In this episode, Cameron is joined by Ken and Jessica Harper, owners of Drippy Nurse Jess Med Boutique, and they discuss their journey from nursing to entrepreneurship, the importance of business-focused conferences, and the dynamics of their partnership in running a successful MedSpa. They highlight the significance of strategic growth, avoiding common pitfalls, and building a tech stack through networking and industry connections.

Cameron, Ken and Jessica talk about the increasing importance of data in the aesthetics industry, emphasizing the need for quality leads and understanding market dynamics. They also delve into the significance of mindset and motivation in business, sharing personal routines and the impact of mentorship. They also emphasize the necessity of investing in technology and training to enhance business operations and patient experiences

Transcript

Cameron Hemphill (00:00.924)
Hey, what’s up, everybody? Cameron Hempel 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’re on a med spa, a medical aesthetics practice, a wellness clinic, all of these episodes that we create guys are 100 % designed for you and to help take your practice to the next level. So guys, I have two amazing guests on with me today.

We met in Park City, Utah randomly. was, we were at an event that Yvonne puts on and I’m walking by and this cool dude says, Hey, I know who you are. And anyway, it’s Ken Harper and his wife, Jessica, and they own an incredible medical aesthetics practice guys. And, I mean, we just hit it off at the conference. It was super cool that, you know, I had no idea that we were working together.

And throughout that, it’s just the cool relationships that you create at conferences and really have a chance to connect. But I want to welcome Drippy Nurse Jess and Ken Harper to the show. Guys, thank you so much for joining me.

Jessica & Ken Harper (01:12.43)
Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us, Cam.

Cameron Hemphill (01:15.8)
Absolutely. I remember that conference was a lot of Shoot, I remember like the dance party that went down, all the speaking engagements that went down. was a lot of fun. mean, you guys are a lot of fun to hang out with. And I truly value that. It means so much just to like really get to know customers and colleagues and people in the space that outside of the business sense, in the business sense, and just connect at a conference. So thank you guys.

Jessica & Ken Harper (01:19.906)
Yeah, it

Jessica & Ken Harper (01:43.106)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for your kindness. It’s funny that you remember that story because

That’s literally exactly how it happened. I think I was in the hotel lobby at their Starbucks and I saw the black flat brim hat and I’m like, yeah, man, I recognize the hat. I know that guy. And you were super kind and we had a brief conversation and it almost felt like I was stalking you because I kept bumping into you the whole time we were out there. And then I think we saw you a few months later in Texas at Xtetic Next.

Cameron Hemphill (02:00.542)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (02:14.514)
That’s right. That’s right. And you guys just got back from accelerator, right? We were just talking about that offline, which is I’ve been seeing it everywhere on the Internet. Tiffany and her team obviously put on a state of the art job. Looks like some really cool speakers were there. Obviously, I missed all the fun nightlife stuff, but I’m curious. Like, tell me a little bit about that conference. I have had conversations with her team, but it seems like it’s more of a business centric conference. Is that right?

Jessica & Ken Harper (02:40.438)
Yeah, it’s definitely focused more on the business side of things, whether you’re looking to sell or scale your business. Accelerator is definitely the conference you want to attend. This was their second year, so definitely want to look out for it next year. Yeah, it was a great learning experience. Great learning experience. Again, centric around the business side of the aesthetics world.

Cameron Hemphill (02:57.969)
Awesome.

Cameron Hemphill (03:06.674)
That’s such a big thing. I mean, for the, for the audience, guys tuning in, like I’ve obviously the podcast’s main purpose is this is it’s business focused, finance mindset, marketing tech stack, you know, like how to run your practice effective, like a business. And if I go back, if I rewind the clock and go back five years, there was, there was not a lot of offering out there from a conference standpoint that really focused on the business.

Right. was very centered around clinical, which is great. You got to like, I totally understand that, but that can only go so far. Right. Like at the end of the day, your practice is a business. has to produce profits. You have to have good tech, good marketing, good people, like all the reporting and KPIs and metrics. So I love that she’s launched that. It kind of reminds me, um, what Terry Ross is doing with 4S. Sounds like it’s pretty similar to that.

Jessica & Ken Harper (04:01.74)
Yeah, have, we’ve yet to attend 4S, but everything that I’ve heard about it definitely seems as if there’s strong parallels and similarities. Yeah, we definitely need conferences like this. know, as a clinician, we don’t learn anything about running a business in school. So, you know, it’s, I’m learning as we go.

Cameron Hemphill (04:10.055)
Awesome, yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (04:25.958)
Yeah, it’s it’s very needed. I’m glad that I’m glad that a lot of this is coming to surface and people are able to serve and just want to get back and help as much as we possibly can because I mean, shoot, it’s such a cool business to be in. I mean, what a rewarding job, right? Like you must have a super rewarding job. In fact, I want to lean into that a little bit. Jess is I know that you’ve been a nurse for over 10 years and you’ve had this business for over two years. There had to be something that triggered you. I don’t know. I want to hear your story, right? So like

10 years being a nurse, I don’t know if it was hospital-centric or what it was, but tell the audience that, and then coming into here, like those are two very different patient types.

Jessica & Ken Harper (05:06.05)
Yeah, it’s definitely been life changing for me. I started off as a surgical nurse. I was in surgery for about 12 years, working full time, 40 plus hours a week, plus taking call. There was many nights where I’d be up two in the morning rushing to the hospital to go do emergency surgery.

