Read More
EP 460: Why and How to Raise Your Spa Prices in January (Without Losing Everyone)
  • /
  • business, marketing

Your Prices Need to Increase. Here’s Why and How.

If the thought of raising your spa prices makes your stomach turn, you’re in good company. Most spa owners feel the exact same way. But here’s what you need to understand: if you’re not raising prices regularly, you’re actually putting yourself out of business, little by little.

Dramatic? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

This episode is all about why price increases are non-negotiable for business survival, and more importantly, how to actually implement them without the overwhelm or guilt.

Why Price Increases Are Essential, Not Optional

Every single year, your costs are increasing. Your product vendors are raising their prices. Your insurance premiums are climbing. Your rent might be going up. If you have employees, they may deserve raises for their contributions to the company. And your own cost of living is rising too.

If you’re not increasing your prices while all of this is happening, here’s what’s actually going on: your profit margin is shrinking. You’re making less money while working the same amount or more. This is basic business math. If your costs increase by 5% and your prices stay the same, you just lost 5% of your profit margin. Do that for three years in a row, and you’re in serious trouble.

But here’s the pushback most spa owners give: “I can’t raise my prices. My clients can’t afford it. I’m going to lose everyone.”

Let’s be honest. Yes, you will lose some people. That’s part of doing business. But those price sensitive clients who leave? They’re creating space for your ideal clients, the ones who value your expertise and are willing to pay for the results you deliver.

The Two Scenarios for Price Increases

There are two different approaches to raising prices, and which one you choose depends on where your pricing currently stands.

Scenario one: your prices are already where they need to be. They’re in line with your market, covering your costs with appropriate profit margins. In this case, you’re looking at a standard 2 to 5% annual increase to keep pace with inflation. This is small enough that most clients won’t bat an eye, but significant enough to maintain your margins as costs rise. Even a $5 increase on a service can mean thousands of dollars in your bank account over the course of a year.

Scenario two: your prices are not where they need to be. Maybe you started too low. Maybe you’ve never corrected it. Maybe you haven’t raised prices since you opened. In this case, you need the “rip the band aid off” approach. Make one big jump and get your prices where they actually need to be.

Yes, this can feel shocking. But it’s far better to do one significant increase than to nickel and dime your clients with constant small increases throughout the year. Multiple increases create distrust and make clients wonder what’s going on every time they visit.

Understanding Your True Profit Margins

Before you can set appropriate pricing, you need to understand your actual costs. This is where the cost of treatment and profitability tracker becomes essential. You need to know the granular details: every consumable used in a service (dermaplane blades, cotton rounds, cleanser, gloves), plus your payroll costs for that service.

When you calculate your margins properly, you should be aiming for as close to 80% profit margin as possible when looking at consumable costs and payroll. If you’re not hitting that target, you need to adjust something, whether that’s pricing, time, or how you’re using your back bar products.

Communicating Your Price Increase

For a small 2 to 5% increase, you don’t need to make it a big production. A simple email with your updated service menu works fine.

But if you’re making a larger increase ($20, $30, $50, or even $100 on certain services), you need a comprehensive communication strategy. Send an email to your entire list. Create social media posts. Have in person conversations with your VIP clients. Update your signage and website. Make sure everyone on your team is prepared to discuss the changes confidently.

The key is to communicate value without apologizing. Your prices reflect the quality of your products, the expertise of your team, and the results you deliver.

Handling Pushback With Confidence

When someone says “that’s too expensive,” acknowledge their concern without backing down. Reinforce your value and offer alternatives like memberships, payment plans, or package discounts.

If they mention a cheaper competitor, respect that they’re exploring options. Then clearly articulate what sets you apart: your advanced training, product lines, technology, experience, or results. You’re not competing on price. You’re competing on value.

For longtime clients asking to be grandfathered in, thank them for their loyalty while explaining that costs affect every service across the board. Then pivot to how your membership program might help them lock in better pricing as a benefit for their continued support.

The Year End Promotion Strategy

Here’s a smart approach: announce your January price increase in November, and simultaneously offer a limited time opportunity to lock in current pricing. Clients can purchase gift cards, prepaid packages, or join your membership before the deadline.

This creates urgency, gives clients a sense of control, positions you as looking out for them, boosts your year end revenue, and reduces pushback by offering solutions.

Moving Forward as a Spa CEO

Raising prices isn’t about being greedy. It’s about running a sustainable business that allows you to take excellent care of your clients, your team, and yourself. You didn’t go through esthetic school or nursing school to struggle and wonder if you can keep your business afloat.

You’re here to make an impact, change lives, and help women feel confident. To do that long term, you need to build a business that’s financially healthy and sustainable.

Resources Mentioned in Episode #460:  Why and How to Raise Your Spa Prices in January (Without Losing Everyone)

  • Price Increase Communication Templates (DM us on Instagram @addoaesthetics)
  • Cost of Treatment and Profitability Tracker (available in Growth Factor Fundamentals)

 

Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube

Join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast Community

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Stay up-to-date with our email newsletter to receive important updates, news, and offers!

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

IG / @addoaesthetics

WEB / addoaesthetics.com

YOUTUBE / @addoaesthetics

LINKEDIN / @addoaesthetics

About Your Host, Daniela Woerner

Daniela Woerner is the founder of Addo Aesthetics and creator of the Growth Factor® Framework, a proven system that’s helped hundreds of spa owners build profitable, systemized businesses. With nearly 20 years in the aesthetics industry, she transforms overworked aesthetic professionals into confident Spa CEOs through strategy, systems, and soul led support. Daniela is also the host of Spa Marketing Made Easy, a top ranked podcast with over 1 million downloads, where she shares real world strategies to help spa professionals grow with clarity and confidence.

Hey Welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I am Daniela Woerner and I am your host. This is a show for esthetic professionals ready to grow their business with proven strategies and systems. So whether you are a solo aesthetician or you are running a medical spa with a team of providers. This show is designed to give you tactical strategies and advice to help you build a profitable and sustainable spa without the overwhelm, and today we are talking about something that makes a lot of spa owners really uncomfortable, but it’s part of growing your business. It’s part of business sustainability, and that is increasing prices. And we’re talking specifically about increasing prices in January. And I know that this can bring up a lot of anxiety, especially with current in the current economic climate, you might be thinking, Gosh, I’m going to lose all of my clients, or my market just won’t support higher prices, or I’m already the most expensive spot in the in my town. I have heard it all before. I’ve been there myself with my own business in questioning, you know, what are, what are the appropriate prices that the market will support. But this is what you’ve got to understand. If you are not raising prices regularly, meaning, like on an annual basis, you’re actually going to be putting yourself out of business little by little.

And I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true, and that’s why I wanted to have this episode today, to really break it down, and, more importantly, give some insight on what to actually do about it. So this is going to be a pretty tactical episode. We are not going to just talk about like, why you need to raise prices. We’ll talk about it briefly, but I want to walk you through how you actually do it okay? So we are going to have some communication templates. We’re going to have some AI prompts. If you just send us a DM on Instagram, we’ll make sure to get those to you. So again, we’re going to have a email template, we’ll have some social templates, and we will have some AI prompts. All you have to do is send us a DM on Instagram, let us know you want those, and we will message them right over Okay, so, oh, and the other thing that’s included in there, last but not least, is the pushback scripts. Like, how do you handle when your clients and or your team feel uncomfortable with a price increase, like, how do we respond to that?

Okay, so we have some scripts to help you with that as well. So if you’ve been putting this off or you’ve been scared to pull the trigger, you just don’t even know where to start. Listen in. We’re going to cover a lot today. Okay, so let’s start with why. Okay, so we want to, I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page as far as understanding why this is such an important part of business. Now, every single year, your costs are going up, so you’re probably in the middle right now, if you’re, it’s November as I’m recording this, and you’re probably getting letters and emails and things from your product vendors that are increasing their prices, which means a price increase is going, you know, being passed on to you. Your insurance might be going up. Your rent might be going up. If you have employees, they may be asking for and deserve raises to keep up with the cost of living. Your cost of living may be increasing. So if you are not increasing prices, what’s actually happening? Your profit margin is shrinking. You are making less money while working the same amount or more, and that is not good. At some point that will become completely unsustainable. This is basic business math. Okay, so if your cost increased by 5% and your prices stay the same, everything else just stays the same, you just lost 5% of your profit margin. So do that for three years in a row, and you’re in serious trouble. Okay, but I can’t raise my prices. My clients can’t afford it. I’m going to lose everybody. You will lose some people, okay? Like, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There’s nothing to sugarcoat you will lose people when you raise your prices. That is a part of doing business, okay? But this is also something that’s true some of those that natural attrition that happens when you increase the prices you’re creating space to attract you’ll have more space to attract an ideal client that will that can and will be able to pay. Eight those prices Okay, the ones that are going to fall off are the ones that are more price sensitive, that are going to price shop, that are going to they’re just more price sensitive and or they’re not valuing your expertise in the same way as your ideal client is, as you may desire from your ideal client, okay, and it’s important to I know this can be uncomfortable. I know it can be scary. I know it can be uncertain. But like, we are not running charities here, we are running businesses to help our community, to help impact our employees, to help women look and feel their best. Okay, so we want to make sure that we can be sustainable long term. All right, if you are only competing with price, you will slowly, slowly run your business into the ground, okay? And then you’re not going to be able to continue to help your employees, your community, all of the people that you have this this desire to help, and on top of that, you’re going to be burnt out and resentful, okay? So you’ve got to make sure that you are charging appropriately to be able to offer your goods and services, to be able to pay your staff, to be able to pay yourself. Now, if you it’s it’s pretty normal for spa owners, even though I am not a huge fan of this, it’s pretty normal for spa owners and business owners in general to not pay themselves in the beginning years of the business. It’s a, you know, kind of hopefully we are able to pay ourselves a higher amount, amount down the line, so that we can, you know, make up for those beginning years when we were not able to pay ourselves our value or our worth. But we don’t want to continue that phase of the business for years and years and years. There’s a certain point where burnout and exhaustion and resentment will set in. Okay? So you’ve got to pay yourself you have a certain level of expertise, your time is incredibly valuable, and it’s super, super important for the longevity and health of the business. Okay, so we’re not raising prices because we are greedy. We are raising prices because our business needs to be profitable in order to survive and thrive. So there’s two different types of price increases. Okay. So scenario one, your prices might already be where they need to be. They’re in line with your market, they’re covering your costs, they have appropriate profit margins, and you just need to be keeping up with inflation. Okay, if this is the case, easy peasy. We’re looking at like a two to 5% increase annually. Okay, so this is your standard incremental increase. It’s small enough that most clients are not going to bat an eye, but it’s big enough to maintain your profit margins as your costs increase.

Remember, even a $5 increase on a service can end up being 1000s of dollars in your bank account over the course of the year. Now that’s you know, scenario number one, where we all want to get to the point where, where that is our big change. What we’re going to talk about, for the most part today, is scenario number two, and that’s where your prices are not where they need to be. Maybe you started to load, maybe you never corrected it, maybe you haven’t raised prices since you started your business. Maybe you’ve been afraid to charge what you’re worth. In this case, we’ve got the what I recommend as the rip the band aid off approach. Okay, so we are going to make one big jump, and we’re going to get our prices where they need to be. This is, this can be a shock. This can be a, you know, like a, oh my gosh. That’s a really big increase. But in my opinion, in my experience, and I’ve seen this happen with several spas over the past 12 years that we’ve been in business, is that it’s much better to do the rip the band aid approach, rather than increasing and then increasing and then increasing and then increasing. If we’re constantly increasing it multiple times throughout the year. That’s going to wear down the trust of your clients or patients to think, gosh, like, what’s going on every single time I come in, there’s a price increase. We don’t want to create that energy. We want predictability, and it’s normal and predictable. Know that every January, our prices increase by a small amount. Okay, so I, you know, actually last week, I was talking with one of our coaches, and she was reminding me about a client who was coaching with us probably four or five years ago, she was incredible, someone who I consider a friend at this point, and she was, it was one of our, like, very early growth factor coaching calls, and she would come on the call and she would just be complaining about lashes. She was not happy doing lashes. She felt it was a waste of her time. She felt it was so tedious. It was just like it was a huge pain point. It was the topic of almost every call. And I had to get down to the what was it?

