’s that’s amazing.

Summer (05:55.334)
there.

Summer (06:09.178)
Yeah. So it’s funny because last year, around the holidays, we usually try to do a management retreat. so there’s Lexi Engel who’s on the podcast with us today. And then there’s Jillian Cybert who she also runs our day-to-day operations and neither of them had ever. Had like they haven’t went into getting services.

Lexie Engel (06:23.387)
you

Lexie Engel (06:34.451)
.

Summer (06:37.838)
at an outside spa with the intent of like really going in as a consumer and looking at it professionally from our day to day. And so we did that last year and it was fun because afterwards we can talk about, here’s what they did really well. Here’s what they didn’t do really well. And here’s what, you know, we do really well based on our current experience where at the spa that we were at. And we were at a very nice spa, but

you know, we were able to talk about the vast differences and one spot isn’t better than the other. They’re just different. And so it was fun to go into that experience with Jillian and Lexi last year and really dive into that experience as a consumer, but also as a professional and with the background that we have. So.

Lexie Engel (07:27.607)
Okay.

Cameron Hemphill (07:31.758)
Yeah, I completely agree. think, and maybe you guys had some great takeaway moments there that you were able to implement or not implement or, you know, be like, wow, just kind of an eye opening experience from a consumer standpoint and takeaway. I think it’s a best practice for people to go through that. So I completely agree. Now, Lexi, you’ve been here, you’ve been at the practice for how long?

Lexie Engel (07:55.542)
Two and a half years.

Cameron Hemphill (07:59.598)
Awesome. I mean, you run the show, right? So like you and another guy, I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to meet, but, you know, talk to us about day to day operations, the patient experience. I know you’re big on the marketing. You know, talk to us a little bit about your background and what you do on a day to day basis to make sure that the practice is running at full capacity.

Lexie Engel (08:13.815)
Mm-hmm.

Lexie Engel (08:21.749)
Yeah, so it’s me and Jillian. I usually tell people I’m kind of like the macro. Like I look at the big picture and kind of make sure all the wheels are spinning and Jillian’s more of the micro making sure like true day to day she’s in the spa managing everything from payroll to our staff to ordering all that stuff. So then I kind of look at it from the big picture of like, okay, what do we have to do to get from point A to point B?

everything from like, I sat down this year with summer and we put together like a very detailed spreadsheet of our numbers. know exactly what our numbers are for each category, of what we’re looking at. And then we sit down and we say, okay, well, how can we do better, you know, this year and we can compare last January to this January. And, it’s really important to know your numbers. And I kind of started all with marketing.

Originally when Summer hired me, I kind of hounded her a little bit. My background is in, I graduated from Randolph-Macon with business, a small school here in Richmond, Virginia. And I grew up in a family business. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mind. I’ve always wanted to make money. Like that’s just always been my drive. My sister laughs at me because I started a side hustle of a spray tan business and it turned into a legitimate business.

And my husband and I live in a little bit more rural part of Richmond. And so people are like, you don’t need to spray tan business out there, dude, it took off. it was just great side hustle that turned into a business. But I’ve always had that business mindset. I get that from my parents, especially growing up in a business. And I just always love marketing. Everyone told me getting out of school, go into sales, go into sales, you’ll make so much money. I did. I went in to sales with a pretty well known company.

in the United States and absolutely hated it. So ironically, my mom was talking to me about that today. So then I got with summer marketing, just always been a passion, really loved it, really loved the digital side. And so a lot of people are like, how do you do social media for a living? It’s like, I don’t really do social media for a living. Once you get past the marketing of this is what we want to do with our social. And then it turned into, well, yeah, but we need to hit these KPIs.

Lexie Engel (10:41.525)
And then how do you do that? So that’s kind of where I like transitioned over. I kind of have. I do marketing, but in the sense of it’s how can you market something that you don’t know what your financial goals are, you know what I mean? So like she was saying, like, we’re going to kind of step back a little bit on promotions for February. Well, we do really great promotions in January. And a lot of people are like, well.