After the pandemic hit is when I was really burnt out. I was like, there’s gotta be a better way. I’m tired of clocking in, clocking out. And I started seeing nurses doing mobile IV therapy. So I got into that and Ken was like, hey, we should start our own business. And I was always like, no, I’m good. I just wanna work.

nine to five, a check and like drink wine in the evenings. But after he brought up, know, the good point of, hey, we should start our business. It could be local. We could, you know, take care of our community. I was like, all right, fine, let’s do it. And then he came up with the name and we took it from there.

Cameron Hemphill (06:02.129)
You

Cameron Hemphill (06:20.914)
I love it. And the name is super catchy. Your website’s beautiful. Your social media is amazing. I mean, you guys have come a long way very quickly, right? Two years, I mean, probably seems like a lifetime. I’m sure it flew by, but it seems like a lifetime. I mean, I bet you’ve learned so much, right? So like, Ken, talk to us about that. know like, in talking with you guys and understanding your backgrounds and the brand, obviously, I’m assuming Jess’s day-to-day operation is face-to-face with clients, right?

and you’re on the business side of things. Marketing, tech, what’s working, what’s not working. Talk to us about that. What’s interesting is I’ve had some interviews historically with, I call it the duo, right? Like, you know, got to have good partners in this space and having a team member like, you know, what you guys have created here obviously is important. And when you have each other to lean on, it’s huge. So like you both bring areas of expertise to the business. So

Ken, talk to us about, you know, like what does your day-to-day look like at the practice?

Jessica & Ken Harper (07:22.158)
That’s a great question. So you’ve hit the nail right on the head, right? We balance each other out. Our story, just kind of taking a step back, you sometimes in life, you’re just moving through life and things don’t make sense. And then you get to a point and it’s like, wow, that’s why all of those things happened. Right. So when we started this journey and she was doing the mobile IV therapy deal,

When she got into it, I just noticed that that sector of the industry, similar to just aesthetics as a whole, revolved all around digital marketing and advertising, whether it was having a presence on Google or having a strong presence on social media. Well.

that’s what I’ve been doing professionally for, you the better part of the last 20 years, right? That’s how we ended up here in California. I landed a job with Google and so on. And again, it just never really made sense. It was just always a check, right? It’s just, know, Hey, this is how we feed the family. She was doing nursing and we’re literally living check to check. And when she started the mobile IV therapy thing, that’s what sparked the idea of, why don’t you just do this yourself? Right? Like you can, you can do everything. And then

you know, as far as finding clients and marketing and branding, I can take care of that. So that’s what triggered it. And then it just snowballed. So now what the day to day looks like is again, she’s here in the practice. She is the brand. She does everything as it relates to hands on and execution. My day to day is strategy, right? Like, you know, I get the Google reports, I look at,

Cameron Hemphill (08:41.278)
Mm.

Cameron Hemphill (09:01.886)
Hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (09:04.591)
even though we don’t advertise on Google, I have the most basic AdWords account set up. I am taking a look to get an idea. Okay, where’s the traffic coming from for our website? Right. I look at all the growth 99 reports. I’m the one that talks to your team. You see the emails coming from me. I’m constantly on social media, trying to get an idea or keep a finger on the pulse of the industry. Who’s doing what I’ll give her different ideas as far as, know, Hey, we should run a promotion or Hey, this person

person in Beverly Hills is doing this, maybe we can do a post like that and so on and so forth. And the execution is all her though. And then the last part of it is I’m her offensive lineman, right? So when it comes to sales reps and vendors and just anybody that she doesn’t wanna talk to, I do all the blocking and tackling. She sends them to me, I filter it out and if they’re worthy, then they get to have a conversation with her.

Cameron Hemphill (09:38.728)
Hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (09:50.716)
Hahaha

Cameron Hemphill (10:03.858)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I mean, I’ve had, like I was saying, I’ve had a couple of interviews where it’s been like the dynamic duo, if you will. man, it creates something really special. There’s two other practices that I won’t drop the names, but I’ve had them on here before. And you know, it’s so interesting where it’s a very similar setup, very, very similar setup. And it almost like gives Jess the ability to focus on her craft.

Like I bet she has amazing relationships with her patients. She probably knows stuff about him that freaking like you’d never know. Maybe her husband doesn’t their husbands don’t even know. I don’t know. But it’s intimate, right? Like the conversations are intimate. You can focus on that and then they’re going to get the best result. Right as as what that’s what they want. They’re buying confidence or buying a result. You’re selling time. We all get that. And then, you know, Ken can be like, hey, I’m going to keep everything together. I’m going to actually have the time to strategize because she’s so busy, right?

And then you strategize, you implement, talk to the vendors. Like it’s, it’s an amazing setup. Like it’s, it’s so important. think like, so for the audience out there, you know, like if you don’t have a partner, it doesn’t have to necessarily be your, your spouse or better half or whatever. But if you find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to tackle everything, it may make sense to bring on a strategic partner.

or somebody that’s going to come in your business that’s going to bring that unique skill set to put you in a position to grow, right? Because you may have a practice that does, just make numbers easy. A practice that does a half million dollars in top line revenue and you own 100 % of it. Well, if you bring in a partner and they can contribute and you can accelerate that growth, then let’s just take it to 2 million. Okay, just for numbers sake of that. Instead of owning 100 % of $500, and you now own 50 % if you did a 50-50 partnership,

of two million, right? So you just, those are things that you need to think about. And I’m not saying like every practice needs a partner, but in some cases, it makes sense.