Did she not enjoy doing lashes? Or did she just, was it like a burden on her time? And so we went through, you know, some coaching. We went through and figured some things out, and we actually increased her lash prices by $100 so, I mean, that’s a pretty significant increase. And I think she was at 200 and we increased to 300 for the full set. And this was like, you know, again, like about five years ago. And once we increase the prices, she had no problem doing lashes. She felt like she was making great money. She felt like it was it was worth her time, and so it was not as big of a problem. And the reason I’m telling you that story now is because it was obviously a big, scary jump to increase prices by $100 I mean, that is a significant increase. And I think she lost three people out of like and she was primarily, primarily a lash business. So I think she lost three people. She had one that was really upset, two people that just said, you know, I can’t afford that, but everybody else stayed. Everybody else stayed. Now, I’m not saying that that’s going to happen in your business. It’s going to be different in everybody’s business, but you don’t know until you put a strategy into effect, right? You don’t know what your clients or patients value. You don’t know what it is worth to them, okay, so we need to make sure that we are pricing fairly and appropriately to cover the cost of our business, to ensure that we have a reasonable profit margin that we can actually pay ourselves. Okay, but we’ve got to get those prices in line so that you can run the sustainable business. Okay? So once we make this big jump, yes, you are going to lose some people, right? But then every year after, we are only going to have to increase by two to 5% which makes it a very easy pathway moving forward. Okay, now, in the past 12 years in business, we’ve worked with over 1700 spas, and over 600 of them have gone through our growth factor Framework Program. And I can tell you that pricing is something that we talk about a lot. In fact, it’s one of the very first things that we talk about is the cost of treatment and profitability tracker. Because if I don’t know what your pricing is, I’m not going to be able to give you advice on what services we should focus on. Or if you’re feeling like, gosh, I’m fully booked and my providers are booked, but there is literally no money left over at the end of the month. There’s, you know, we’ve got to understand the right problem to solve, and we have to get into the data to see that. So the spas that I’ve worked with that are high multi, six or seven figure spas, they are dialing in their pricing on a granular level, and they are making sure that their profit margins are at an appropriate level. Now I’m going to add in a bonus tip here, because we are in interesting economic times, right? Certain places I’m seeing that are just thriving and doing incredibly well. Other places are very much struggling. Okay, so we’ve got to you’ve got to understand where you’re at, and if you’re in a place that it truly is, a community that is struggling financially, then you’ve got to look at other ways, in smart ways, that you can adjust your margins.

Can you shorten the amount of time. Are there ways that you can lower your back bar expenses? We’ve got to pull some different levers to make sure that we can get our our profit margins in the appropriate place. Okay? So it can be a combination of levers that we’re pulling, but we need to look at that cost of treatment and. Profitability tracker and get our margins as close to 80% as possible. Okay, so when we are looking at what I’m talking about, our you know, 80% margins the cost of treatment and profitability tracker is something that’s in growth factor fundamentals. This is our kind of foundational program for spas that want to build systems based businesses, and having your systems in place, it’s so much easier to scale right when we have these things standardized. So cost of treatment and profitability tracker is in there, and what we’re doing is going through and listing out in a granular fashion, the consumables that are being used in a service. So a derma plane blade, cotton rounds four by fours, cleanse, you know, two bumps of cleanser, a pair of gloves like you’re listing out the actual consumables to understand what the pricing is, and then we’re looking at your payroll included in that. So for this, the purposes of this tracker, we are only looking at consumable cost and payroll, because we’re trying to find the margin per service that we are looking at. So when you fill those out, and when you’re going through our programs, whether you’re you know, if I’m consulting with a physician. If I have somebody who is, you know, starting their business and is in growth factor fundamentals, if I have somebody that’s in growth factor elite that is focusing more on scaling whatever program they’re in, all of them are filling out the cost of treatment and profitability tracker. It’s that important. Okay, so we’re using that to understand if we’re pricing our services appropriately. And again, we want our margins to be as close to 80% as possible when we’re looking at consumable cost and payroll. Okay, so that is step number one is we’re saying, Okay, well, let’s figure out where we’re at and how we can price appropriately. And what do we need to increase our prices to in order to get them to the appropriate level? So once that piece is done, then you’re going to communicate the price increase. Now, if you are just doing a two to 5% increase, I don’t really think it’s necessary to make it a big to do. You can send out an email that says, here’s our updated service menu and pricing. But it doesn’t have to be this huge, you know, communication push for a four or $5 increase, okay? But we if we are increasing by 20, 3050, $100 then we need to make sure that we are communicating effectively, to make sure that our clients and patients understand what and why and when all of this is going to happen. Okay, so I want you to have a email that goes out to your entire list. I want you to have some social media posts. I want you to have in person conversations for your VIP clients or anyone who already has a treatment scheduled. We’re going to honor the price when they have that booked. But if someone’s booked out for a year, you can let them know, hey, like your prices. The price is through the end of the year this and then for future treatments, they are going to be, you know, this price, you want to make sure that you have updated signage in your physical location, updated pricing and information on your website. And again, we have some AI prompts if you’re using chat GBT, if you’re using Claude, if you’re using Sintra, perplexity, whatever AI tool you’re using you want to put we’ve got some prompts for you. Just send us a DM on Instagram. We’re at Addo esthetics, and we have a little, you know, download that’s going to give you the email and the AI prompts for you to implement this into your business.

Okay. Now the prompts to make them effective, you want to have your company bio, so you want to understand who you are, what your tone is, what you’re about. And you also want to have your ICA like your ideal client avatar, okay, so that’s an important piece. Now I’m not going to get into reading the scripts and the prompts, because it’s going to be different for every spa, right? So you need to make sure that you have the prompts that are customized for your company the way that you communicate the tone your particular ICA. You want to get all of that created in a customized manner. Okay, what I want to get into now, though, is handling pushback. So what do you do when someone pushes back? And that may be the biggest fear for so many of you, is to be able to say. Stand with confidence that, like, Hey, I’m doing the right thing, I am worth this, which is really what, even though, like, our business is separate than who we are as a person. It feels like when we get pushed back, someone is saying, You are not worth this dollar amount. Okay, so if someone says that’s just too expensive. I can’t afford it. You could say something along the lines, and like, you don’t have to memorize this completely, but you could say something along the lines, it’s like, I completely understand how important prices are, and our prices reflect the quality of our products, the expertise of our team and the results that we’re able to deliver now we want to make sure that our services are accessible, which is why we offer and then you can get into either your membership, or you can get into payment plans, or you can get into discounted packages, right if you’re not doing a membership and say, Would any of these options work better for you? So you’re acknowledging their concern without backing down. You’re reinforcing your value by, you know, talking about the expertise of your team, and you’re offering alternatives, right? This is a great way to really anchor your membership pricing and do a membership push, if you raise your external pricing and then have the discounted membership as an alternative option. You can also look at, you know, if someone says, but the spa down the street charges less. Okay, great, you’ve got, there’s lots of options in our area. I respect that you’re looking at different providers. This is what sets our us apart. So maybe it’s your advanced training, maybe it’s your product lines, maybe it’s your technology, maybe it’s your results or your experience. So talk about who you are, what you’re about, and that your pricing reflects that. And you can say, you know, we would hate to see you go, but we want you to belong where you feel that you’re getting the best value in what you’re looking for.

So it’s you can bless and release if people don’t see the value of what you are providing. Okay? So you’re not competing on price, you are competing on value, and you’re giving them permission to leave if price is their only consideration, because that is not your ideal client, someone that is only going to shop around for price. Okay, I’ve been coming here for years. Don’t I get some sort of special treatment? Or can you grandfather me in? Or, you know, something along those lines. And you can say we’re so grateful for your loyalty. Longtime clients like you are the backbone of our business. The pricing adjustments apply across the board, because our costs affect every service that we provide. That being said, we want to make sure that we’re taking care of you. So let’s talk about whether our membership program might be a good fit, that we could lock in a better pricing for you or provide, you know, some sort of added value as a benefit for your continued loyalty. So I hear this a lot when people, especially people that have membership programs and they’re needing to increase their membership price. You know, the only in Spa when I talk about not increasing price, it’s for founding members of a membership. So if you say, like, my first 50 members, or first 100 members are considered the founding members, then they get that price for life. Okay? And you know you have to look at like, how long are they staying? How much additional revenue are they’re spending? Because it the math may work differently for different people.

So if you see that like someone’s, excuse me, someone’s paying a certain amount for their membership, but their average ticket value because they’re always upgrading, or they’re always increasing, you know, adding retail or something along those lines, you may choose that it is a better option for you to keep them as a member at the grandfathered price, but for the most part, you are going to want to increase the membership pricing across the board for anybody that is Not a founding member, okay, so I think it’s really important when, when and if, if and when. You do get some pushback, your job is to be clear, professional and kind. Your job is to communicate the value, but it’s not to talk someone into seeing your worth. Okay? Clients who see your value will stay. Clients who don’t will leave. That’s okay. Focus on communicating value. Focus on marketing your value. All right, the we are not going to allow this kind of. Of anxiety to live within us, because we want to please price shopping, discount hunting, high maintenance clients that are wanting to only price shop. All right? There’s a lot of pushback in our industry around Groupon and and things like that, and I don’t want Groupon clients. Okay? I actually think that Groupon is a client acquisition strategy. It’s not how you’re going. It’s an advertising strategy. And that’s a whole other episode. But when we are like the the reason that people don’t that they, in my opinion, misappropriately say I don’t want Groupon clients, is because they’re only looking at Groupon as a place where people only shop for price. Okay, so it’s, it’s kind of reinforcing what I’m saying here is that we want to make sure that we are communicating the value of what it is that we are providing to our clients and that we’re not only competing with price. Okay, you have so much more to offer. If you’re listening to this podcast episode, you’re investing your time and energy and how to become a better business owner. That increases your value. You’re looking at ways to better serve your client that increases your value. Okay, so really important to understand those things about your time and energy that you’re putting in to making sure that you can serve them at the highest level. Now, when we’re looking at a year end promotion strategy, and this can be a really great way to create an offer towards the end of the year to help those people that want to lock in the 2025 pricing for 2026 Okay, so you can announce your January price increase in November, and you can also simultaneously announce a limited time opportunity to lock in current pricing, so maybe they can purchase gift cards by December 15 at the current pricing. Maybe gift gift cards. Obviously, there’s federal gift card laws, so depending on your state, you know, are they going to be in effect for five years, 10 years, whatever the federal gift card laws are, right? This is getting them to commit to you.

It’s locking them in at those prices. You’re getting the cash on hand now, and you’re giving your clients a way to feel like they are beating the increase. Okay, so gift cards can be a great way if they want to purchase, you know, however you’re doing it as a package. Or when I worked at many spa Maui, we would put together the combos of, you know, three IPLS at this price, 100 units of Botox at x dollar amount. And we would do, you know, all the things in their custom package, put it on one gift card with it in the notes, and then when we would ring them up, we would be able to take that dollar amount off of that gift card that they would have on file.

You can do it with packages as well. So if you’re saying, you know, buy a package of three or more treatments by this date, and you get this price, again, very similar to gift cards, just kind of however it structures in your spa booking software. And my favorite is the membership promotion. So if you use your your price increase as an anchor to show the value of what they’re getting in the membership, it’s a great opportunity to do a membership push and do a special value add incentive for those individuals that want to join the membership or choose to join the membership at year end. Okay, so we’re creating urgency with a deadline, we’re giving the client a sense of control with the situation. It positions you as looking out for them and giving them an opportunity to save it’s also going to boost year end revenue, which is great to have that cash on hand, especially if you typically, if your spouse has a slow January because of all the gift card sales or because of something along those lines, okay? And it also reduces pushback when you’re offering another solution, all right, so don’t bury the price increase at the end of an email. Do lead with it. You know, you can say, We’re raising prices January 1, but here’s how you can lock in current pricing. Okay, so you really want to make sure that you’re leading with that. And if you’re thinking like, oh, well, if I do that, and all these people do that, then how am I even going to benefit from the price increase? Increase. Well, you are going to be continually attracting in new people. Remember that you have to attract 20% new patients every single year in order just to maintain okay, because you’re going to lose approximately 20% of your patients every single year. And it may be even more than that if you’re doing a price increase, so we’ve got to be We’ve got to lean into our marketing. We’ve got to lean into our messaging to ensure that we are getting those new people in and speaking to that demographic of people that are fine with that level of price increase, okay? And some people are just not going to buy ahead, and they’re fine with just paying the price at their service.

That’s fine. Okay, so let’s bring this all together. Raising your prices in January. It’s not just a good idea. It is essential for business survival and growth. Your prices are going to go up every single year, and if your prices are not going up, your profit margins are going down. It’s that simple, okay, so yes, you are going to lose some clients, but it is a part of doing business. If you did not have any price increases, then okay, you can stay where you’re at, but if you are getting vendors again, your product vendors, your like, the retail products, the consumable cost products, if all of those things are going up for you, then you’ve got to Adjust your prices appropriately to ensure that you’re not slowly draining your business. Okay, so here’s what I want you to do this week. I want you to run your real numbers. I want you to understand the cost of treatment and profitability tracker. If you are a fundamentals member or an elite member, use that tracker and make sure that you show up for one of our calls to get help and support around that. If you’re not, create your own spreadsheet, okay, create your own spreadsheet and know the true cost of doing business. Number two, you need to decide on your new pricing. So whether it’s the standard two to 5% increase or a bigger jump to be where you need to be commit to those numbers. If your demographic cannot, and truly cannot support a price increase, you have to look at time, you have to look at how you can lower your cost. All right. So there’s got to be different levers, because if you are not increasing your prices, those increases are going to reduce your profit margin.