Why would you do that? Well, January is usually one of our hardest months, you know, on us as a company. But a lot of people get money for Christmas and then they get to come in and spend it and buy those packages and do because people are like, it makes no sense why you would do that. Like, why not do that at Christmas when people can do it? But it’s like we do gift card gift card promotion. So you don’t want to put all your eggs out there, you know, in December. But anyway, so that’s kind of like what I do. I have my hands in a lot of different baskets. I.

when we talk about, you know, building a team later, but I’m really big on culture. When I came in initially when I was hired, it was a very interesting team. Now I can truly say they are hiring people while on maternity leave, which I joke about my if I have a whole new team when I come back to me so mad, but we have a really great culture. And I think that’s really important working with people who.

you know, one, respect you, two, they understand your goals. And we’ve come so far in just the two and a half years that I’ve been here. So that’s kind of what I do. I’m not just on Instagram all day, despite what some people might think I do for a living. But but it’s really it’s a beautiful thing because I get to be a mom. I get to work, you know, kind of wherever I can take my computer. Like today I’m in Fredericksburg and at my mom’s house and having this conversation.

while she’s taking care of my three week old. So yeah, I love it. It’s a really great industry.

Summer (12:37.606)
It’s kind of a silly question for someone to say like, Oh, what do you do with social media? I mean, social media is a tool in our toolbox. It’s just like one very small part of how you market your business and how you position your business. It’s like a contractor, like, Oh, you’re just using a hammer all day. Well, not really.

Cameron Hemphill (12:37.731)
video.

Lexie Engel (12:43.539)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (12:47.047)
Mm-hmm.

Lexie Engel (12:54.099)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (12:58.612)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a big like connector too. Like I absolutely love connecting with people. reaching out like one thing Summer and I really want to do is like grow our footprint. we have like, you know, we love the business side of things like that’s Summer nice passion. And so being able to connect with people like you or even like we use Boulevard as our booking software and

connecting with Skye and a few of the people over there and Scott and being able to do that and work with all these amazing companies and tech companies who are doing exactly what we’re trying to do as well, but on the technical side. So it’s hard. That’s why I said it’s hard to put a title on what I do because it’s like I connect with people. I try and run our social media content. Like there’s just there’s so much.

stuff that goes into kind of having that person that can do that. But it makes sense though because it’s, you know, Summer has so much more stuff that she has to do. You really need those eyes of like, hey, just so you know, this is what’s coming up kind of thing. Because it’s too much for one person to take on by themselves.

Cameron Hemphill (14:11.406)
Yeah, yeah, checks and balances. mean, you know, one of the, were talking about offline a little bit, but you guys did make a note that the January performance for 2025 was higher than January of 2024. And it sounds to me, at least talking offline, the practices running itself, you guys weren’t really there. Lexi, you had the new baby event, Summer, you’re out of the office as well.

which is amazing. mean, you know, a business that’s able to run and maintain more profitable year over year without you having to be there every step of the way proves several things. Great culture, great systems, great processes, proven marketing, knowing your numbers. I think like tabling that a little bit further, when you look at your numbers, like you mentioned that you built the spreadsheet, you guys connected, we built the spreadsheet, here’s kind of what we did, here’s where we want to go. Could you just talk to us a little bit about like,

Lexie Engel (14:45.842)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (14:53.617)
Thank

Cameron Hemphill (15:05.462)
When you’re looking, hey, know your numbers, right? We talk about that at a high level all the time on this podcast. I interview people. I shoot, even say it, but let’s go a step deeper. What do mean you look at the numbers? What numbers are you looking at?

Lexie Engel (15:07.762)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (15:19.966)
What are some of the more important numbers? Obviously, we don’t have to name every one. But just like highlights, what are some of the important numbers that you guys are looking at that are benchmarks? What does success look like? Are you moving the needle? Where are you going?

Lexie Engel (15:25.703)
Summer (15:35.738)
Well, before we go into that, let me just say this. Your numbers and how you measure your numbers and how you evaluate your numbers is going to be based solely on the technology that you have in the background. So with that being said, we were able to build out lots of custom reports so that we can track the things that were important to us. And a lot of software companies out there, they kind of put you in this box.

And for a lot of practices, you know, if they’re looking to go down this road and really dive into their numbers, the first thing they need to look at is what technology they’re using, who they’re partnering with. But back to your, your question, like, what are the benchmark numbers that we look at and what are the numbers that we dive in like daily? Um, I mean, Lexi can, can go into that, but off the top of my head is what I look at daily is.

Cameron Hemphill (16:14.766)
So it’s.

Summer (16:33.048)
Okay, what were our service numbers? What were our retail numbers? How many memberships did we sell? How many people walked through our doors that were not members? How many people walked through our doors that were members? How many people bought packages? How many people were brand new that had never been until walked through our doors before? So on a daily, that’s what I look at when I get my end of day report. Those are the things that are most important to me.