Jessica & Ken Harper (12:06.636)
Yeah, you definitely need a wingman or someone on your side to help you with everything. As a solo injector, there’s no way I can handle everything. Over the past year, I’ve hired a…

an assistant. She you know, she’s at the front desk, she answers the phone, she helps me post things, she helps with inventory. And I’ve also had to hire an IV nurse to help me as well. We are scaling, we’re building a med spa now. So another thing that Ken does is he talks to the contractors, the engineers, the architects, like I don’t have time for that. If I had to do all that, I would have to cancel my patients. I’m literally booked

Cameron Hemphill (12:44.883)
You help?

Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (12:53.71)
Monday through Friday, 10 to 6. So hopefully once we get this med spa up and going, we’ll have more space and I can hire another injector. So I won’t be so busy.

Cameron Hemphill (13:08.444)
What’s the time horizon on that?

Jessica & Ken Harper (13:11.518)
That’s a great question. We’re supposed to be in it already. Part of the learning process. We’re waiting on the final permits, but last update we received, we should be in there by March.

Cameron Hemphill (13:12.83)
I first imagined.

Cameron Hemphill (13:25.568)
cool. That’s coming around the corner, man. Nice. What in terms of layout in like rooms and treatment, how what what type of process went into your thinking there in terms of like scaling and rooms and cost per square foot treatments, all that stuff.

Jessica & Ken Harper (13:28.686)
We’ll see.

Jessica & Ken Harper (13:45.601)
So, the space we’re moving into is a little bit bigger than what we have now. I’ll have two treatment rooms instead of just one. So this is just a stepping stone. It’s not the end all be all. We’ve obviously grown faster than we expected. Had I known…

Cameron Hemphill (13:58.044)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (14:05.384)
But.

Jessica & Ken Harper (14:08.526)
that we’d be so busy, I would have probably held off and waited on a bigger space, but it is what it is. So it’s only a little bit extra than what we’re paying now. So it’s not like we’re, you know, investing too much into it. Yeah, we, I think so far we’re doing well. We haven’t taken out a loan yet. Everything we’ve done has been cash.

Cameron Hemphill (14:27.838)
smart.

Jessica & Ken Harper (14:37.486)
You know, I’ve kind of learned from other people’s mistakes as far as new injectors go. They’re, buying devices. They’re getting loans for all these things. And my mentor, Yvonne, told me, if you don’t have the money, don’t get it. Don’t do it. So.

Cameron Hemphill (14:42.696)
Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (14:55.372)
I’m thinking we’re going to be going into this new space on a positive and not getting into debt so fast. But square footage and all that, I don’t know. I don’t know if he deals with Part of that, a big part of how we ended up in all of this, right? Our story has been a combination of, I hate to use the term luck, but right time, right place and.

Cameron Hemphill (15:11.003)
you

Jessica & Ken Harper (15:21.95)
hard work coming together, right? So, you know, again, she was doing mobile IV therapy, and then just one day, it’s like, you know, and I think I need a space. And that’s her did to literally renting, I call it a closet, but renting a small space in a salon.

And, know, we’re developing a plan around that like, okay, cool. Well, maybe we could do this for a few months or a year. And after that, who knows? And two months into it, it’s like, yeah, this isn’t going to work. We need something bigger. And then just coincidentally, we know somebody that we used to work out with at the gym and he’s a property owner and he just so happened to have a space open up. And again, just everything worked out and it was, you know, pricing was great. And it’s like,

Cameron Hemphill (15:47.932)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (15:53.438)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (16:09.968)
Okay, well, I guess we have a space now. And a year into that, it’s you know what, they’re building a building right next door and it’s owned by the same person and he’s telling us like, Hey, you know what, there’s a space a little bit bigger, you might want that instead. And that turned into okay, great, I guess we’re building a med spa now. So everything has just been, you know, necessity, luck, and again, kicking ass.

Cameron Hemphill (16:13.427)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (16:31.454)
It’s amazing.

Jessica & Ken Harper (16:39.982)
It’s been fun, but the last piece that I wanted to say though, you had asked originally in your question, right? Like how do we figure out what do we want it to look like? How do we, you know, what do we want to feel in the overall design?

Cameron Hemphill (16:40.35)
Totally.

Cameron Hemphill (16:51.89)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (16:53.158)
That comes from two, if not three things. First, she’s a complete nerd, right? So, you know, she knows like, okay, cool, I need a clinical room, I need a room for this, I need an IV lounge and so on. And then second, we’re both always on social media, right? We’re always on social media and we’re always on YouTube. We watch, I think I’ve watched every single episode of Medical Millionaire.

Cameron Hemphill (17:06.834)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (17:19.976)
dude, thank you so much. Hopefully I taught you something.

Jessica & Ken Harper (17:22.574)
I I used to DM you and tell you that.