Okay, so this is a you’ve got to get comfortable staring at the numbers and looking at what levers you can pull to make it make sense for your business. Then you need to create your communication plan. How are you going to communicate with your clients? Are you going to do this on social Are you going to have in person conversations? Okay? How are you going to let them know and prepare yourself, mentally and emotionally that you will lose some people? Okay, that is part of doing business. Unfortunately, you’ve got to plan your year in promotion. So decide which options or option or options you’re going to offer and when. So are you going to do a membership push? Are you going to do a gift card promotion? How is that going to look? And then you need to role play the pushback conversations, even if you’re just talking to yourself in the mirror, make sure that you and your team are prepared and confident with the choices that you’re making now in business, okay, so it is not about being greedy. It is about running a sustainable business that is going to allow you to take excellent care of your clients, your team and yourself. You did not spend all this time and energy going through esthetic school or nursing school, to be able to just completely struggle and wonder if you can even keep this business going. Okay, you did not. You did not start to work yourself into the ground. You’re here to make an impact, to change lives, to lift women up and help them feel more confident. You’re here to create a business and a life that you love. So if you found this about this episode valuable, I want to invite you to learn more about building systems and strategies for your spa inside of growth factor fundamentals. This is our program that teaches you the basics of a systems based business. And it’s, I say, basics. It’s not a beginner level. Course, it is a, I mean, we have people that have been in there for or that have been in business for 10 plus years but have never. Truly establish their systems. And we have people that are starting in business and are wanting to start the right way, so we are really growth factor.

Fundamentals are the the foundational elements of building a systems based business. Okay, we want to get everything right from the beginning so that you can truly scale and grow and and it’s a super important thing that we focus on building the right thing, looking at the data, looking at the numbers, so that you can build the business that makes sense for the season of life that you are in. Okay, we’ve got a We have monthly training calls with me. We have weekly mastermind calls. We have a library of done for you resources. We’ve got an incredible community of Spa professionals all working towards the same goal, to build a profitable, sustainable business without overwhelm.

You can learn more by clicking the link below this episode. So thank you so much for listening. Today. I am so so appreciative of your time and energy, and I will catch you next week on the next episode

Read More
Read More
EP 459: Your Q4 CEO Checklist: 7 Must-Do Tasks Before December 31
  • /
  • business, leadership

Don’t Start the New Year in Chaos: Your Q4 CEO Checklist

Q4 is typically the most profitable quarter for spas, and yes, revenue generation should absolutely be your number one priority right now. But here’s what most spa owners miss: if you don’t handle these seven critical CEO tasks before December 31, you’ll pay for it with time, money, and momentum in the coming year.

You don’t want to start January in complete chaos, spending your days putting out fires instead of preventing them, or losing precious momentum that could propel you toward your goals. That’s why this episode gives you a deep dive tactical checklist for the work you need to do before the new year begins.

  1. Team Performance Reviews (Do Them All in October)

Instead of conducting reviews on each team member’s anniversary, consolidate all performance reviews into October. This strategic timing allows you to identify trends across your entire team, calculate your payroll budget accurately for the coming year, and make strategic planning significantly easier.

These aren’t casual “you’re doing great, here’s a raise” conversations. These are strategic discussions about performance, growth alignment, and your business goals. Remember what Brene Brown says: clear is kind. When giving critical feedback, frame it with belief in your team member’s potential and capabilities.

Use objective data: retention rates, rebooking percentages, average ticket, retail to service ratios, and customer satisfaction metrics. Have growth plans with clear pay bands so your team knows exactly what’s required to move up (and yes, you should also have the ability to move team members down if they’re not performing to their metrics).

If you have team members who aren’t performing at the level you need, you cannot afford to carry dead weight. Your team is only as strong as your weakest link. You need A players in every position, which means giving honest feedback for growth and requiring commitment to improvement.

Document everything. Every conversation, good and bad, needs to be in writing for future reference and legal protection. 

And if you haven’t done them yet, or are not prepared to by the end of the year, block the time out in 2026 now. 

  1. Financial Planning and Tax Strategy

Sit down with your CPA in October or November for a tax liability estimate. This is critical because you may have had significant profit changes, household income changes, or reached thresholds where you need to consider an S corp election or introduce new tax strategies like a 401k plan or bringing your children on as employees.

Your CPA should provide your projected tax liability and your estimated tax percentage for the coming year. Using Profit First methodology, the general guidelines are 40% payroll, 30% operations, 15% tax, 15% profit. These are guidelines that shift based on your niche, location, and personal household income, but never exceed 40% on payroll.

If your operational expenses seem out of control, audit your profit and loss statement. Look at nice to haves versus need to haves. One software audit saved Addo Aesthetics $10,000 per year. Yes, switching software is painful, but the time and money savings make it worthwhile.

Consider bringing together your internal advisory team (CPA, financial advisor, and attorney) for a conversation about both personal and business goals. Set your business goals based on what you need to pay yourself, which should be based on your household financial goals.

  1. Product Pricing and Profitability Review

Use a cost of treatment and profitability tracker to understand the profitability of each service so you can make data-based decisions about pricing and which services to promote throughout the year. This isn’t a set it and forget it document. Your vendors increase prices every year (sometimes multiple times), so you need to adjust your consumable costs, payroll costs (if you gave raises), and account for inflation.

A general rule of thumb: increase prices 2 to 5% every single year once your margins are set appropriately, just to keep up with inflation. Do this once per year in January. It’s easy, predictable, and when it’s just a minimal increase, you don’t need a huge announcement.

If you’re making a significant price increase, give advance notice via email, social media, front desk announcements, and signage. Be clear about your messaging. Did you move locations? Invest in new equipment? What’s the purpose for the increase? Honor appointments already booked at existing prices and grandfather in package holders. Consider doing a price increase promotion in December so clients can purchase at the lower price before January.

  1. Decide: Growth Year or Sustain Year?

A growth year means you’re actively scaling through heavy marketing investment, hiring new team members, expanding your space, or increasing service offerings. You’re pushing hard on revenue growth, which means profit margins may be tighter because you’re investing in expansion. Growth years require more of everything: cash, energy, risk tolerance, systems, and capacity.

A sustain year focuses on optimizing what you’ve already built. You’re improving profit margins, tightening operations, developing your team, and strengthening your foundation. You might be catching your breath after a big growth year. Sustain years are not failures. They are strategic, and sometimes they’re the smartest move to solidify your foundation before the next push.

How do you decide? Look at your operational systems (can they handle 20% more volume?), financial capacity (do you have cash reserves for upfront growth investment?), team and location capacity (can your current setup handle more clients?), and your personal capacity (do you have the mental and emotional energy for a growth year?).

Once you make this decision, everything else falls into place: your marketing budget, hiring plans, and infrastructure investments all flow from whether this is a growth year or sustain year. There is no right or wrong answer. You can have five sustain years in a row and that’s perfectly fine when you’re building a business around the life you want to live.

  1. Annual Marketing Calendar

Map out your marketing with an annual calendar. Plan monthly promotional themes, members only events, mini events (like peel parties or “shed the dead” in October), email list building strategies, social media channel focus, and paid advertising plans.

Businesses plan in 18 month cycles and execute in quarters. You may not know exactly what will happen in 18 months, but have the vision and direction. Give yourself permission to change your mind, but when you’re in execution mode during a quarter, focus intently on that plan. Create everything in advance so you’re not rushing around on last minute deadlines, which is terrible for your nervous system and anxiety levels.

  1. Systems and Software Review

With AI, new software options emerge every two months. Review your tech stack: Are you using AI to its full potential? Is there a better or more efficient tool than what you’re currently using? Look at what saves you money and time.

A $200 per year Claude subscription that completely replaces your copywriter is far worth it if your copywriter was costing thousands. But you’ll need to invest time learning how to train custom GPTs and create projects that capture your brand voice.

Review all your systems: data analysis, schedule optimization, inventory management, marketing processes, opening and closing procedures, client intake, service protocols, retail sales processes, and emergency procedures. What can you shift, adapt, or change to be more efficient and aligned with your goals?

  1. Block CEO Time for 2026 Now

Before your calendar gets full, block off time in 2026 for these essential CEO tasks. Schedule a week in October for employee review prep and execution. Block time for your CPA meeting. Schedule your annual planning sessions, P&L reviews, and software audits. This proactive approach sets you up for success.

Get the Help You Need

If you need support, reach out to your CPA, attorney, or a fellow spa owner. Consider bringing on a coach or consultant. There are experts around you who can help you reach your goals.

Q4 revenue is the priority, but completing these CEO tasks will make a massive difference in your business success in the coming year. Don’t let the busy season distract you from the strategic work that truly moves the needle

Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube

Join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast Community

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Stay up-to-date with our email newsletter to receive important updates, news, and offers!

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

IG / @addoaesthetics

WEB / addoaesthetics.com

YOUTUBE / @addoaesthetics

LINKEDIN / @addoaesthetics

About Your Host, Daniela Woerner

Daniela Woerner is the founder of Addo Aesthetics and creator of the Growth Factor® Framework, a proven system that’s helped hundreds of spa owners build profitable, systemized businesses. With nearly 20 years in the aesthetics industry, she transforms overworked aesthetic professionals into confident Spa CEOs through strategy, systems, and soul led support. Daniela is also the host of Spa Marketing Made Easy, a top ranked podcast with over 1 million downloads, where she shares real world strategies to help spa professionals grow with clarity and confidence.

Hello my dears and welcome back to Spa Marketing Made Easy. I am Daniela Woerner, and if you are new here, welcome. We love to talk about all of the things related to running a systems based spa that supports the life that you want to live. And today we’re talking about what you need to do as the CEO in q4 so think of it as a checklist of sorts, because who doesn’t love a good checklist, right? Okay, so I know that q4 is a very busy time. You’re running promotions, you’re focusing your attention on revenue, and that you should q4 revenue should be priority number one. This is typically the most profitable quarter for spas, and you need to have your foot on the gas pedal when it comes to revenue generation. But here’s the deal, if you don’t do these things in q4 there can be serious consequences in the coming year, consequences that can cost you a lot of time and money. So don’t start the new year in complete chaos. Don’t be reactive instead of proactive. Don’t spend your time putting out fires instead of preventing them, and don’t lose precious momentum that could propel you towards your goals. So today, I want to give you a deep dive tactical checklist for the work that you need to do before December 31 Okay, I’m going to call it your November checklist, because it’s November. But the reality is is this is really what you should be looking at between October and December. Okay, just get all of this done before the new year begins. So first up is your team performance reviews. Okay, I typically recommend doing these in October, and I actually recommend that you do all of your reviews at once. 

So when we’re teaching the hiring and onboarding and development process in growth factor we look at bringing somebody on so they have their during their probationary period, which is the first 90 days. We’re doing a 30 day review, a 60 day review, and a 90 day review that’s going to place them into whatever pay band is appropriate for that year, and then at the review time in October, that’s when you’ll determine if they’ll be moving up, or, as I recommend, also have the ability to move down if they’re not performing in their role, if they’re not hitting their metrics. Okay, so why do it all at once instead of on their anniversary? A lot of practices will say, Well, we’re going to review everybody on their one year anniversary. If you do that and think about it, even if you have a team of just five, the productivity of having to go in and do a review five times a year. It’s going to affect your budget. It’s going to affect your timing. So there’s a lot of benefits to be doing this all at once. You’re going to be able to identify trends that you’re seeing among providers. You’re going to be able to be very clear with your payroll numbers and calculating your budget for the coming year. Okay? It makes strategic planning so much easier when you understand what pay band everybody is going to be at for the coming year. Now, when I talk about doing a review, it’s not just, Hey, you’re doing great. Here’s a raise, right? No, these are strategic discussions about performance, growth alignment and your business goals. And so what we need to do as CEOs, as leaders, as founders of our companies, we’ve got to give the feedback to our team to help them get better. And I know a lot of times we don’t like to give critical feedback. It feels uncomfortable. It feels just not good. I was talking with a growth factor member, and she said, You know, I have someone on my team that cries a lot, and it makes me hesitant to give her feedback because I don’t want to make her cry. And it was super relatable, right? Because we become really close with our employees. We become really close with our team, if you’re building a positive company culture, and so when we’re giving critical feedback to people that we deeply care about and love and consider family in a lot of situations, it’s hard, right? So I am going to quote Renee Brown, who says clear is kind think that’s a really, really important statement to remember. Clear is. Kind. So whenever you’re giving any type of critical feedback to your team, there’s a few things that I like to keep in mind. So when I’m giving the feedback, it’s Hey, I believe in you so much, and I believe in your capabilities and your potential, and that’s why we brought you on the team, and I’m going to be giving you some feedback from my perspective of things that I see that number one, you’re doing incredibly well. I’m gonna also share where I see some areas of opportunity for your growth, of what you can grow into to reach your full potential. 