Lexie Engel (16:43.666)
you

Summer (17:02.286)
And those numbers will tell you a lot. example, if we have 40 people that come in and only five are members out of 40 people, it’s like, well, why? Like, why aren’t 20 people out of 40 members? Like at least half of that. And so then that leads to, well, is membership even being pitched at the front desk? Like, are we dropping the ball on our end in terms of

Lexie Engel (17:13.906)
you

Cameron Hemphill (17:14.988)
Yeah.

Summer (17:31.632)
keeping it front and center on social media, on our email newsletters and things like that. And the numbers tell a story. So Lexi and I are really good at kind of deciphering, looking beyond what the numbers are and figuring out, okay, if we’re not doing well in one area, there’s a reason. And we can usually tell immediately what that reason is.

Cameron Hemphill (17:55.618)
Yeah, I agree.

Lexie Engel (17:55.64)
Yeah, and that it’s like a macro. It goes back to, you know, big picture, little picture. So big picture, we get the end of day report every day. We’re open. And then the smaller picture, like she was saying, we can look at, so say like membership drops one month. Well, I’ll go in and pull with Jillian the schedule and we’ll see exactly why it dropped because I can tell you almost to the

of who was working at that point. And once you start looking at those numbers, you’ll see that there’s a pattern. So, and that’s something we look at, like we look at this, you know, our service revenue for the month, but then we break it down even further. Well, how does that service revenue come up? You know, what is each provider bringing in? And our providers have their own numbers and KPIs that they are expected to hit. We meet with them. We have a director of aesthetics who meets with them. And basically like her job is to encourage, be there, teach.

really their go-to person for anything when it comes to that and help push them into, know, this is your goal but this is where we really want you kind of thing. And those goals are there to help set up revenue for not only them because they have a bonus structure but also the business as well. So there’s definitely a lot we look at. We look at financial numbers. We look at our followers on Instagram. We look at our Google reviews.

We track all that. When Summer and I sat down before I went on maternity leave, we really pulled the numbers from a year ago and every category almost we’ve grown exponentially. And it’s amazing also to sit down, not just to know your numbers for financial aspect, but to know your numbers, to know if you’re growing, because if you’re not growing, then what are we doing? You know what I mean? So yeah, knowing your numbers is huge.

Cameron Hemphill (19:48.46)
Yeah.

Summer (19:48.46)
The other part to that is, knowing what works and what doesn’t like from a promotional perspective and incentives and membership. know, so we often go back. mean, very, very often we do this. all like tweak our menu. We’ll tweak, we’ll tweak our pricing structure. We’ll tweak our membership. and we don’t, you know, I see a lot of.

Lexie Engel (19:54.127)
Yes.

Summer (20:15.788)
spas and med spas. And for them, when they go to tweak their menu, they go into it with so much anxiety. They’re like, my gosh, I have to let the whole public know that we’ve changed our pricing. I’m like, no, you don’t. Like we don’t advertise and publicly, we don’t do a PSA. Like every time we lower a service price or increase a service price, we just, don’t owe that to anyone. You know, it’s on our website, it’s public knowledge.

Cameron Hemphill (20:29.038)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (20:29.071)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (20:38.925)
sorry.

Summer (20:44.73)
We discuss pricing with people before they walk in the door. It’s just one of those things where I think a lot of businesses get trapped in that box, that mindset where they just, I don’t know, they just don’t use their numbers. I see a lot of practices either A, not know their numbers, B, not know how to use the technology to get their numbers.

Lexie Engel (20:54.305)
Mindset.

Summer (21:10.448)
They don’t know how to determine what their KPIs are or how to set goals for their staff. I was talking to a practice owner a couple nights ago. She texted me around 10 30 at night. She has an esthetician on staff and anyway, she had some questions, but the end result of that conversation was she didn’t even know what her technology can do. She didn’t have KPIs set. There wasn’t like a hard, fast goal set. So it’s like giving someone a map.

Lexie Engel (21:24.464)
you

Summer (21:39.044)
but like half the map is missing. Like you can get like halfway, but we’re not going to help you get the entire way through wherever you need to go. And I think you’re doing your staff a disservice if you don’t know your numbers, you’re doing yourself a disservice and you’re really not setting yourself up for success. So.

Cameron Hemphill (21:41.41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (21:59.438)
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. it’s like, you know, I think providers and practice owners will like, they’ll tech hop or even agency hop when actually they’re already set up in a really good position. It’s more expensive to let’s say, leave an agency or leave a tech. Like imagine switching EHRs and EMRs. Maybe you’ve done that from 2017 till now.