You know what mean? Like before this interview was set up and others, Tiffany’s podcast, we’re all over it. So through we learn and we get an idea like, OK, cool. This is how they design their MedSpot. We’ll go to their IG page. We’ll go to a YouTube channel and look and see, OK, well, they use this and this is how they do their shelving and so on and so forth. And then the last piece of it is conferences. You you go to the conferences, you have the conversations at Aesthetic Next.

Cameron Hemphill (17:27.262)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (17:56.8)
actually right across from where you guys were, there was a vendor that had cool chairs and we ended up buying a new chair. And again, the colors, I think it was source one. Yep. And you know, we got a cool color scheme from them and now we’re building out the Med Spa based upon that color scheme. So it’s just, you have to kind of eat, sleep and breathe the industry. And that’s where we get a lot of our ideas from.

Cameron Hemphill (18:03.229)
Yep.

Beauty source one or something like that, right? Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (18:23.602)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. I mean, I see it the other way around and I see it like create a ton of stress. I see people that want to get into the specialty and industry like 100 % driven through. saw something of success on social and then they go finance something to the Hills, lasers, equipment, you know, build out a crazy facility before patients.

And all they’re doing is they’re just creating a tremendous amount of stress and financial risk. and I’ve seen that go really bad. You know, I’ve seen people get lucky. really lucky, I would say, I think like the odds are definitely packed against you. definitely want to have patience first. The, what you just described can is, is really a recipe for success is like, look, this is a long-term game. We’re not trying to like crush it overnight.

This is a career path. We’re going to build trust within our patient base and we’re going to grow in a way that’s organic, right? To where we actually max out capacity where we are and take like strategic risk, right? Like there’s always risk with business, but it’s more strategic to where it’s like, okay, we’ve outgrown the current space. We know what we are. We know what we can have the numbers. Like I can have a history of the financials. I can forecast what things are going to be like.

I have a patient base. have a following. had traction. and that’s what gets you in a position to take the next step. And so like, in fact, there, there is a lot of very successful injectors and practice owners that I’ve had on the podcast that have done that exact same formula. And I look at them now and I’m just like, my gosh, can you believe that you used to work for a plastic surgeon as an injector? And then you went to a studio and now you’re like here fricking seven years later.

Wow, that was a fun ride to be on with you. That was really cool. Right. And that’s what it’s all about. Like just, I think where, you know, social media can be interesting in this industry. You know, like we all follow injectors or med spa owners or plastic surgeons and they have like, they post like everything is like post state of the art this and state of the art that. And I just got this piece of equipment. You got to be careful. Right. You got it. I would encourage the audience, if you guys are tuning in staying with us, like

Cameron Hemphill (20:46.802)
Don’t try to look through the lens of somebody else’s success and where they are in their journey. You need to be in your own freaking journey and you need to own that. And that is exactly what you guys have done. And I love that you’ve leaned in on conferences. mean, you know, shoot, I saw you at two in a very close period of time. You were just at another one and like you, I’m sure that you have met so many great people, vendors that have helped you along the way. And I just like hats off to you guys. You guys done a great job. It’s awesome to see.

Jessica & Ken Harper (21:16.567)
Thank you. We actually did six conferences in 2024.

Cameron Hemphill (21:18.366)
See you before.

Cameron Hemphill (21:23.538)
Holy shit. You more than me. Sorry.

Jessica & Ken Harper (21:29.058)
Yeah, I I met my mentor, Yvonne, we met Tiffany Hall, we met the whole crew from Aesthetic Record. I’ve met people that I’ve been following on Instagram, who are, you know, close friends now. And, you know, I look up to all of them, you know, to see what they’re doing, how they’re doing it. And I definitely stay in my lane when it comes to, you know, purchasing the latest and greatest. You know, I know

Cameron Hemphill (21:32.466)
was great.

Jessica & Ken Harper (21:59.144)
I’m newer in the industry and I just take my time. I’m still doing trainings. We’re headed to Hawaii next week to do a cadaver lab with Yvonne. So I’m still learning, but what I know now, I’m really good at it.

Cameron Hemphill (22:09.275)
Nice, I saw that.

Jessica & Ken Harper (22:19.22)
So, you know, just a little bit at a time is my motto. Yeah. And Offred Circuit, honestly, Kim, that helped us out immensely. Right. Like, you know, you just mentioned one of the biggest mistakes or errors that we always hear about. And, you know, that’s going out and going and getting a bunch of debt. Right. Buying a big fancy machine. You don’t have clients, you know, getting a big, nice office or space. And again, you don’t have customers. Now you have all of this debt and you’re trying to find, you know,

Cameron Hemphill (22:24.03)
That’s amazing.

Jessica & Ken Harper (22:49.144)
a marketing guru to get you leads and you want to do it for 200 bucks a month, right? So we heard about that from conferences.

And we were able to avoid that mistake for two reasons. A, we didn’t have the money. And B, again, we were on the scene and we just kept hearing that that’s just not what you do. Instead, by going to these conferences, that’s how we built our tech stack. Like, and we got with Growth 99 before I’d even met you just from hearing again through conferences, seeing that the team had a presence there, meeting other practice owners that use you guys and so on. And these were people that we trusted and respected.

Cameron Hemphill (22:59.602)
Good.

Cameron Hemphill (23:04.979)
Bless you.