And please know that everything that I’m saying, I’m saying with love, to help make you better, to help you grow and to help reach your goals. So we’re wanting to really set the tone so that they’re not, you know, taking it in that personal way. Now I also just kind of side note here. I think it’s also very important for the staff to be able to have the opportunity to provide feedback for leadership if there’s blind spots that you may have or ways that you’re communicating. Now, it doesn’t mean that you always have to act on that feedback, but it’s really important to create a culture where feedback is welcome and encourage in the proper channels, right? And when done with the desire to move the business and the team into a growth state, right? So super, super important there. So when we are doing our reviews, we also want to make sure that we have objective data, okay? So we want to understand their retention rates. We want to understand rebooking, average ticket retail to service. If you are doing any kind of customer satisfaction or, like, counting the number of reviews that mention that provider by name, you want to have that in there as well. If you’re doing front desk, like, what are the KPIs for the front desk? Is it booking efficiency? Is it customer service, feedback? Is it administrative accuracy? Is it answering the phone by the third ring? What are the things that we’re looking at and for the managers, what do they have ownership of? 

Okay, so is it team performance, metrics? Is it operational efficiency? Is it resourcefulness? We’re looking at these particular things. And again, you want to have these outlined on your growth plan for your providers. I was talking a little bit about pay bands earlier. And when we set these up, when we set up how we’re structuring how to pay your staff, we have different categories, like our esthetician growth plan is a junior esthetician and esthetician and a lead. And there’s requirements under each of those categories of what the KPIs are and the other requirements for that particular role. And it’s going to give you a pay range that falls into that category. Okay, so it’s making it very structured and objective. Okay, so really important thing that your staff knows what’s expected from them in advance. And yes, I recommend doing reviews, like formalized reviews in October, but I also recommend meeting with your team in short, one on ones on a quarterly basis. So you can give them feedback of where they are. You can give them insight as to, hey, if you’re wanting to get into this next band, then here’s the things that you want to focus on, and how can I support you to reach your specific goals? Okay, so really, really important there that we’re creating a continuous culture and environment of support and growth. Okay, so again, what should they continue doing? What should they start doing? What should they stop doing? What are the goals for them? What’s going on in their in their life. We want to understand all of those things, and then you’re going to take that and you’re going to choose if it makes sense to give them a raise. Now, one thing that’s really important is that there are set bands, right? Like, I’m not going to become a millionaire being a barista at Starbucks, right? So we have to look at like, what is the role and what is expected, and here is the set band for the hourly rate. And if you’re wanting to generate additional revenue, here’s the ways that you can do that, by contributing to the company’s growth in this way. Okay, so we want to make sure that compensation and how to get to those compensation levels are clearly communicated, from the hiring to the onboarding to the quarterly check ins to the actual reviews. Okay, that is going to make your life so much easier. Okay?

So what do you do? If a team member is not doing great, what if you realize that what got you here won’t get you there, and you have a team member who is maybe not performing as they should, maybe they’re pretty good, but they’re not great. Maybe they show up, but they don’t go above and beyond. Maybe they require constant management instead of taking ownership, you cannot afford to carry dead weight, and you’ve got to have a players in every position. Okay, so your team and I, this is something my husband always says. I know it’s a lot of people say this, but you’re only as strong as strong as your weakest link, right? So we’ve got to make sure that we are developing our people into their full potential, and we’ve got to make sure that we are giving that feedback for growth. Now this doesn’t mean that everybody has to be perfect. We all have room for improvement and growth, but we’ve got to be committed to that. 

We can’t be apathetic. Okay, so I know this is really hard, especially if you have, like, a personal relationship and genuinely care about this person, but you’ve got to have that boundary where you can say, right now I’m wearing my friend hat, and right now I’m wearing my CEO hat, and these are my expectations as a CEO. And this is, you know, we’re always going to be friends, and I’m going to, you know, keep that friendship over here. But when I’m wearing this hat, this is the feedback that I have to give. Okay, now, super important to document everything. All right, you want to make sure that all of the conversations that you’re having, good and bad, are documented. This is really important for future conversations that you’re going to have with that team member, or in case anything unfortunate comes up and there is some sort of conflict, okay, all right, so let’s kind of transition from the team reviews and the budgetary advantages that it gives you, from understanding what your payroll is going to be to financial planning and tax strategy, and this is something that you should be sitting down with your CPA. I talk to my CPA every October, November, we do an estimate of tax liability. Now this is important that your CE, your CPA, is involved in this, so you may have had a really incredible year and increased profit significantly. You may have had a down year and decreased profit significantly. You may have had changes in your household income. You may have crossed a threshold where it’s now time to transition and take an S corp election rather than staying a single member LLC, you may need to take some sort of tax strategy, like introducing a 401 k plan, or bringing your children on as employees and paying them. So there’s a lot of different things that your CPA should be connecting with you sharing this is what your projected tax liability is going to be, and I also like to understand what your tax percentage is estimated to be for the coming year. So we always teach Profit First when it comes to your cash flow management and the benchmarks that we talk about are 40% payroll, 30% operations, 15% tax, 15% profit. These are very different. These are guidelines, right? So, if you are a wax studio, and you are an anti aging studio, you’re going to have very different operational expenses, right? So keep in keep that in mind, but the kind of hard rule of thumb is, never go above 40% payroll, your operations, your profit and your tax liability are going to shift based on your niche, based on the location that you’re in, and based on your personal household income, but those percentages should be given to you every single year by your CPA. And if you’re wondering, like, okay, my operational expenses are out of hand, go through your PNL.

Look at what are nice to haves and what are need to haves. We did a big audit last year with everything happening with AI and really taking a good look at the softwares that we were using, we switched over our email software and saved 10,000 Dollars a year. I mean, that was an incredible that was worth my time to be able to look at that and go through the P and L and make the shift in the software, which, yes, it’s a pain anytime that you have to shift software, you go and cry for a little bit, and you’re like, oh my gosh, this is such a bigger project than I anticipated, but once you get through it and get it done, saves you money and saves you time, ultimately, I mean, it did for us, like the software we’re using now is a million times easier than what we were using before, and less expensive. Okay. Then we’re going to, when you’re doing that financial planning, doing the projections, the percentages, all of that with your CPA, then you’re using that to kind of set your goals. Are you going to shift your profit margin goals a little bit like, what are your goals for the year? I also, if you really want to get into this, you look at your kind of internal advisory team, which I consider to be your CPA, your financial advisor and your attorney, and if you can get them all in a zoom call together and talk about your personal goals, talk about the goals of the business. 

I always set the goals of the business based off of what I need to pay myself for the year, and that is based off of the financial goals that I have for my household, right? So getting everybody in the room and getting people that are smarter than me in these areas can really help you to make sure that you’re making the right choices for your business. That brings us to your product, your pricing strategy and profitability. Okay, so we have this document called the cost of treatment and profitability tracker. It’s an incredible document. A lot of our growth factor members are like this spreadsheet changed my life, and what it does is just really help you to get an understanding of the profitability of each service so that you can make database decisions around how you should be pricing your services and which ones you should be focusing on promoting throughout the year. Now here’s the thing. You can’t just do this once and set it and forget it. You get increases in your prices every single year. We’re seeing that a lot this year, right? Some vendors have even increased multiple times throughout the year. So if you are not taking a look at that and increasing, you know, adjusting What is your consumable cost, and then adjusting payroll, right? If you do choose to give some of your providers raises, you’re going to have to adjust that and your cost of treatment and profitability tracker. And just a general rule of thumb is that we want to be increasing two to 5% every single year in our prices once your prices are set appropriately with the appropriate margins, just to be able to keep up with inflation. So we want to ensure that we’re adjusting consumable cost, that we’re adjusting payroll cost, and that we’re also adjusting for inflation. I think it’s great to do this once a year, right? It’s easy, it’s predictable. People don’t like uncertainty, and so when you have the ability to say, Okay, it’s January, here’s our updated menu of services and prices, you know, it’s and when it’s just a minimal price increase, the two to 5% we don’t have to make this huge announcement about it. I mean, I don’t think that Starbucks or target will send you an email and let you know about their price increase when it’s, you know, not this significant amount, okay, if you are increasing a significant amount, then you don’t. I just prefer the rip the band aid off. Do it all at once, right? Instead of, like, increase, increase, increase, just do it all at once. Give your clients advance notice right, send an email. Do a post on social media? Have your front desk announce it. Have a signage up there. You know, get clear on your messaging on how you want to position that increase. Did you move to a new location? Have you invested in new equipment?

What are you doing? What is the purpose for increasing the pricing? I believe, in honoring the appointments that are already booked at the existing price, which is why we want to give notice, right? So if somebody’s already booked and already on the calendar, you don’t you want to give notice that like, hey, the price. Is going to be going up, but if they’re there for that month, then honor the price that it was. You know, before package holders, you want to grandfather those in, right? If they purchase the package already, you’re going to honor the price of that. And a cool thing that you can do is do a price increase promotion. So if you’re going to be increasing the prices in January, you can be talking about it, but then do like a package promotion or something along those lines, to get people to purchase at the lower price. All right, next up on our q4 checklist is deciding if this is a growth year or a sustain year for you, okay, a growth here is when you’re actively scaling. You’re you’re heavily investing in marketing. You’re hiring new team members. You might be expanding your space. You might be increasing you know, your service offerings. You are pushing hard on revenue growth. Okay, your profit margins may be a little tighter because you’re investing into expansion. Growth years require more of everything, cash, energy, risk tolerance, more systems capacity, right? If you’re planning a growth year, you’ve got to be prepared for the intensity that comes with it. Now a sustain here is when you’re optimizing what you’ve already built. You’re not necessarily pushing hard for like, huge revenue increases, but you’re focused on improving profit margins, tightening operations, developing your team, strengthening your foundation. You might be catching your breath after a big growth year, and you need to really make sure that you didn’t grow too fast. Okay, it’s a very common problem. As entrepreneurs, we have this like hustle mentality, and we want to grow, grow, grow, because it’s exciting. It’s a high right. Feels good to have that level of growth, and it doesn’t feel normal to kind of go inside and streamline things and clean things up and tighten things up. But sustain years are not failures and they’re not boring. They are very strategic, and sometimes they are the smartest thing that you can do to solidify your foundation before the next year. Okay, so how do you decide, well, operationally, you look at like, Are my systems solid? Can they handle more volume if I added 20% new clients tomorrow, would my operations hold up, or would they fall apart financially? Do you have the cash reserves to invest in growth? Growth requires a lot of upfront investment, right? You’ve got to invest in ads, which can take a couple of months before you really figure out what is working for you. So if you’re cash strapped, pushing for growth might create a crisis. Your team capacity. Can your current team handle more clients, or your location capacity as well? Right? If you need to hire, do you have the infrastructure to onboard and train new employees effectively, personal capacity. What’s going on with you, right? And your personal life as well. Do you have the mental and emotional energy for a growth here are you in a season where you’re burned out, you’re tired, you’re caring for a parent, you have small children at home, right? And so pushing for an aggressive growth here could just be a recipe for disaster. Care for yourself. You are your business’s greatest asset, okay? You also want to understand what’s happening in the market, right? So, is there an opportunity for expansion, or is the market saturated? Are there economic factors that you need to consider. Now, once you make this decision, then everything else falls into place, your marketing budget, your hiring plans, your infrastructure investments, they all flow from whether this is a growth year or a sustained year, okay? And there is not a right or wrong answer. You can have sustained years for five years in a row. Nothing wrong with that. Okay, are you going to grow as fast? No, but you are building a business around the life that you want to live. 

Okay? So really ensure that you are building something that allows you to be the best version of yourself, to be the best leader for that business. Now, once you have decided if you are having a growth year or a sustained year, then we want to map out our marketing. Okay, so get an annual marketing calendar. Are you doing monthly promotional themes? If your membership, you know, are you going to be doing members only events? Are you doing any type of mini events? We had a lot of our growth factor members doing peel parties and shed the deads in October, which was really fun. Are you going to really invest in building your email list? Are you focusing on a particular social media channel? Are you going to figure out paid ads, all of these types of things you want to get? Really clear, and remember that businesses, corporations, will plan in 18 month cycles and execute in quarters. So know that, like, Hey, you may not know exactly what’s going to happen in 18 months. There’s a lot of things that can change, as we’ve seen in the past five years in business, but we want to have the vision, the direction of what we’re working towards and where we’re going, and also give ourselves permission and grace that if we change our mind, we can change our mind, but when we’re in execution mode in that quarter, we want to be really focusing on that, because I like to create all of that in advance so that I don’t feel like I’m, you know, rushing around and just constantly on these last minute deadlines, which is not good for your nervous system, right? It’s not good for anxiety. You need to have time to really feel that you’re prepared, that you’re organized, right? Okay? And next up is systems and software review. So we talked about this a little bit when we were looking through the P and L, and I was talking about, you know, the software switch that we made. 