Lexie Engel (22:23.271)
you

Cameron Hemphill (22:24.15)
It’s not fun. It’s expensive. It’s not fun. Like no one wants to it. Not, there’s nothing exciting about it. Right. But so, but I’ll see practices do that with them not having the full understanding or knowledge of what the current tech provides or what’s on the roadmap that’s coming in a month or six months or whatever. You know, I would, or like, I’ve seen other scenarios where they’re working with an agency and the agency’s doing a great job and they’ll agency hop.

Lexie Engel (22:27.407)
Mm-mm.

Cameron Hemphill (22:52.546)
because they actually have no data in terms of what their conversion should be, how many leads are coming in, what they’re paying per lead, what their patient acquisition cost is. And so I think for the audience, guys, before you hop from an emotional state of mind, do a good job of analyzing what you currently have, because the chances are you may already have the solution in place. You’re either A, just not communicating with your vendor appropriately,

Lexie Engel (23:08.302)
Thank

Cameron Hemphill (23:20.878)
or you’re not going to like the help center or like maybe a webinar that the tech provider puts on or something in that regard. Now, look, I know that there’s some tech providers out there that do a better job with the reporting aspect than others, right? I think that’s why you guys have honed in on a specific tool set, right? Reporting is important, data is important, knowing your numbers is important. And now like you guys have, I would assume you use Boulevard from my understanding.

Lexie Engel (23:25.999)
Okay.

Cameron Hemphill (23:49.358)
Um, so on your website, I think that’s how we were introduced through, Sky and, uh, and their team, which they, they have incredible platform and, um, growing very fast. And, you know, their, their booking system, um, is phenomenal and, and, um, you know, no, no shout out to them, but Hey, they’ve done a great job and their conversion rates on the booking is the best that I’ve seen currently. And, um, they’ve done a great job. So, and then it all rolls into the reporting, which is fantastic. So number one, like.

Summer (23:56.635)
They do.

Cameron Hemphill (24:19.296)
look at what you currently have. And this is a message like switch to Boulevard. It’s just like, look what you currently have and you may have what you already what you need. And then once you are able to get the reports and the numbers, know how to analyze them. That’s that. Not just Hey, I know my numbers. It’s like, okay, well, let’s like know how to analyze them. And are you doing above benchmark below benchmark, what to look for? What’s not working? What’s successful? What isn’t successful? And and then have like a scorecard.

Lexie Engel (24:31.097)
Yes.

Cameron Hemphill (24:47.852)
Right? Like your daily report that you get somewhere you get like your scorecard. Here’s the scorecard. And then you can make decisions from the scorecard. Let’s just call it. Well, shoot, 40 people came in. Five of them are on memberships. Hmm. Well.

Lexie Engel (24:47.93)
Thank you.

Cameron Hemphill (25:03.222)
Are we not pitching them the memberships? Do we have the wrong membership? Are we not marketing the membership? What’s going on? And then you can just get granular and granular and granular and then find the problem and fix it and then make a change and implement and keep moving. And that’s why like you guys have such great success. That’s not the only reason, but that’s obviously like a great component of it, which is, which is wonderful. Now, last thing really quick. I know I’m going on a little bit of a tangent, but

Lexie Engel (25:08.59)
you

Cameron Hemphill (25:30.144)
It sounds like you’re also tracking where people come from. No, the attribution, which I think is absolutely critical to know where to spend your marketing dollars. How are you tracking attribution accurately today?

Summer (25:33.786)
There we are.

Lexie Engel (25:34.145)
Yes.

Lexie Engel (25:46.285)
So we, it’s kind of a group effort. So the front desk has a thing that they can fill out through our software that said, you ask them how they heard about us or how they came in if they’re a new client. And then we can run reports through our social media ads and see how they’re coming in. We also have a platform where people can quite literally fill something out right then and there. We can contact them so we know where that’s coming from. But a large part of it is really just asking them.

you know, how did you hear about us? And it’s that simple of just starting the conversation that way. And it could be anything from a friend to Instagram to, you know, I found you through so and so. And that’s where kind of like the referral program comes in. But yeah, it is huge because you need to know where you’re spending your dollars. And we did do a program and I started running numbers and I’m like, I just don’t think that this is worth it. And being able to

understand if you brought in X amount and people will look at it and they’ll be like, we did a hundred grand in sales off this one. You know, you see in owners groups all the time where they’re like, I made a hundred thousand dollars off of this promotion and we did that in the month of whatever. Well, then when you take into account, well, that this is your promotion, this is how much it costs to buy whatever that is, you know, Hydrofacial, for example, has a much higher cost to do the service than if we did laser.