Cameron Hemphill (23:13.981)
Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (23:29.104)
We’re now with AR and again, Xthetic Records, we got with them through the conference scene and so on and so forth. So every bit of our tech stack came from the conference circuit.

Cameron Hemphill (23:41.788)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. It’s, I mean, it’s, I mean, you meet so many good people and, you know, such great networking, you know, it’s just continuing to go and, and to learn. And I mean, it’s evolving too. mean, shoot, I went to the first AmSpot conference. That was wild. was, it was shoot, maybe, maybe 20 vendors, maybe. And, I mean, look at it now. I’m going, it’s in April.

Jessica & Ken Harper (24:10.286)
We’ll see you there.

Cameron Hemphill (24:11.166)
You guys will be there. Okay, cool. Vegas baby. Let’s do it. And it’s just getting bigger and bigger. And you know, there’s a lot more tech that’s coming into the industry. And a lot more data too. A lot more data, you know, like cost per leads are becoming more well-defined, patient acquisition costs, like conversion rates. How much should you spend on marketing to your revenue? You know, there’s a lot of data that’s coming out. Skytel published a paper.

We did, I think Zenody did, Amspaw definitely came out. There’s a lot of data that has come out that you can read and it’s fascinating because we’ve actually never really had good data on the business side. We’ve had to have a few years to build that up, which has been interesting and eye-opening for me to learn about and then obviously pass on to the audience to continue to help. So.

Jessica & Ken Harper (25:05.762)
The data tells the story. I just downloaded SkyTales white paper. We were just with Ben and those guys this weekend in Dallas. And again, that’s my world. That’s the stuff that I like to look at. Conversion rates, cost per lead, lifetime value of a customer. Where is the traffic coming from? What levers can we pull? What can we manipulate to get the desired action and result that we want?

Cameron Hemphill (25:19.166)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (25:32.508)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. His white paper is amazing. Go ahead.

Jessica & Ken Harper (25:36.214)
Yeah, yeah, good quality leads is important to you know, you can pay one to get you leads but are those leads shitty, you know, we get you an appointment they’re going to get you someone through the door or

Cameron Hemphill (25:40.818)
Okay.

Cameron Hemphill (25:45.128)
Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (25:49.996)
you know, are you just paying for random leads? So we don’t buy leads, right? In the two years that we’ve been in business, we haven’t bought leads. And I had a sales rep that was just constantly hitting me up, hitting me up. And I’ve had his job. So I can be an easy sell because I always feel bad for the sales guys. And I said, all right, you know, they gave us an offer for a test, you know, test it out on our dime. Like, OK, cool. If you’re going to pay for it, let’s do it. And we

tested out running a campaign, a digital campaign where we’re essentially paying for leads. And man, we got a shit ton of leads, but none of them were qualified. So another thing that you learn from the conference and being on scene, and it’s something that you alluded to earlier, you can compare what others are doing and say, advertise on this platform or they run this kind of campaign and so on and so forth. But you have to understand your market.

Cameron Hemphill (26:49.256)
Yep. Yep.

Jessica & Ken Harper (26:49.84)
We’re not in LA, we’re not in Miami, we’re not in a major market. So our strategy to gain customers, or our customer acquisition strategy is a little bit different than people in major markets. And you have to be able to understand that and you can’t just chase what you see your most popular person on Instagram doing.

Cameron Hemphill (27:03.816)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (27:13.106)
Totally, totally. It’s a complete misconception. Complete misconception too. It’s, yeah. I would assume, and I haven’t analyzed your books or anything, finances guys, but the more conversations I have, can make it basically, I know you have a high retention rate on your patient base. Most people come to you organically, word of mouth, social media, like online site reviews, right? And then when they come to you,

I’m sure they come back. And that’s the business you want to be in. You want to be in the repeat business. You obviously want to focus on patient acquisition. Very, very important. You want new people coming in. The data shows that they stay with you on average for three years before maybe a crazy life event happens, change, whatever. So you want that flow coming in, to keep a patient is much cheaper than it is to get a new patient. Much cheaper and easier.

to service and fulfill and keep them on that journey. And by default, by doing a great service, they’re going to tell everybody about you. You got to go see my girl. You got to go see, you got to go see her. She’s the best. You know, I mean, it’s interesting. And I think like, if you’re the practice out there or like, if you’re thinking about buying an expensive device, I’m not saying don’t, I’m saying do it if it makes sense. If you have a patient base and it makes sense and there’s a service and offering, go for

for sure. But if you’re new, and like, because these laser sells people, they’re pretty good, like, their job is to close deals. And I think they’re doing all with good intent, for sure. But like, if you purchase this $200,000 device, and you don’t have a patient base, and then you go rely on a marketing company, say, Okay, I bought it. And then the laser salesperson is gonna say, yeah, we’re just, you know, marketing, marketing, marketing, which is great, you have to invest in marketing. I’m a major, major fan.

But if you’re relying on that and you have no budget because you just, you know, blew your entire budget on the device and you have no marketing budget, you are going, you basically just bought a very expensive piece of equipment that’s gonna unfortunately potentially collect dust, right? Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (29:26.574)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that’s what we’re going through now. We’ve had, you know, a handful of demos with different companies trying to sell us a laser. And I’m just not ready. And, you know, when will we be ready? I have no idea. Hopefully soon. But I want to make sure that we don’t make an expensive mistake. Right.