But right now, with AI, there’s so many bits of software that every two months there’s something new, right? So this is an and until we really reach market saturation, until we really get to the point that everybody has adopted AI and it just becomes a part of how we are living our day to day lives, then there’s going to continue to be changes that happen every single month. So when we’re looking at the AI tools that we’re using, and I’ve heard some feedback from some of our students that say, gosh, I just don’t want to add all these subscriptions. And yes, it’s true that they’re, you know, 20 bucks a month or 25 bucks a month. They’re not expensive however we can feel like we’re, you know, those little things really add up. What I want you to look at is, where does that save you? If you are able to with a, you know, $200 a year, Claude subscription, able to completely replace your copywriter. That was far more than $200 a year right then that subscription is far worth it. And so it’s going to be lowering your payroll, because you may not need a copywriter, but you are then going to have to figure out, how do I train how do I create a custom GPT? How do I create a project that’s really trained on my voice, my brand voice that anybody on my team can plug content into, and it comes out sounding perfect, right? So these are the things that we’re focusing on and looking on right now, but really going through and understanding, you know, do we have the right tech stack in place? Do we are we using AI to its full potential? Is there a better or more efficient tool than something that we’re already using? You guys know, we’re huge fans of mango mint, right? So mango Mint is the spa booking software that we highly recommend. So consider all of the things, look at your goals, look at your budget, and then decide, like, what could this do? Could this software change affect or help me to reach the goals that I have for the business, right? So you want to look at all of your systems as well. So your data analysis, are you optimizing your schedule? Do you have inventory management, marketing, all of these things like, what is the system or process that you can shift or adapt or change to make more efficient, to make more aligned with the goals that you have for yourself, all right? This includes opening and closing procedures, client intake, consultations, service protocols, retail sale processes, emergency procedures, right? So, really looking at all of these things together. So I know this feels like a lot, right? 

We talked about some really big topics, but when you take each section and you just put it to your business, focus on a little bit each month, right in q4 if you are already running a pretty systems based business. These things are just tasks that you’re going to add to your Monday board. You’re going to add them on your CEO tasks and block off the time in 2026 do that now go into October block. Block off a week of time that you’re going to be prepping for your employee reviews and performing your employee reviews. Block off the time that you’re going to be meeting with your CPA. Block off the time that you’re going to be doing your annual planning and reviewing PNLs and softwares and all of those things. This will set you up for success. Do this now before the calendar gets super full, right? So that you know that you are making time for the things that will move the needle in your business, and if you need help, then get help. Right? Reach out to your CPA, reach out to your attorney, reach out to an Estee bestie, bring on a coach or a consultant. There are experts around you that can help you to reach your goals. Okay, so remember, q4 revenue is the priority. We want to really bring that revenue in. But these tasks that we’re talking about in as completing as the CEO tasks, this can make a massive difference in the success of your business in the coming year. Okay, so thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I am so appreciative and so grateful for your time and your presence and your listening, and I’m wishing you all the best in your own business that you are building to support the life you want to live. All right, I will catch you on the next episode

Read More
Read More
EP 458: From Apparel Empire to Facial Bar Franchise: Michele’s Journey Building Face Foundrié®
  • /
  • business, inspiration, marketing

Could Your Spa Concept Become a Franchise? This Entrepreneur Did It 

If you’ve ever wondered whether franchising could be the path to scaling your spa business, this episode will either ignite that dream or help you realize a different route serves you better. Either way, you’ll walk away with clarity.

Michele didn’t start in the aesthetics industry. She built a nine-location women’s clothing chain that hit $25 million in revenue, all debt-free. But in 2017, while struggling with postpartum hormonal acne and her third baby, she couldn’t find an approachable, affordable med spa with easy booking. That frustration sparked an idea she couldn’t shake.

The Five-Minute Business Sale

On December 14, 2018, at 10:30am, Michele signed over her shares of Primp, her clothing business. Five minutes later, she signed the lease for what would become Face Foundri鮑s flagship location in the Galleria. Five minutes. Not five months of deliberation. Not a carefully planned transition. Just five minutes between one empire and the next.

Why? Because she knew if she gave herself more time, she’d talk herself out of it.

Face Foundrié® launched March 1, 2019, as an open-air facial bar concept with no treatment room walls, just curtains. The model was intentionally designed to be approachable, affordable, and efficient. Michele documented every process from day one because she knew she wanted to franchise once she hit the one-year mark.

Then COVID Hit

March 2020 arrived right as Michele was preparing to launch her franchise program. The world shut down. She had a newborn in April 2020. Everything stopped.

But instead of giving up, Michele used the shutdown to refine operations, put training online, and open a third corporate location to prove the concept in multiple demographics. By January 2021, she launched the franchise model. Within 30 days, Minnesota sold out.

Here’s what made the difference: her first franchisees were clients or friends of clients. They already understood the mission, the brand, and the culture. There was no need to convince them or educate them on the vision. They were already believers.

Franchisee vs. Solo Spa Owner: Which Path Is Right?

Michele gets asked this constantly, and her answer is refreshingly honest. She starts by asking potential franchisees: What do you love doing? What are you best at? Where are your areas of opportunity?

If you don’t love real estate, operations, or marketing, franchising gives you playbooks for all of it. You can lean on the system where you’re weak and showcase your strengths where you’re strong.

But if you’re deeply entrepreneurial, love constant change, want to switch protocols weekly, and crave total control, franchising might feel restrictive. Michele has those transparent conversations. Not every spa owner is meant to be a franchisee, and that’s okay.

The Sisters, Not Twins Philosophy

Unlike most franchises that require identical buildouts, Face Foundrié® takes a different approach. They view their locations as sisters, not twins.

Instead of tearing a space down to the studs, they work with existing assets. A former Starbucks in Milwaukee? Keep the exposed brick and hardwood floors. A space with a unique bathroom layout? Repurpose it. This approach saves franchisees significant money and gives each location character while maintaining brand consistency.

Starbucks does this too. Every location feels like Starbucks, but each one has local touches. That’s the balance Michele has mastered.

The Legal and Financial Foundations You Can’t Skip

Michele’s top advice for anyone considering franchising? Get a legal team that specializes exclusively in franchising. Not general business attorneys. Franchising attorneys.

The Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) is a public document. You’re showing potential franchisees exactly how much it costs to build, how you make money, and all your financials. Your numbers need to be airtight, and your legal structure needs to be bulletproof.

This isn’t an area to cut corners or DIY. Michele is adamant about this.

What Makes a Successful Franchisor?

Beyond legal and financial expertise, Michele believes confidence and passion are non-negotiable.

Most people search their entire lives to be truly passionate about something. If you’ve found that thing, hold onto it. Believe in it. That belief will carry you through the challenges, the pivots, and the moments when you want to quit.

Michele thought her passion was apparel until she discovered skincare. The mission of helping clients feel confident in their skin drives everything she does. That kind of purpose-driven passion is what builds lasting businesses.

The Bottom Line

Franchising isn’t for everyone, and Michele is the first to say that. But if you’ve built systems, proven your concept in multiple demographics, and want to scale through empowering other entrepreneurs, it might be your next chapter.

Whether you’re a solo esthetician dreaming of expansion or an Ambitious Ashley ready to build a legacy brand, this episode will challenge you to think bigger about what’s possible.

Resources Mentioned in Episode #458: From Apparel Empire to Facial Bar Franchise: Michele’s Journey Building Face Foundrié®

  • Face Foundrié®
  • Face Foundrié® on Instagram
  • Michele on Instagram

Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube

Join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast Community

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Stay up-to-date with our email newsletter to receive important updates, news, and offers!

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

IG / @addoaesthetics

WEB / addoaesthetics.com

YOUTUBE / @addoaesthetics

LINKEDIN / @addoaesthetics

About Your Host, Daniela Woerner

Daniela Woerner is the founder of Addo Aesthetics and creator of the Growth Factor® Framework, a proven system that’s helped hundreds of spa owners build profitable, systemized businesses. With nearly 20 years in the aesthetics industry, she transforms overworked aesthetic professionals into confident Spa CEOs through strategy, systems, and soul led support. Daniela is also the host of Spa Marketing Made Easy, a top ranked podcast with over 1 million downloads, where she shares real world strategies to help spa professionals grow with clarity and confidence.

Welcome back to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Daniela Woerner, and today’s episode is one that is going to stretch your thinking, spark your creativity, and maybe even shift the way that you see what is possible for your business. Have you ever wondered what it would look like to take everything that you’ve learned from one successful business pivot completely into a new industry and build a franchise model that sells out an entire state in just 30 days. That is exactly what today’s guest Michele did. Michele is the founder of  Face Foundrié, an open air facial bar franchise that launched just months before the world shut down for covid, but before skincare Michele built a $25 million women’s clothing Empire, and in this episode, she shares the story of selling her business, her clothing empire, signing away that retail Business, and signing the lease for her first  Face Foundrié  location, all within five minutes. I mean, talk about trusting your gut. So we dive into the realities of franchising from the legal foundations that you cannot afford to skip to the mindset shifts required to go from a solopreneur to a successful franchisor. Michele also shares why she follows a sisters, not twins, approach to brand consistency, and how her franchisees balance creativity with structure. So whether you’re dreaming of an expansion, considering franchising or just love a behind the scenes, look at what it takes to build a scalable beauty brand. This is a conversation that you do not want to miss. All right, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

 

All right, Michele, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I you know you are the first guest that we have had on in quite a while, because we really, we were focusing on a lot of training episodes and a lot of kind of in depth stuff. And we get a lot of pitches every single every single day, really, but yours really stood out as something that I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to be something, this interview, this story, would be so valuable to our audience. And so I’m so happy to have you here, and so happy to welcome you. 

Well, thanks for having me. I’m very excited to be here and share, hopefully what I’ve learned, and ultimately, hopefully I spark some curiosity or inspiration with your listeners. So let’s start at the beginning, or where whatever the beginning is for you, I know that you have entrepreneurial blood. This is not your first business. You had a clothing store previously,

right? Yep, exactly. So I actually graduated. I was an apparel design and merchandising major, so not in skincare. I’m I’m actually not a certified esthetician by trade, either. But I graduated from college, and myself and my business partner started a women’s clothing chain back in 2010 which was like such a weird, volatile time to start a business, and then, having lived through covid, it felt like very much some PTSD, yeah, we started a clothing business right out of college, and we ended up building it to nine stores. It was not franchised, it was all corporately owned, and hit 25 million in revenue, all debt free. So it was fast learning curve, and I loved everything about it.

So what was the transition there? Did you sell that and you were just ready for something new, or what kind of pivoted that said, like, hey, I need this. I want to make this shift into the esthetics industry.

Great question. So it was 2017 I had my third child, and I was just riddled with hormonal acne and the struggle of trying to find a affordable med spa that had really easy booking or approachable hours, it didn’t exist. And so 2017 I just I sat on this idea forever, of like, why doesn’t something like  Face Foundrié, this open air concept that truly has approachable skincare exist in the world. And at the time, I still had my women’s clothing chain, and it apparel was really all I had ever known. But I could not let go of this feeling for this focus facial bar. So it was December 14, 2018, at 10:30am I signed over the rights for my shares of my clothing store. It’s still in existence. It’s called primp, and at 1035 I signed the lease for what would become our flagship store in the Galleria for Face Foundrié. So it’s five whole minutes. I was scared to death. I’m not. In a lot, like, I knew if I gave myself any more time, I’d probably talk myself out of it, right? But I just couldn’t let go of this feeling and skincare. I I look back, and it’s so easy to look back and see the obvious, like, oh, the aha moments. But I was obsessed with skincare and makeup as a kid, and I just didn’t know that that would really just stick with me and evolve into something special. So two things that just stood out that are actually personal things. My daughter was born in 2017 so we have a child that’s the same age. And my business was started on December 14, although it was 2014 so those are just good omens. When is your daughter’s birthday? May 5. Oh, mine’s may 21 so may babies. May babies.

Yes. Okay, so you’re moving into you sign this lease. You haven’t really been in the esthetics industry to under I mean, you’ve have the entrepreneurial background, but, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of, as I’m sure you’re well aware of now, there’s a lot of industry specific, you know, types of things. So did you go into that location immediately knowing that you wanted to franchise, or were you just trying to take this concept and say, I want to build, I want to solve a problem for my community first?