So, and then you take into account the labor, how much did you really make off of that? Plus you paid advertising to get whatever that promotion was out. So that’s kind of where, one, knowing where you’re getting your client, but also in how people are coming to you, but also are you making enough money? And that’s where those KPIs come in on the promotion. You know what I mean?

Summer (27:33.146)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (27:33.432)
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I agree. There’s margin. You got to the device that costs money, the providers time costs money. I mean, you you guys sell time and the consumer is buying confidence. I mean, that’s end of the day, right? And so, yeah, you may I mean, top line numbers are great. But at the end of the day, like what’s the true EBITDA?

Lexie Engel (27:37.516)
So that hundred grand might be like five grand at the end of the day. Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (28:00.278)
What is the true net result of that promotion and is it making sense?

Summer (28:06.382)
And then we empower staff to really go into knowing the KPIs for the providers too, which goes into big picture. know, like when we analyze the providers numbers, we’re looking at percentage booked. We’re looking at appointments that are booked before the client leaves our space. We’re looking at how many clients they saw. We’re looking at how much time it took per service to get to

that number, whatever service number they’re at, we look at how many people bought retail out of the group of people that that one provider saw. So we really, that leads into the big picture and being overall profitable, but you can really, I keep saying this, you can tell so much from your numbers and where you’re falling short and where you’re doing really well.

just from looking at basic numbers and everyone analyzes numbers very differently. Like our director of aesthetics, she looks at a whole different set of numbers than what Lexi and I look at. Like Lexi and I have a whole nother set of custom reports that breaks down our numbers in a whole different way. That’s good for Lexi and I, but like Victoria, for example, she’s looking at the individual numbers for the KPIs that we set for the providers. And then like our front desk staff, they’re looking at a whole different set of KPIs.

Lexie Engel (29:11.115)
Okay.

Summer (29:30.596)
So it really takes such a great team to come together to really know what each person is doing, because we all can’t do everything. And so we’ve really delegated nicely amongst our team so we can really figure out, know, okay, Victoria’s keeping an eye on service production and retail, because based on those numbers, she’ll be able to tell who needs more training, who’s doing something really well.

Lexie Engel (29:36.235)
Yeah.

Summer (30:00.229)
whatever, and then Lexi and I look at a whole different set of numbers and we can really tell, you know, what works, what doesn’t work, what we’re going to try again. So the numbers tell, they tell a lot of different stories and I really encourage everyone who’s listening to get a grasp on your technology, really know what your technology can do for you, and then really find someone who can do custom reports, you know.

based on what you want to do within your business. That’s my advice as far as that goes.

Lexie Engel (30:32.593)
If.

And it really like the way I think about it is having those reports like that, knowing your KPIs, that’s the who, where, why of your business, you know, when you’re looking at certain things. So I can’t imagine us not having it and running it. I mean, we run them every week. We run it month end. We run it quarter. And like, I mean, it’s yeah, it’s hard to run a business. I feel like without knowing those numbers, but I think that’s the advantage. Summer is a business, you know, entrepreneur.

Summer (30:53.926)
you, Lizzie.

Lexie Engel (31:04.616)
So we see those numbers differently than somebody coming in that necessarily didn’t start that way. I tell people all the time, like, if I could go to med school or I could be a nurse practitioner, I would be a triple threat, like, but I don’t have that brain. I have the business brain versus science, so.

Cameron Hemphill (31:23.724)
Yeah, I agree. mean, they already go through so much school and then have to learn the business side after they go through that. Man, it sounds like a lot and it’s an entire new course, if you will, of running the practices.

Lexie Engel (31:32.659)
Yeah.

Summer (31:33.668)
I mean, I tell my friends that are providers, you know, I have this one friend, she’s a physician, she runs a med spa. I’m like, delegate. Like, don’t try to learn everything. Know where you fall short, know what you don’t have the time to do, know what you don’t want to do, but then delegate, just delegate it all. And she’s like, well, that costs money.

Lexie Engel (31:43.016)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (31:53.291)
Mm-hmm.

Summer (31:56.678)
I’m like, know that you’re losing money if you’re trying to be a provider and all these other things, and then you’re going to fail. You’re going to hit a wall.

Lexie Engel (32:05.128)
And then you see them go and like get an MBA, but you don’t learn that stuff. Like, yes, you learn stuff that will attribute to your business, but the things that we’re talking about are not something you like can really sit in a classroom and, you know, here’s a crash course on how to do X, Y, and Z. Because they’re really good at school. And Summer tells me all the time, be really good at what you’re good at and then delegate elsewhere. So.