Cameron Hemphill (29:52.19)
Yeah. Ask your patient base, survey your patient base. You know, like that’s like, and I think a lot of people, they don’t do that enough. It’s almost like use a shoot. bet in aesthetic record, there’s probably a survey button. I don’t know. Or a connection with like, uh, what’s the one that survey monkey survey them like, Hey, you know, and then it’s like, Holy cow. Yeah. There’s a demand here. Maybe it makes sense. You know, you run the math and I think some, uh, practice owners are hesitant to also survey their patient base.

Jessica & Ken Harper (30:08.344)
Thank you.

Cameron Hemphill (30:21.158)
And I would encourage practice owners to do it because it’s going to actually give you Intel before you invest into that acquisition that maybe it’s not the right demographic. You know, I don’t know. But pivoting for a sec, okay, let’s pivot. I want to talk about mindset because I know that owning a medical aesthetics practice is not always easy. And burnout’s real.

But talk to us about mindset, like talk to us about morning routine. How do guys stay strong? How do you guys stay focused? How do you stay committed to your goals? Because I know you have short-term goals, long-term goals. Talk to us about that.

Jessica & Ken Harper (30:59.16)
Well, mindset is something that I’m learning. I hired a mentor, Yvonne Delos, and we’ve been working together for almost a year now. And she’s teaching me how to move with intention. You want to wake up early. You want to do your journaling. You want to take time out for yourself so that you can fill your cup and then take care of other people. So.

I think the biggest thing for me, other than doing all those things in the morning to get ready, is surrounding myself with like-minded people. And making sure that I’m in the right mindset to keep growing in my business. So mindset, great question.

So Jessica, like I said, she’s a nerd. She doesn’t do anything if she hasn’t researched it, studied it, and so on and so forth. I don’t say that in a negative way. keep calling her a nerd, but that’s a compliment, right? So, you know, mindset, again, for some people, comes naturally. First thing she did, again, was she got with an expert. She invested in herself and got a coach slash mentor. She’s got a great routine. She reads books on intentionality.

Cameron Hemphill (32:10.845)
Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (32:27.184)
takes 45 minutes to herself every morning and so on and so forth. Burnout is real. A lot of times I wonder, how does she do it? How does she keep going? Not to sound like a broken record, but again, the conferences are fun. It gives us a chance to travel. Every couple of months, you’re traveling somewhere new or you’re going back somewhere where you enjoyed. Yes, it’s an intense learning experience, but you know what the conferences are like. There’s always going to be at least one night where you get to let your hair down and go out

Cameron Hemphill (32:37.374)
Hmm

Cameron Hemphill (32:41.542)
Yeah, yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (32:57.164)
and party and have some fun. So I think that definitely helps balance things out for Jess to where it offsets some of the burnout. But then it also helps keep the fire going because you learn so much and you meet other people and you’re constantly motivated and inspired.

Cameron Hemphill (32:58.93)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (33:13.206)
For me mindset, it was less of a challenge. I played football as a kid. I played a little bit in college and so on and so forth. When we started having kids, I always coached. I was an inside sales manager. I’m a sales guy. So I’m big on mindset and motivation. She would always hear me preaching it to my sales reps. I’m that and to the kids. I’m the posterist on the wall. Vince Lombardi quotes.

Cameron Hemphill (33:32.221)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (33:38.648)
I love it.

Jessica & Ken Harper (33:43.072)
You know, on my personal Instagram, even before it was cool and became a thing, I was the guy that was always, you know, posting motivational quotes every morning and so on and so forth. And I truly believe that stuff, right? It sounds corny, sounds cliche, but I buy into every single bit of it because I’ve seen it.

You know, I’ve seen it happen in my own life and in others lives and it’s happening in our life. So for me, mindset is less of a challenge. And again, this is where we balance each other out. Right. So, know, before podcast interviews, she’ll be nervous and, know, like, oh, gosh, oh, my gosh. And I’m telling her like, no, relax. This is what we wanted. You know, this is where we to be. You know, our dreams and goals are coming to fruition. So we’re all about

having the right mindset, setting goals and then going out and crushing the shit out of them. Yeah, and I’m big on manifesting. If I want something, it doesn’t matter what it is. I’m going to get it.

Cameron Hemphill (34:39.197)
I love it.

You see?

Jessica & Ken Harper (34:48.106)
It’s, guess sometimes it could be a pain in the butt too, because once I have my mind set on something, I don’t let anything or anybody stop me. And I, I what is it? OCD over it. Yes. You so, you know, that’s definitely helped me grow in my business. because the only way you can grow is to kind of just hover over something. And like he said earlier, live, breathe, eat.

Cameron Hemphill (34:58.003)
Good for you.

Cameron Hemphill (35:02.014)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (35:07.262)
Hmm.