For sure, that is a great question. So with my clothing chain, I actually did pursue franchising, and I love the idea of the franchising model. I think it’s amazing. It has it attracts this entrepreneur that wants a little bit more of the framework and a blueprint laid out for them and a proven concept. So I love that idea, because I think that ultimately you bring in good people, you can grow way faster. The clothing concept, it was not the model I felt was right for franchising. There were too many nuances, lots of skews. It just didn’t fit. But I knew whatever I did next I wanted to franchise. So to your point, the day we opened, I was documenting everything, all of our processes. I knew that we wanted to franchise. Once we hit that one year mark, we opened, march 1 2019, and I was like, waiting for March 1 2020 because we’d have a year’s worth of data, we could launch our franchising program. Oh, Daniela, it was going to be perfect, right? Great timing. Super fast. Obviously, the world had other plans. But yeah, it was March 2020 the world ended. And then you were right as I was about to launch that franchising program, I think the, like, the entire world shut down. And of course, you know, that’s when I had another baby, in April of 2020, so I was like, okay, great, yeah, I guess I’m on an extended maternity leave. Totally get that. Totally get that. Yeah, so. And I will say to your point, I am not a trained esthetician, and walking in, I almost I knew that was going to be the area of opportunity for me. So I really tried to surround myself with amazing estheticians that I trusted, that I was able to work with. I mean, one I had started working with back in 2017 on my skin, and just kind of evolved from there, because it is an area that I really wanted to perfect, but 90% in my opinion, of business translates. So I was able to bring a lot of the business acumen that I learned through our clothing store and then working for my parent, parents prior, it really did translate. And so I’m, I’m grateful for that, but the estheticians that signed on with us right away, they were instrumental in providing feedback as to what we should do when we launched protocols. All of it. Okay?

So March 2020, you’re, I’m assuming you’re not launching your franchise model with everything that happened. So what was the next step there? What? What did you do? Because we all had to, I mean, that was such a crazy time, but I also believe that it made us so strong and so resourceful. And any time that things you know, there’s been a lot of natural disasters, there’s been a lot of you know, whether it’s uncertainty in an election year or all of these different types of things that happen that are challenges for business owners. I’m like, Look, we made it through covid. We couldn’t even do facials without a mask on the patient. So, like, we figured it out, and like, you can do this, you know, well, and it, it breeds such innovation. Because I’ll never forget, we had to furlough all of our staff members. And I remember talking to this manufacturer in the Twin Cities, and I was like, I want you to create this, like plastic bubble, a dome that goes over their face, and our estheticians could just put their hands in. And thinking about, like, how can you do a facial, kind of under plastic to make sure that someone feels protected? Because even, I mean, I felt so bad for the Board of Cosmetology, you know, they they didn’t know how to navigate this. No one did. And so it was like trying to find feedback, or how we could reopen. Everybody was just kind of like awestruck and wondering, how do we do this? How do we relaunch? But I will say we were really innovative in the process, and we learned a lot. And you really do not at the time, but in hindsight, you realize how resilient you become in figuring out a way. And so for us, it was okay. How do we? How do we use this time to really document everything and put it online, if we can’t ever train in person again, what is this going to look like? We opened March 1, 2019, like I mentioned, and within a month, we knew, and part of the franchising model I knew I wanted multiple corporate locations to show proof of concept in various demographics, so we opened our second site not long after our first and then once covid rolled around, we had just signed a lease for our third site.

So that was really fun to kind of renegotiate and navigate and figure out how and when we could open that but three was really that sweet spot to then say, Okay, we have enough data to go back and launch franchising and launch our FTD with valuable insights and metrics as to how our stores did even through a little bit of a crisis. So when did you actually launch the franchising model?

When was we ended up launching January 2021, and within 30 days, we sold out the state of Minnesota, which is where we are based, all of our all of our franchisees found us very organically. They were actually clients or friends of clients. So it was perfect, because our original group of franchisees, they very much understood our mission, our brand. They aligned with what we wanted to do and how we wanted to execute it. And so there was very little education going in to having to explain what our brand and what our culture represented. And that was a huge blessing, too. And a lot of our growth, I attribute to those early franchisees that were just as gung ho very hungry and motivated to continue to help us spread the word.

So talk to me a little bit about the difference that an entrepreneur would experience whether they decide to become a franchisee. You know, they want to open their own spa versus just going and opening their own spa on their own. What are the diff? What are the primary differences, the benefits, the limitations, like to know, all of it going all in. How would they decide if being a franchisee is right for them, or just starting from scratch?

I think that’s a great question. First of all, we chat with a lot of our franchisees and potential franchisees, and I’m very transparent. I say, Yeah, Daniela, what do you love doing? What do you feel like you are the best at doing? And where do you feel like there are areas of opportunity? Because, to me, that’s meeting a franchisee where they’re at. So if you don’t love you know, real estate, let’s say you really need to lean on us for operations or marketing. We have playbooks for all of those things. So you get to really decide, do I want to where do I want to showcase my skill set versus lean on the system to help me. And there hasn’t been anything we haven’t been able to tackle, you know, accounting, if they need legal ops, like I had mentioned, any sort of educational side of things. I think on the flip side, if someone is very entrepreneurial and they have a lot of ideas and they want to kind of maybe they want a weekly facial where they are switching out the protocols, and they are really wanting to be hands on in their business, and wanting lots of change and lots of control, I think then that is probably the route that would serve them best. And we’ve certainly had those conversations and those transparent kind of outlooks of if that is the route you want to go franchising and that model might not be the best option for you, but if you do want that consistency and leaning on education and best practices, real estate marketing operations like we can help you fill all of those buckets.

What happens with a franchise when someone wants to exit? Are they able to sell the franchise or just similar as. You would sell a business, oh, yeah, business.

And I would argue because, you know, it depends on a brand. I wouldn’t just say, like Face Foundrié specifically, but a franchising model. Let’s say, if the brand is large enough, you’re going to have a much larger buyer pool, okay, as opposed to maybe a one off.

And in terms of, I think the thing I’m always curious about with a franchise is, does the owner have the opportunity to choose the product lines that they want to bring in, or are there set product lines? Does the owner have the choice if they want to create a particular type of marketing promotion, or are they limited to what the franchisee or franchise is saying each month?

Great question. So we have required skews and required product lines that we use in some of our protocols, or we just know that they sell well, retail wise, and then we have optional and so it’s very much on the owner to be able to say, Hey, I live in, let’s say, a southern region. I know I’m going to need more SPF, or I’m going to lean on more of the optional skews, because our clients are providing feedback. There’s a lot of optionality there within kind of the parameters we set. From a marketing standpoint, we are constantly doing customized marketing events. We, I would say, almost daily, our franchisees are working with other businesses, influencers, they’re doing pop ups. So really, in the marketing world, the options are endless. With what you can do. We are just here, kind of on the back end to support, to provide collateral that’s consistent with the brand, making sure that the verbiage fits the brand. Anything we can do then to take that off the franchisee,

wonderful, wonderful. And in terms of starting a franchise for yourself, like, what were the steps that went into that? You know, you knew from the beginning you obviously had a significant amount of business experience. You mentioned briefly that you used to work for your parents, so I’m assuming your parents were entrepreneurs as well. If you grew up with that, that kind of gets into your blood. But, you know, moving into that, that role, that model, what can someone expect, like, what are the the blind spots that they may not be thinking about?

I think it goes back to even the conversation we have with potential franchisees, what, where are your areas of opportunity, right? What are you not just, what are you passionate about, but what are you really, really good at? Because if you’re great at marketing, fantastic own that portion, but if you’re a little bit weaker at, say, accounting or finance or legal, like you need to have a very strong attorney that understands franchising. They should specialize in nothing else but franchising, because it is nuanced. And so that’s probably the one single best piece of advice I can pull out. Is if you are looking to franchise your concept, you have to have a fantastic legal team, and you have to make sure that your numbers are airtight, because the Franchise Disclosure Document is a public document, and you are really opening up your business to the world. You’re showing them what it costs to build it out, and you’re showing potential franchisees exactly how you make money?

Yeah, that’s a accounting and legal. I mean, the first thing that I did, you said you started your business and signed the lease. I started my business and I hired my accountant before $1 came in. Because I am black and white, like, I don’t like any gray area when it comes to the IRS, I am like, such a rule follower. I was like, Okay, let’s get that, that accountant in there.

And what do you think you like your unique skill set like when it comes to be like for someone to be successful at being a franchiser. They’re, you know, they’ve built one business, but it is a completely different model. And it is, you know, different locations can have different personalities. You know, before I started my company, I worked for a company called Bella sante, and there are three location, day spa, med spa in the Boston area. Huge operation, 200 employees, and incredibly systemized, incredibly well run. But every single location, even though they were exactly the same protocol, they had a different vibe, like it’s in a different city. There’s a different vibe of clientele that are coming in. There’s a different vibe of employees that are coming in. They’re still following step by step the protocols, but like your managing style, your leadership style, ensuring everybody is, you know, connected with the core values. It that was just all in the same in the Boston area. So going across the country, that’s, I mean, there’s some major cultural differences,

100% and I think to your point, you know, you can have this beautiful brand and lots of employees, and you have to have it systematically locked in. Your operations has to be lock step, because you want to make sure that you can replicate. And I do think that’s so important, not not even with franchising, because you can have corporate stores. And I felt this with our clothing brand. We had corporate stores across the Midwest, but it has to feel somewhat similar. Now, I do think Face Foundrié is unique in the sense that we view our sites as sisters, not twins, and that’s a little different in the franchising world. You think about McDonald’s or subway or even great clips you go in, you’re going to have to tear it down to the studs and rebuild it to make sure that it is the exact same model. We found that there’s ways to eliminate waste and cut costs if we work with some of the assets that are actually in a space. So I do think the sisters, not twins model for us has actually been really beneficial, but then the challenge becomes making sure that it feels very cohesive, state by state and space by space.

So I don’t know if this is the right way to ask, but like, Starbucks is a franchise, but then you go individually in each Starbucks and they’ll have, like, the local like, here’s the Hawaii cup and here’s the whatever cup, you know. So there’s something that’s kind of picking up on that vibe. Is that what you mean, or you’re like, it’s just not like a cookie cutter, like, every, every real estate space is exactly the same. Like, are you trying to connect with your local community 100%

And we usually do that through, like, business to business partnerships, the assets of the space, like, for example, I’ll use our Milwaukee location. It was actually a former Starbucks, beautiful, exposed brick walls, gorgeous floors, and instead of tearing it out, it felt like such a big waste of money right to put sheetrock over these walls and replace the hardwood, it was, wait a minute, we could save the franchisee a lot of money and also still make it feel like  Face Foundrié. How can we use some of the assets that are available to us and make it really work? And another example that comes up often is like the bathroom layout we’re oftentimes able to kind of repurpose layouts because of our square footage size. It’s not your typical larger Med Spa. It’s right around that 1500 square feet. So there’s some flexibility.

How many treatment rooms do you guys usually have?

So we don’t have rooms, but we there. It’s all Oh, you have the open with the Yes, yep, okay, actually served us really well, because we have, we host face parties a lot, and so it’s a great way for people to come in, if it’s their bachelorette or birthday with their friends, they can rent out the whole space. You can pull back the curtains, and it feels very communal and fun. Which face parties have been a huge, you know, huge hit for us so we don’t have the walls, which is also something that, you know, restricts build out and cost.

 

Okay, cool, yeah, I remember seeing that when I was going through the website and having that kind of open air concept. So any piece of advice that you want to share as we’re wrapping this up for either franchisees or franchisors, like thinking about something that you’ve learned across your journey?

Oh, let’s see here.

I know it’s a big question. What have you learned?

And I, I would say, like, it’s hard to write some up in just one answer. I don’t want this to come across cheesy, but like, believe in yourself, and I think that confidence goes such a long way, and that’s much easier said than done. But if you are super passionate about an idea, about a business, whatever it is, hold on to that, because most people search their entire lives to be passionate about something and really be moved by something. And for me, I feel very fortunate like skincare. I thought it was apparel, until I discovered skincare and how. Much we help our clients, and our mission is just very felt. And so if you can find something that you are truly moved by, I think that’s so special, so hold on to that and be confident in that decision.

Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love that. All right. So where can our listeners find you? Follow you, connect with you if they want to learn more.

Yeah, absolutely.  Face Foundrié with an IE at the end.com. Or on all of the social channels, it’s spelled that exact same way. Otherwise, my personal Instagram is Michele with 1 L manifest,

Oh, Michele. Manifest, love it, all right. Well, thank you so much for your time. This is such an incredible episode, so inspiring. I love celebrating women who have accomplished big things, and it’s it’s such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

I appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Read More
Read More
EP 457: Booked and Thankful: How Spas Turn Gratitude Into a Referral Engine
  • /
  • business, marketing

Turn Gratitude Into Your Most Powerful Referral Engine This November

Are you stuck at a revenue plateau, wondering how to break through to that next level without just working more hours in the treatment room?

In this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy, Daniela breaks down an underutilized growth strategy in the spa industry: combining authentic gratitude campaigns with systematic referral marketing to create predictable, sustainable revenue growth.

Here’s something most spa owners don’t realize: according to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know over any other form of marketing. But the real power is in the numbers that follow. Referred clients have a 37% higher retention rate and spend 200% more than non-referred clients. Even more compelling, gratitude campaigns increase client lifetime value by an average of 23%.

When you combine authentic appreciation with strategic referral systems, you’re not just filling next month’s books. You’re building long-term value into your business with the right clients who already trust you before they even meet you.