Cameron Hemphill (32:29.432)
Well, this is their MBA, you know. If I’m a provider practice owner, I’m going to go up on a med spa. I get ready for to be, you know, this is your MBA in a way. I’ve never thought of it that way, but it’s so true. And there’s going to be pain along the way, you know, and the only way you learn is through maybe some failures or maybe some decisions that, you know, that you should have made or shouldn’t have made, which is fine. And that’s, actually part of the fun journey, you know, but I think like for the audience.

Lexie Engel (32:31.101)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (32:36.106)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lexie Engel (32:52.328)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (32:58.572)
you know, learn from some of the experts, you know, as a big takeaway from this and what to do and what not to do. So I think like some good call-outs, obviously invest in tech, know your numbers, have goals in mind, right? I have to have goals in mind and know where you want to grow in what you want to do. And like one thing that you mentioned, Summer was great, which was like hierarchy structure. So as you’re building out your team,

You know, you have hierarchy structure where you guys get a different set of reports. That’s more like of the business. It’s reports versus the individual that’s tracking the providers. And I would assume that individuals that’s tracking the providers. Him or her probably has the ability to hire or fire or promote or whatever you want to do from within the numbers.

Lexie Engel (33:25.139)
We go.

Lexie Engel (33:41.746)
Yeah.

Summer (33:42.277)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (33:42.796)
you know, basically so and that’s how you can actually tweak comp plans, commissions, maybe get some competitive landscape going. I don’t know, but you know, you can quickly find out like what providers are obviously your leaders and which ones aren’t.

Summer (33:58.992)
Well, it goes back to what Lexi said earlier too, because it all goes together in this big, beautiful circle, right? know, culture is so important. And I see a lot of men’s spas, some of them are friends of mine, and they manage it with a very top-down management style. And I don’t like that management style because I think it’s so much better.

Lexie Engel (34:04.394)
Okay.

Summer (34:25.83)
for the team, for the overall business, if everyone feels empowered and everyone has authority to make decisions and everyone has a voice and everyone feels heard and everyone understands the vision. And my staff, you know, they’re such an amazing team. One, it took a long time to build that, but two, they have the autonomy to run the business as if it’s theirs.

Like I fully trust in whatever decision that they’re going to make and they know that I will support that decision. And so I think a lot of practices make mistakes in their management style. And then, you know, that leads to lack of delegation and all these other things that will impact your success. And, you know, what I can say to that is like, when you fail, use that as, as an example of what not to do.

and then just do it better the next time and just keep getting better and better and better. But I think it’s looking at your culture, looking at your management style, looking at your numbers, looking at who is on your team, really liking who you work with on a day-to-day basis, like really respecting them, loving them, appreciating them. And also like knowing what you don’t do well. Like if you don’t do something well, don’t try to do it because someone’s going to do it better.

Lexie Engel (35:32.521)
Yeah.

Summer (35:50.747)
Thank

Cameron Hemphill (35:51.886)
pretend that you know how to do it, right? Yeah, I see that for sure. In business in general, I see that, you know, where it’s almost like the ego gets in the way, you know, or, you know, maybe just being a little vulnerable, you know, which is fine. Like, look, you know, no one knows everything. And that’s why you have team members that…

Summer (35:53.701)
Yeah.

Summer (36:01.51)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (36:08.154)
So.

Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (36:14.094)
are experts in other areas than you. And that’s why you’re a team. That’s exactly why you’re a team. Shoot, that’s why you’re married, your spouse, your traits versus you. You guys know other things, different things. That’s why you come together and make something win in life, So, all right, well, I appreciate it, ladies. This has been amazing. I’m just trying to, I wanted to just unpack just a couple more things, if that’s okay, before we go.

Summer (36:19.684)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (36:42.133)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (36:42.83)
And I know that you guys have been on this path of year over year growth, which is great. I don’t think I’d talk to a practice owner just to kind of build on what you saying, Lexi, that it’s not looking to grow. What are some of the things that have been most impactful for you from a marketing standpoint? And I want you to lean in on two things. What has worked really well for new patient acquisition?

Lexie Engel (37:06.917)
Okay.

Cameron Hemphill (37:12.246)
And what has worked really well in patient retention.