Jessica & Ken Harper (35:17.62)
and shit what you you know

Cameron Hemphill (35:19.774)
yeah. Tons to unpack there. My gosh, that was amazing. Yeah, I know Yvonne very well. I’ve known her for many years and you know, it’s the more I’ve gotten to know her, like I actually, she’s been on the podcast before and we hit it off and had some conversations about how she starts her day. I’m like, my gosh, you’re so, there are a lot of similarities between her and I and how we start like manifestation, you’re cups full, like do a prayer, like.

bring positive stuff into your life, you know, like good affirmations, journaling, you know, shoot, if I was to go through my morning routine, it’s like, keeps, I feel like it keeps getting longer and longer at the cold plunge at the song. I’m like, man, I got to get to work. so it’s so true, you know, like the manifestation, I think to your point, Ken, like it can sound cliche, corny, whatever, telling you that stuff really works. There really is something to the, the universe out there. If you ask for it and ask for it to come into your life, like,

Jessica & Ken Harper (36:03.265)
Yeah.

Cameron Hemphill (36:19.474)
I’ve seen it happen to on a lot of occasions. And you it’s you reap what you sow. So I completely agree with that, you know, investing into a mentor that’s going to you’re basically buying time, right? So you’re just accelerating time on on what somebody else has gone through. Like Yvonne just came out with her book. I haven’t read it, but it looks like she’s selling tons of copies. And I’m sure it’s amazing. And I’m sure I’ll have the opportunity to read it here at some point. But

Basically by investing in a mentor, it accelerates time. You’re buying time. And I think like there should people in the aesthetic space or in business entrepreneur in general should really think about doing stuff like that and hiring experts. know, like hiring experts is key. And cause you’re just accelerating the event, you know, and saving money. mean, some people could look at it as like, Hey, I’m going to hire a

Jessica & Ken Harper (37:09.614)
Right.

Cameron Hemphill (37:14.352)
a mentor or an expert and look at it as an expense. And that’s sure, I guess there’s a cost associated. It’s more of an investment really. You’re actually, you’re getting a return back, you know, and sometimes it may be hard to like mechanically understand what that ROI looks like, like on paper. But when you really start to look at the wins and the success and the impact from that, there’s a ton of, I call it, know, winning in the margins, if you will.

Jessica & Ken Harper (37:43.752)
Absolutely. Like you said, it’s an investment. Any good injector doesn’t just take

the Botox and filler course and then start injecting people. You have to invest. have to, I personally, once I took that course, I found a mentor. She trained me for about six months. And then, you know, a few times a year I go and do like a one-on-one hands-on training. I’m doing this cadaver lab next week.

And that’s how you got to look at it as an investment. Not like, Oh my God, I got to pay $4,000 for this training or 6,000 for this cadaver lab. Like it is what it is. You know, if you want to be good at things or, you know, grow in your business, then you just have to invest.

Cameron Hemphill (38:26.504)
Right.

Cameron Hemphill (38:39.87)
You got to invest in yourself, you got to invest in your tech. And you guys use Aesthetic Record, it seems like, for your online EHR and EMR. Right? All right. Let’s talk about TechSec for a sec. So know front-facing website. I got an idea who does that. And then you have Aesthetic Record. Let’s see, what else?

Jessica & Ken Harper (38:46.35)
correct.

Jessica & Ken Harper (38:52.622)
We missed that.

Jessica & Ken Harper (39:01.774)
So she can tell the story better than I can. Go ahead. So we just switched to Aesthetic Record. I’m currently with Jane, so we’re moving that over.

I just feel like there’s more opportunity with AR. We also signed up for RepeatMD about a year ago. So we use RepeatMD a lot for our promotions, memberships, then just people being able to purchase online when we’re closed. RepeatMD is good.

Cameron Hemphill (39:36.338)
How’s your PMV been?

Okay.

Jessica & Ken Harper (39:40.95)
You know, they do really well with teaching you how to do things on the back end. And then they’re there if you ever need help with something. But my clients love it. They’re always getting some sort of reward or they get $25 off when they download the app. You can purchase at 2 a.m. when they’re up thinking about what they need or what they want.

Cameron Hemphill (39:48.83)
So here.

Cameron Hemphill (40:02.067)
Nice.

Jessica & Ken Harper (40:10.111)
So I enjoy it.

I love it. Yeah. RepeatMD is great. Phil and his team, they send great marketing materials. They make it very easy to set up and to use. I will say on the business side of things, you want to pay attention. You have to be on top of your margins. Right. So that’s one of those things where, again, if you’re if you’re doing it by yourself, you want to pay attention to, OK, where are my clients coming from? How many of them came in through the membership?

and you know what is that what is my true cost there versus the revenue that’s coming in. So again that’s that’s where it helps to have somebody you know on top of things paying attention to what is the true cost and you know how much money am I making using this tool. We’ve been fortunate to where we were able to create a system with our ERM and we’ll be able to do the same thing or excuse me ENR. We’ll be able to do the same thing

with Aesthetic Record and kind of use it as an EMR and a CRM all in one. And schedule, know, and use our scheduling app and everything that way as well. as far as our tech stack goes, you know, we definitely have taken on the mantra of less is more. We keep it streamlined, work with the best, and then just maximize the relationship and the products that they offer.

Cameron Hemphill (41:18.643)
Nice.

Cameron Hemphill (41:37.212)
Yeah, that’s amazing. I’ve had several conversations with the guys over at RepeatMD and of course, Tiffany. like, look, you know, just since we’re on the tech stack, I’m like, look, in a perfect world, simplicity would be like, just like what you said, if you had, not to tout growth 99, but let’s just say like they handle front-facing website, SEO ads, whatever, CRM, automated text emails, all that stuff. And then you have EMR, booking, and then you have RepeatMD.