The problem? Most spas either do gratitude without strategic follow-up, so it’s nice but doesn’t drive revenue, or they skip gratitude entirely and go straight to asking for referrals, which feels transactional. The magic happens when you combine both, leading with genuine appreciation and then making it incredibly easy and rewarding for clients to share their experience.

But if you want to scale past where you are now, you can’t be the only one executing this strategy. This has to become a system that your entire team can run predictably and repeatedly.

Listen in to learn the entire framework for your spa! 

Resources Mentioned in Episode #457:  Booked and Thankful: How Spas Turn Gratitude Into a Referral Engine

  • Monday.com for referral tracking systems
  • Growth Factor® Fundamentals

Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on YouTube

Join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast Community

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Stay up-to-date with our email newsletter to receive important updates, news, and offers!

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

IG / @addoaesthetics

WEB / addoaesthetics.com

YOUTUBE / @addoaesthetics

LINKEDIN / @addoaesthetics

About Your Host, Daniela Woerner

Daniela Woerner is the founder of Addo Aesthetics and creator of the Growth Factor® Framework, a proven system that’s helped hundreds of spa owners build profitable, systemized businesses. With nearly 20 years in the aesthetics industry, she transforms overworked aesthetic professionals into confident Spa CEOs through strategy, systems, and soul led support. Daniela is also the host of Spa Marketing Made Easy, a top ranked podcast with over 1 million downloads, where she shares real world strategies to help spa professionals grow with clarity and confidence.

Daniela Woerner  

Well hello my dears and welcome back to another episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy. I am Daniela, and I’m so excited to dive into today’s episode with you. Now, if you’re new here, welcome. This podcast is all about giving you real, actionable strategies to grow your spa business with systems that actually work, not fluff, not theory, just proven frameworks that have helped thousand of Spa businesses scale sustainably. Now, if you’ve been listening for a while, you know that November is one of my absolute favorite months for marketing, Q4 in general, right? Like Q4 is such a fun time to be in our industry. It’s a busy time, but it’s a fun time. And today I want to talk about a strategy that I feel is very underutilized in our industry, and that is referral marketing combined with authentic gratitude campaigns. Okay, so I’m not just talking about like sending a thank you card and hoping for the best. I want to talk about and really kind of go deep and how you build a scalable, systematic Referral Engine that your team can execute, that you can track with real KPIs, and that is actually going to move the needle on revenue. 

All right, so super important there. Before we jump into that, though, I want to invite you to join me over in the spa marketing Made Easy Facebook group. We’ve got over 12,000 aesthetic professionals inside of there, sharing wins, asking questions, supporting one another as they’re in their entrepreneurial journey. And we’ve got the link in the show notes. I’m going to mention it at the end, but we’ve got a new series in there, which I’m so excited about. Every Thursday, at 11am Eastern Time, I am going live and answering the questions that we get submitted. As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions submitted. And laser coaching is something we do inside of our programs, inside of growth factor fundamentals and growth factor elite. And we wanted to give the rest of the community a little taste. So what we’re doing is taking, we can’t answer all of them, but we’re kind of picking some of the questions that have been submitted to us, and we are selecting those questions that we feel like are going to really provide value to the entire community, questions that come up that you know, you’ve probably struggled with or faced in your business before, and we want to answer those so that is starting this month in November, so be sure that you’re in there to hear those questions, and also, we’ll give you an opportunity to submit your own All right, so let’s get into authentic referral marketing and gratitude campaigns. And we’re going to start with why referral marketing matters. And this is especially important if you feel like you’re stuck at a revenue plateau, and in business, you’re there are these very specific revenue plateaus that spas will hit. They’ll get to a certain number, and it’s usually 25 to 30,000 is one point we get stuck again at the 50 to 55,000 the 80 to 85,000 there’s these, these very common plateaus that spa owners hit, and thankfully, there are solutions to those plateaus as well. But when I see a spa CEO get stuck, they’ve built a successful business, right? You’re bringing in consistent revenue, perhaps you have a team, you’ve got a proven model that works, but you’re just stuck at this ceiling, right? And you’re like, gosh, what is going on? I’m not sure how to break through to the next level without working more hours or being in the treatment room more than you already are if you’re still in the treatment room. And one of the ways to break through is referral marketing. Okay? So referral marketing, marketing becomes extremely critical, not just as a nice to have, but as a part of your core growth strategy. So according to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know over any other form of marketing. Okay, this is why, when I’m asking a spa like you know, what is your preferred source, whether it’s SEO or social or referral, their word of mouth referrals are always going to be their best clients, and the numbers support that referred clients. Clients have a 37% higher retention rate and spend 200% more than non referred clients. Okay, so that is, I’m going to just repeat that 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know over any other form of marketing. Those referred clients have a 37% higher retention rate, and they spend 200% more than non referred clients. So think about that. Your referred clients are staying longer. They are spending more. This is not just about getting more clients through the door. It’s about getting the right clients through the door, the ones who already have that trust with you before they’ve even met you, the ones who are pre sold on your value. Okay, this is working smarter, not harder. And here’s another stat that should get your attention. Gratitude campaigns increase lifetime customer value by an average of 23% so when we’re combining authentic appreciation with a strategic referral system, you’re not just filling your books for next month. You are building long term value into your business. This is lifetime value is such an important metric, because it’s not just about getting that new client in the door for the first time. It’s how are you going to retain them? How are they going to stay in your world long term? Okay, so this is where the conflict happens, or where the problem happens, or where spas are dropping the ball.

You may do a gratitude piece without any strategic follow up, so you’re just kind of loving on your people and sharing gratitude, which is beautiful, but it doesn’t drive revenue, right? Or you skip the gratitude piece, you skip the relationship piece, you skip skip that connection piece, and you go straight to asking for referrals. And that just that feels salesy, that feels transactional, and we don’t want that. The magic happens when you combine both. You lead with genuine appreciation, and then you make it incredibly easy and rewarding for your clients to share their experience. If you want to scale though, and you really want this strategy to be adopted as a part of your overall growth, right? A growth strategy for you, you can’t be the only person doing this, you this has to become a system that your entire team is executing, all right? And that’s what we’re going to walk through today. So let me give you the framework, and we’re going to call this the booked and thankful strategy. All right, it’s got three distinct phases, and if you are a subscriber to growth factor magazine. Think I’ve got one back here. I love these magazines. We’ve got a link below the episode if you want to subscribe to that. We also have a digital download that you can download a digital version and check it out. But in the November issue of growth factor magazine. We’ve got this framework mapped out, you know, step by step, in much more detail than I’m going through on this podcast episode, so be sure to check that out as well. All right, but this is the booked and thankful strategy, and it’s got three distinct phases. So phase one is your gratitude campaign, okay? And we’re going to run this from November 1 through November 15. And you know, adjust the timelines depending on when you’re listening to this episode. This is when we’re filling the emotional bank accounts with your clients. Okay? We’re making them feel seen, appreciated, valued, not just as revenue sources, but as human beings whose trust you genuinely appreciate. Phase two is activating that Referral Engine, okay? And this is going to run from November 10 through the 30th. Yes, there is an overlap with phase one that is intentional. Okay? Once you’ve established that foundation of gratitude, we’re going to make asking for the referrals feel completely easy, not transactional, not salesy, okay? And phase three is creating holiday booking urgency, all right, so this is going to run from November 15 through the 30th, and this is where we’re going to tie everything together, the gratitude, the referrals, the natural urgency of the holiday season to create a perfect storm of bookings that are going to carry you through December and the New Year. Okay, now, as we go through each phase, I’m going to give you the. The foundational tactics that every spa should implement, and then the advanced optimization strategies for those of you who are really ready to scale systematically. All right, now, here’s what I want you to be thinking as we go through this. And feel free to take notes or whatever is going to make sense for you. But I want you to be thinking about your team. 

How can your team execute this? What metrics do I need to be tracking? And how am I going to make this repeatable? Not so. So it’s not just a November thing, but it’s something that can become a part of our culture in our spa All right, because that’s the difference between a tactic, like something that we do once in November in a system, right? A tactic is something you do once, a system is something that runs predictably and repeatedly, driving consistent results. All right, so let’s drive into phase one, which is the gratitude campaign. Okay, this is where I’m calling the the thankful for you client appreciation series, right? This is the first two weeks of November. So week one is all about personal thank you. Notes to your top 20 clients, and I know you have more than 20 clients. Why just 20? Well, we’re going for impact, not volume. Okay, so these need to be handwritten, personal, specific to their journey. So you’re identifying your top 20. These are your highest lifetime value clients, your best referrers, your brand ambassadors, right? You’re writing them something that makes them feel truly seen, not thank you for being a client, right? That’s generic, that’s forgettable. Think about something like using their first name like Sarah. I’ve been reflecting on your skincare journey with us over the past two years, and I am so grateful that you trusted us to help you through your acne struggles. Watching your confidence grow as your skin has cleared has been one of the most rewarding parts of my work. Thank you for believing in our process, even when it felt slow. Your transformation inspires our entire team. You see the difference there that’s so much better than thank you for a client, right? It’s personal, it’s specific, it’s memorable. Don’t use chatgpt to write this note. Write it from your heart. Write it from your experience with them. Okay. Now, week two, we are going to be launching the client spotlight social media series. Now this is where you’re featuring transformations and testimonials with permission, of course. Okay, here’s a pro tip, don’t just post before and after photos. Before and Afters are amazing, but make sure that you’re telling the story. What was the struggle? What was the turning point? How has their life changed beyond just skin? People connect with stories. Okay, not just results. It’s great to see the before and after, but have that emotional connection of how their life improved. And then, week three, you’re doing surprise and delight moments. Okay, so this could be unexpected upgrades during their November appointments, a complimentary add on a product sample, something you know that they’ve been curious about, maybe exclusive access to a new treatment on your Black Friday sale. Something is we want to have the element of surprise. Okay, they weren’t expecting it, which makes it feel really genuine and generous, rather than just promotional. Okay, so let’s talk about the channels that you’re going to be using for this gratitude campaign, handwritten notes. Obviously, we’ve covered that nothing beats the personal touch, especially in our increasingly digital world. So let’s look at an email series. 

And this is, you know, grateful hearts, glowing skin, something along those lines, a weekly email that goes out to your entire client list. Doesn’t have to be long. It can be a simple message about how you’re grateful, what you’re grateful for in your business, maybe highlighting a team member or a client transformation. Just keep it warm. Keep it authentic. In social media, you can do a client appreciation post. It needs to be genuine, not just marketing disguised in gratitude. If it feels forced, your audience will smell it a mile away, and then the in Spa surprises. Okay, so this is where your Front Desk team, your service providers, they can be trained on how to deliver these surprise. Moments again, it cannot be just you, your entire team needs to be empowered on how to create these experiences. So how do we scale this? All right, how do we scale a gratitude campaign when you’ve got a team and you’re ready to actually systemize? Well, you got to have a tracking system, right? Right? You’ve got to track it, and I recommend setting this up in monday.com whatever project management software you’re using, but we recommend monday.com and if you are inside of growth factor fundamentals, if you have access to growth factor fundamentals, we have a Monday board for you that follows this exact tracking system, so we will get that uploaded. Make sure you request to have that uploaded into your profile. Okay, and so the board is going to be your top 20 VIP clients identified. You’re going to have a section there for the handwritten notes, assigned and sent social media features that are scheduled and posted in Spa, surprise deliveries completed. Team member responsible for each action and then completement completion dates and client responses. We want to track all of that, and this takes gratitude from being vague like a feel good kind of thing to measurable, executable systems. All right, now, second we got to train the team on the why behind this campaign. They’ve got to understand that this isn’t just busy work. This is relationship building that is going to directly impact retention, referrals and revenue. 