Lexie Engel (37:17.073)
Okay. I would say one, the consultation. somebody’s like, I can’t wait to hear these answers. I will say we have providers who have a bulletproof consultation. And the thing is, is people, I have people come to me all the time that are like, my gosh, like what do I do for my skin? Like, please tell me. And I’m like, look,

I’m not a provider, but you can go in, it’s complimentary and you can get a full consultation. And the thing is, is like we, feel like we’ve kind of broken this mold where summer didn’t want to be the med spa that like was for brides or events or, you know, people want to come to you the weekend before their wedding when people are flying in and stuff, just to get a facial, just one time. It’s really difficult for people to come to us and only come to us one time because

We set up this whole plan where it’s like, okay, this is your goal. This is where we want to get you. And then on top of that, we have a no pressure sales policy. So if they don’t want to buy skin better retail that, you know, is out of their budget, we’re going to find products that are with their budget. Is it going to take longer to hit your goal? Yes. But however, this is what we can do. And the thing is, is that they build trust with that client.

they’ll get those products, they’ll see their skin start to improve, especially with acne patients, which I freaking love. And they’ll see their skin start to improve. And then all of a sudden they might come back and say, oh, let me try this product you recommended that’s on our shelf. So I would say from the acquisition standpoint, it’s coming in and having that bulletproof consultation, experiencing us one time and having the over the top customer experience, which we could write a whole book about. And then

That’s not just our provider though, it’s also our front desk. It’s how the booking software was. It’s the whole nine yards. So you said just one thing though, I would definitely say the provider. I can get them in the door, but if they don’t enjoy the experience, they won’t come back. In the consultation, the education portion where they left with more, even if they just came in with a consultation than what they came in with. What was the second one?

Cameron Hemphill (39:37.326)
the, the retention. Right. So yeah. And I mean, you know, having a great experience, you know, I obviously like good provider that’s good. love the fact that you get them on a journey like that. That builds trust. It builds, it builds change. They’re going to get impact from building confidence. They’re going to see results. They’re buying results. Right.

Lexie Engel (39:39.6)
the retention.

Lexie Engel (39:48.965)
Yes.

Lexie Engel (39:58.182)
Yes. And that journey also starts with marketing because that’s how I can get in front of people. I can target market people through our ads. can even word of mouth. That’s market. That’s still marketing how people talk about you and your industry and in your region. That’s still marketing. And so that is huge. And then for retention, I would definitely say the membership is huge because if you get charged for something, you’re going to want to go, you don’t want to waste that.

And then you also, have a really great membership program set up with, they get like discounts and stuff. we don’t make the most money off of our membership program, but we create this culture of people who really believe in what we do. And it’s a really beautiful thing. The relationship that they have with the provider is also huge. But from a marketing standpoint, it’s really the emails that we send out, staying up with social media, filming content where they can kind of.

see something go out and they’ll be like, like we just started doing monthly facials. We’ve never done that before. Every month it’s a different kind of facial. It’s literally the same as our custom spa facial, but we just switch it up. They really have been doing this, but it’s putting like a specific one out there. So like this month it’s for Valentine’s Day, we did like a chocolate enzyme themed facial. Well, they’ll get that reel that goes out that we filmed for it that explains what it is, who’s

skin it’s great for. And then they’ll be like, oh, let me book this. I mean, I don’t know about you, but now that I’m getting up feeding an infant, I’ll be scrolling on Instagram. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve like seen something. I’m like, oh, let me do this or book this or buy this on Amazon. So, yeah, I think that answered your question.

Cameron Hemphill (41:38.74)
Interesting. Yeah, no, it absolutely did. I mean, you got to have marketing to get in front of them. have the consultation. bet you guys have spent so much time understanding how to run that well, know what works, what doesn’t work. You know, I’m sure you have a very formal checkout process that’s like seamless every single time they go through. It’s a process. Like you have a great process, which

Lexie Engel (41:52.633)
Really.

Cameron Hemphill (42:03.118)
which is absolutely amazing. Yeah, I would assume like your your patient retention has got to be north of 70%. Yeah.

Lexie Engel (42:10.127)
Mm-hmm.

Summer (42:11.162)
Yeah, I don’t know the exact number. We haven’t looked at it in the past couple months. But it’s pretty high.

Cameron Hemphill (42:18.67)
to an experience, people are coming for an experience. I know that the spa is absolutely beautiful. Like that’s another thing too, is like reflecting your brand with your marketing and then come in at matches what they saw.

Summer (42:20.614)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (42:27.471)
Yeah.

And we have people that come, like we track everywhere that people come from. I want to get like a United States one day and like scratch off every state that people come from. we, I would beckon to say at least 75 % of the East Coast we’ve had people come from because either they saw our social media or they’re here for an event of some kind and they look us up and I’ll tell you the power of the Google review, especially for new, getting new clients.

I mean, it is something that is so easy. Anybody can do it. Anybody just ask for the review. Ask where they came from. Ask for the review. And there’s so many people that have said, I was reading reviews and you guys had wonderful reviews. And you can be the best place in town. A celebrity can come to your spa and do all the things on social media. But the second someone Google spas near me or injectors near me or something of that nature and you don’t pop up because you don’t have any reviews.