Like that’s a pretty simplistic flow of how to operate and run your leads and your patients and your memberships and loyalty and rewards. so it’s funny, I’ve been on a call with all three of them and I’m like, Hey, this is kind of like the entire stack right here. Interesting to put all this together.

Jessica & Ken Harper (42:23.31)
That is our exact tech stack. A lot of times I’m like, damn, are we missing something? Do we need more? And I’ll talk to vendors and this and that. it’s like, well, shit, I can do that with Growth99 or AR does that or Phil and his team, they do that. And the best part is when you do have pieces that all talk to each other, I think that’s the most important element.

Cameron Hemphill (42:40.03)
Mm-hmm.

Cameron Hemphill (42:50.578)
super important and where the vendors have a relationship with each other. Like that’s a big deal, right? Because then you’re not just going to their generic support team. You can like kind of have like a little bit of a back door. You know, there’s a relationship there, which is, which is important. So if you’re like a vendor tuning in, like make sure to go to the conferences, connect with each other. It really, really builds rapport and understanding that it’s not just like repeat MD, aesthetic record growth 99. Like these are people behind these brands.

that can actually connect and help you run your practice more effectively. So no, you’re not missing anything. think like there’s a lot of fragmentation in the industry, like tons of feature overlap, tons. And there could always be a new shiny object, a new shiny object here. It’s like, well, to your point, Ken, well, they already do that. Maybe you do it a little bit differently, but you’re almost like, now you’re starting to complicate the tech stack and increase your costs. We’re really

Jessica & Ken Harper (43:29.613)
Yeah.

Jessica & Ken Harper (43:41.195)
Exactly. Right.

Exactly.

Cameron Hemphill (43:45.426)
You gotta take a step back. Is this gonna help my patient experience or not? What problem does it solve? Exactly, exactly. Well, you guys have been great. I know you’re super, super busy and I really appreciate having you guys and shoot, you’re going to Hawaii when? Next week?

Jessica & Ken Harper (43:50.604)
What problem does it solve?

Jessica & Ken Harper (44:06.23)
Next Thursday.

Cameron Hemphill (44:08.464)
What island are you on?

Jessica & Ken Harper (44:10.414)
Honolulu. I never even know, man. She fits all the stuff and I just show up with the best outfits that I can find.

Cameron Hemphill (44:11.912)
fun. That’s a fun conference place. Hawaii for a conference. That’s amazing. I mean, it’s just over the pond for you guys. You guys are in California over there, so it’s not too bad. It’s still decent. It’s still decent. Yeah. I’m in Florida, so I’ve actually taken that journey from Florida to Hawaii. That’s a journey for sure.

Jessica & Ken Harper (44:30.254)
It’s still like a five hour.

Jessica & Ken Harper (44:40.942)
We hope to be.

Cameron Hemphill (44:42.558)
You guys are great. Thank you so much. I will be at Amspa coming up in April. I will be at all the 4 S’s. And there’s some other conferences that will be at as well. I think we committed to Aesthetic Nax as well. And then there’s some other ones that we’ve put in. So shoot, you guys have fun in Hawaii. Thank you so much for joining. I will.

be on the lookout for cool pictures and social and all that stuff. I’ll definitely see you at Amspaw in April. But before we go.

Jessica & Ken Harper (45:14.702)
You’ve got to do, you got to do Phil’s cruise this year, best aesthetic injectors. He’s doing a cruise this year. Yeah. Oh yeah. Miami. Miami.

Cameron Hemphill (45:20.542)
He’s going to cruise. I didn’t hear about that. Probably out of Orlando or something. Miami. Okay, yeah, see I can make that. That’s not far from me. I can make Miami. Okay, I’ll have to hit him up about that. That’ll be fun.

Jessica & Ken Harper (45:35.468)
weekend in Bahamas. Yeah, we’ll meet it. Yeah, absolutely.

Cameron Hemphill (45:37.266)
Are you going?

my gosh, I got to go. Okay. All right. That sounds fun. I’ll I’ll definitely look into that. If people want to connect with you, you know, your journey. Learn more about you guys connect like where’s the best place for them to go.

Jessica & Ken Harper (45:53.294)
Instagram at drippinersjes website drippinersjes.com Ken? Yeah, the brand is Drippy Nurse Jess on everything. Best place to go. We’ve got a kickass website drippinersjes.com drippinersjes on IG. If you want my humble Instagram, it’s Ken Harper social media. I’ve got like 150 followers. She’s the star. Follow her.

Cameron Hemphill (46:20.03)
Awesome, guys. You guys are amazing. Well, there you guys have it. Thank you so much for tuning in, guys. Wonderful episode. It just goes back. I love having these conversations, learning about people’s journey from an entrepreneurial standpoint, just being in the business for 10 years. Ken working at Google, complementing each other, building something great. And so keep a lookout for these two guys. In the next few years, you’re just going to continue to see them continue to grow and crank because they’re investing in themselves. And they’re taking it at their path.

which is what works for them. And so thank you guys so much again for joining. And if you guys found this episode in particular valuable, please share it. My biggest ask is share it. Everything we do here is just to give back to the industry and give it a rating. I would absolutely love that. Until next time, happy injecting. Thanks guys.

Jessica & Ken Harper (47:09.432)
Thank you.