That’s wild. So you’re doing yourself a disservice. So.

Cameron Hemphill (43:30.254)
Yeah, credibility is, I would say, probably one of the most important categories in this special. Yeah. mean, shoot, if I’m going to exchange money or confidence, hope I’m placing a bet. Right. And I really hope that my exchange of goods is going to be received with you doing a good job on my face.

Lexie Engel (43:36.375)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (43:41.604)
Mm-hmm.

Lexie Engel (43:54.284)
Mm-hmm. For sure. And the amazing thing is, is people leave specific names of who they saw. And so when you have a provider who is newer to your space and maybe they are experienced and they see that, then they’re more confident to book with them versus going to the person that’s like mentioned over and over and over again. Because I can tell you, like one of our providers that’s been with us forever, it’s hard to get booked with her. And then, you know,

you want to see the best provider, can tell you all of our providers are the best. It’s just a matter of some are booked more than the others and that, you know, eventually, hopefully they’re all booked the same amount. it’s definitely a learning process. But it does take that time for them to get to know the provider. And a lot of people have more personality versus, you know, some people want to come in and talk to the provider the entire time or others just want to lay down and just like disconnect from the world.

So they just have to find who clicks with them. yeah, Google reviews are huge.

Cameron Hemphill (44:54.99)
So true. And I like that you called out like when they mentioned the provider, because you may have a provider that their utilization rate is just like, shoot, over 100 % in some cases and other providers just as good, but they’re at 50%. It’s like, wow, what do we got to do? We got to get that provider busy. And Google rolled out that new, I actually made a tip and trick video on our social media about this, but the new keywords on the Google reviews, have you seen those?

Lexie Engel (45:04.182)
I’m home.

Lexie Engel (45:09.698)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (45:17.811)
Yep.

Cameron Hemphill (45:19.564)
Yeah, so like instead of just like asking for a review, be super specific about what they had and say, Hey, please give us feedback on your treatment and who you saw. Maybe it’s an idea. So it’s not just like went in, got a treatment. It was great. Cute place. Yeah.

Lexie Engel (45:29.398)
Yeah.

Lexie Engel (45:33.771)
Yeah, yep. And the funny thing is, we so we used to have an injector on staff. We don’t anymore. And so people I’d love to turn reviews for that. And these reviews are like, I mean, that was two years ago and we haven’t had an injector in what, over a year, summer. Yeah. And so they’re still Googling that like injectors and short pomper in our area.

And we’re still popping up because those keywords from so long ago are popping up from those reviews.

Cameron Hemphill (46:08.046)
1158 Google reviews. Nice job, Nice job.

Summer (46:14.116)
That’s another podcast to talk about being a med spa and not offering injectables.

Lexie Engel (46:16.674)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (46:21.23)
True, true. Yes, yes. Yeah, that’s, wow, we did not even talk about that. Well, we’ll have you back on. I mean, there’s more to, obviously, to unpack. And I know that you ladies are super busy, lot going on, very successful practice in business. So congratulations to both of you. People want to reach out if they want to connect with you. What’s the best place for them to go?

Summer (46:25.946)
I know.

Summer (46:38.704)
Thank you.

Lexie Engel (46:39.586)
Thank you.

Summer (46:46.916)
I guess her website.

Lexie Engel (46:48.962)
You can find us on Instagram at GoodSkinHabit.com. You can also go to our website GoodSkinHabit.com and you can reach out to us through there. We have a contact form. You can also email us at hello at GoodSkinHabit.com as well.

Cameron Hemphill (46:50.19)
Yeah.

Summer (47:05.818)
Yeah, and Lexi and I get all of those messages, so.

Lexie Engel (47:08.694)
I do.

Cameron Hemphill (47:09.514)
Awesome, awesome guys. Well, there you have it. I mean, this is a very successful practice ran by some, you know, powerhouse, you know, team here and a lot to unpack. And I really hope you guys, you know, tune into all the details of this, of this particular episode, you know, not just skim over. So thank you guys so much for joining.

And I’ll leave it at that. My one ask for the audience, guys, is if you found this episode in particular valuable, please share it. There’s a colleague out there that could benefit from it, a friend, yourself. Please share it, rate it. I would absolutely love that. The entire purpose of all these episodes is really just to give back and just help the community. And we want to help every entrepreneur possible out there in the world of aesthetics. So I’ll leave it at that. Until next time, happy injecting.