Okay? When your team understands the business impact, they execute with more intention. And third, you’re segmenting your gratitude approach based on client value. So your top 20 are going to get the handwritten notes. Your top 100 might get a personalized email your entire active client base gets the general gratitude email series and sees the social media content, all right, so you’re creating tiers of appreciation that match the relationship depth, which makes it scalable without losing that personal touch. And here’s an advanced KPI to track during this phase emotional engagement rate. And I know that sounds Gray, I know it sounds kind of squishy and fuzzy, but here’s why you’re tracking how many clients respond to your gratitude efforts, how many reply to the email, how many comment on the social media post, how many mention the handwritten note when they come in for the next appointment? This emotional engagement rate is a leading indicator of referral. Potential clients who feel emotionally connected are exponentially more likely to refer so you’re not just doing gratitude for gratitude sake. You’re building the foundation for phase two. Now documenting client stories and testimonials that emerge during this gratitude campaign is a must. When your clients reply to your thank you note with their own gratitude. You got to ask permission to feature their story. You’ve got to ask permission to collect a video testimonial. Use those moments to build your content library. And this is gold. This is material that can be used in your marketing for months and months to come. All right. So let’s talk about phase two, which is activating your Referral Engine. And this is where the gratitude that you’ve built starts to turn into actual revenue growth. All right, so now you’re launching what I call the share the glow referral program, and the structure is simple, but again, strategic. So for the refer the client who’s sending someone your way, they get $25 in Spa credit, plus priority booking for holiday appointments. You can do a spa bucks type of thing, like that. The $25 you can do, I would recommend doing something that is equivalent to what the new client would get, but it’s easier. You can do a percentage if you’d like, but depending on what you’re offering in your practice, it may be better to do a flat dollar amount. Okay? And you also want to make sure that you have some reserved spots during November, December, when you get very busy, that those people that refer can fill in those spots. Okay? Now, for the new client, the friend that’s being referred, they’re going to get 20% off their first service, plus a complimentary consultation. You can call this a dermal imaging session. Can make up a fancy name and add a value to it, but what you want to do is make it a no brainer for them to say, yes, okay, and you can also have tears, so refer three friends in November, get a free facial in December. Number. Okay, so you want to include those different things for the people that are really, you know, the social butterflies that are out there, you know, talking to the other moms at school. Pick up whatever it may be. But you want to really encourage that type of behavior. Now, how do we present this? How are we asking for the referral. We don’t want to just say, can you send us some referrals that feels weird and inauthentic and needy and transactional, and we don’t want to do that. Instead, you can incorporate it into a compliment or into a natural communication, right? So there’s no greater compliment you can give us than introducing us to someone who you care about. When you refer someone who books with us this month, we want to thank both of you, because we believe great skin should be shared, and there’s nothing better than experiencing this transformation with a friend, right? So we’re just positioning it in a different way. We want it to feel like an experience, not like a needy, transactional thing. Okay? 

So your team needs to be trained on how to bring this up naturally in conversation. So if someone is, if you’re training your front desk, you might say, I can see how happy are with your skin today. That glow is incredible. Do you have any friends who might be interested in feeling this confident about their skin too? We’ve got a special program this month where we want to thank you both when you refer someone who books with us, okay, so come up with a script. Come up with something that feels natural to you, but it’s about incorporating it into the conversation. If you have an aesthetician, they might say you mentioned your friend Jessica was asking about your skincare routine. We’re doing something special this month, so if she books a consultation, we’ll give you both a thank you gift. And so you can ask if you want, if they want us to reach out to them, or if they want to refer her to us. Figure out what feels more natural. Okay, but we want to make it as easy as possible. And the third option is, for whoever’s doing your follow ups, is if this is the spa manager, if this is the provider, if this is the front desk, just say, even in a text message, right? You can send it from the spa. I hope you’re still glowing from yesterday’s facial quick question, do you have any friends who want to feel as confident about their skin as you do right now, we’ve got a special way to thank you both this month. Let me know if anyone comes to mind. Right? All three of these scripts are benefit focused. They’re not ask focused. You’re not begging for referrals. You’re just creating for an opportunity for clients to share something valuable with people that they care about. Okay, so the positioning is really important here. All right, now let’s talk about how we’re going to actually turn this into a system. So we talked about monday.com right? So you’ve got to have some sort of way to track this. All right, so in the monday.com board, right? You want to have the client name and contact info. You want to have the referral program and enrollment date. You want to have the number of referrals that were made from that person booking status. You want to have rewards earned and delivered. You want to have the team member who’s responsible for follow up. You want to have the conversion rate for the referral source, all right? And you can systemize this by saying, hey, every Monday morning, we’re going to upload 20 to 30 target clients to contact this week. So you’re assigning team members to specific outreach methods, whether that’s phone calls, texts, in person, conversations, emails. Every Wednesday, you’re doing a midweek check in, all right? So you’re reviewing the response rates by the outreach method. So are you getting the best results from asking directly at the front desk, from the text follow up from an email like, what is working the best? You’re tracking and adjusting in real time, and then every Friday, you’re doing a weekly results review. Okay, so calculate the referral conversion rate. How many asks actually turned into actual referrals? How many referrals turned into booked appointments? How many booked appointments turned into paying clients? Right? We want to look at all of that information. Q4, it is so vitally important. 

This is where we are collecting the most amount of leads during this time you collect those leads that’s going to affect you the rest of the year, that’s going to carry you through the slower seasons of the year, which is totally normal, but the more active. Clients we have the better, and it’s easiest to collect them and gain them now. All right, so here’s some KPIs for you. Referral ask rate. So what percentage of your eligible clients are you actually presenting the program to? All right? If you have 200 active clients and you only ask 20 of them. You’re leaving money on the table, all right. So your goal should be to present this to at least 50% of your active base during November, December. Okay, and you know my Type A is out there. Let’s really move this up. Let’s try and ask in November. Okay, instead of November, December, the next KPI that we want to look at is your referral participation rate. Okay, so of the clients you ask, what percentage actually refer someone we want to look at like a 10 to 15% benchmark. 

If you’re below that, your incentive may not be compelling enough, or your ask isn’t clear enough, okay? And KPI number three referral conversion rate, so of the friends who referred, what percentage actually book, this is going to tell you about the quality of the referrals and the strength of your new client onboarding process. We want this above 60% okay? And then we’re going to look at lifetime value. So this is an advanced metric, but it’s so incredibly valuable when you know it, you’re not just tracking the initial booking from referred clients, okay, but you’re tracking their spending over the first 90 days, over the first year, right? And over the lifetime that they are an active client in your business. All right. So remember that stat that I mentioned in the beginning of the episode referred clients spend 200% more. You want to validate that in your own numbers. You can’t validate that if you’re not tracking it. Okay? Now here’s where this gets really powerful. For scaling. You’re creating accountability within your team. Each team member has a referral goal. Your front desk team has a referral goal for the number of referral conversions that they have at checkout. Your service providers have goals for referrals generated during treatments. Your marketing person has a goal for referral program signups through digital channels. Okay? And you’re incentivizing these goals. So maybe it’s a team bonus if you hit 20 referral bookings in November, maybe it’s individual recognition and a gift card for the team member who generates the most referrals, whatever works in your culture, but have something to incentivize them. Okay? So the point is, this cannot be solely on your shoulders if you’re the one, if you’re the only one talking about referrals, you will not be able to scale past where you are right now. You will be stuck at that plateau. Okay, to break through, you need the entire team on board. And if you’re a solo then you need to be the person that is talking about it in the room, and you need to set up automations or AI agents that can help you digitally. Okay, all right, we’re in the home stretch now. All right, I know I’m giving a lot of information. Thank you for sticking with me. I really believe this is incredibly valuable to help you in your business, especially in q4 so phase three is about creating holiday booking urgency and tying everything together. All right, so this is your glow through the holidays campaign. It’s going to run from November 15 to November 30. And here’s the psychology that you’re going to be tapping into. Everyone wants to look and feel their best during the holidays, there’s parties, family, family gatherings, photos. These are things that are going to live on social media forever, but everyone’s calendar is going crazy. They’re putting off booking because they think they still have lots of time. Your job is to create that productive urgency that gets them to book now, all right, you’re positioning November treatments, essentially as holiday prep. Your messaging is get your holiday ready skin before your calendar goes crazy. You’re offering gift card bonuses. You know maybe you’re doing buy 200 gift cards, get a $25 bonus card. That’s huge, because people are already thinking about gift giving. You’re making it more valuable by getting them to buy now rather than later, all right? And you’re creating holiday package bundles that your referrers can easily recommend to their friends. Okay, so we want to make it as simple as possible. The best accessory for every holiday party, confidence, right? We want to message things like that on social media. Book your spot before the holiday rush. December is already 70% full, pick up the phone, send out text message, be posting directly on social. We want to create that urgency, all right? And people need to know that if they wait, they may not get in. So you want to make sure that you are only sharing this if it’s true, okay, so don’t say December is only December’s already 70% full. If it’s only 20% full, don’t lie. You’ve got to be authentic, but do the work to get it 70% full and then use that. Okay? So really push yourself. Do the work. You don’t get to be overwhelmed in November, all right, we’ve got to stay focused, because this you will be so thankful that you did this work through the coming months. Okay, all right, so no false urgency. You don’t want to lose trust. So let’s talk about how this ties back to your referral program. So your existing clients, who are referring their friends, they’re going to get that priority booking benefit. You block off some time there so they are already secured for their pre holiday treatments. 

Their friends are going to get 20% off to try their services for the first time before the holidays, and you’re offering gift cards that both groups can use for holiday giving. If you’re really in a gym, you may consider extending hours just during the holiday season. You may open if you’re not open in the evenings, maybe open in the evenings twice a week, or something like that, to make sure that you’re really able to fill the demand. Okay, everything is working together to create multiple revenue streams, treatment bookings, new client acquisitions, through referrals, gift card sales that will bring people back in January and February, when things tend to kind of slow down. All right. Now let’s talk about how we can amplify these results. And this is like next level. Okay, this is a next level strategy, so if you don’t have your referrals with your existing client or patient base, don’t move to this step next All right, but if you feel that you have a strong foundation and you’re ready to move into strategic partnerships, this is the next step, all right, so strategic partnerships with other local businesses that serve Your same ideal client, but aren’t competitors. All right, so boutique fitness studios, high end hair salons, wellness centers, women’s health clinics, even boutique clothing stores. You want to build authentic relationships with the owners of these businesses first, all right. We are not going to be transactional. We’re not just going to do cold outreach and ask for referrals. That’s transactional and desperate. Instead, we’re going to go and frequent their business. We’re going to be a genuine customer. We’re going to spend money with them. We’re going to tag them, celebrating their services on social media authentically. We’re going to ensure that doing business with that salon or boutique fitness studio or whatever location, that your experience aligns with an experience that you would want to share with your clients and patients. You want to ensure that your core values are aligned. All right, this is essential. You want to get to know the business owner and their team personally. You’re supporting their business before asking for support in return. Now, once you’ve built that relationship, and that can take time, okay, this can be something that can take three to six months, and you can say, okay, Daniela, you just said, focus on revenue. Focus on revenue in November and December. If you’re ready to go advanced, build these relationships in January and February, right? Really start to establish them and start to use that to create systematic referrals coming in over the regular part of the year, not q4 Okay, all right. So then once you’ve built the relationship, once you feel that everything is aligned, then you propose formalizing the relationship, where it’s a mutual benefit, okay, so maybe when you refer a client to them that receive they receive something special. When they refer a client to you, they receive something special. You’ve got to figure out what that special thing is based on that company. Okay, so the strategic partnerships that we have here at Addo Aesthetics, the offer is different with every single company, because it’s about, what can we do that’s going to serve them, and what can they do that’s going to serve our people? Right? So you want to figure out and work together to come up with an offer that’s going to be unique for that particular partnership, you’ve got to track referrals by having the clients mention the partners. Name or having a unique link or a special card that they’re bringing in, there’s got to be a clear way to track that partnership referral base, okay, we’ve got to do monthly check ins to celebrate mutual success and adjust as needed, and only refer when there’s a genuine fit. All right. You’ve got to speak authentically about each other’s services. You’ve got to maintain the trust of your clients with your recommendations, okay, so the businesses that I see scale this successfully typically have three to five strong professional partnerships, strategic partnerships, that are generating consistent referral traffic. Okay? This is not a quick win. This is a marathon strategy, all right? It’s a long term relationship strategy, but when you get it right, it’s incredibly powerful, right? We don’t want to have all of our eggs in one basket. We don’t want to only rely on digital ads for new leads. We don’t only want to rely on SEO, we don’t only want to rely on referrals, we want to have a combination. So if one thing dips, we have other lead flow sources that can keep us going.

Okay, all right, so I’ve got to mention this before we wrap up. This is a really important part of any type of referral strategy, and that is the compliance and legal considerations around referral programs. Okay? So there are federal anti kickback statutes and state fee splitting laws that you need to ensure your referral programs comply with health care regulations, especially if you are a medical spa. Okay? So here’s some some kind of best practices, some safe practices, but always refer to your compliance officer or health care attorney or whoever you’re working with to make sure that you are compliant with your state. Okay? So just some best practices, keep referrals under $50 to avoid excessive concerns, focus on client appreciation rather than payment for referrals. Avoid percentage based rewards tied to referred client spending that can get into fee splitting territory, and that’s a no no document your rewards, and put them as a part of your general marketing and client appreciation efforts, not payment for referrals. And if you’re a medical spa that that accepts Medicare or Medicaid patients, or if you have a physician ownership, there are additional anti Kickback Statute considerations that apply. Okay, so again, consult with your healthcare attorney, your compliance counsel to ensure that your referral program meets all regulatory compliance requirements. All right, so I’m not a lawyer. I cannot give you legal advice, all right, but I can tell you that that’s not something that you want to mess around with or be in the gray area with. All right, we want to follow the rules, and so just really make sure that you’re doing that correctly. If there’s any doubt, talk to a healthcare attorney. Okay, it’s better to be safe and compliant than to risk your entire business over a referral program. All right, okay, so that was my legal disclaimer and this whole thing, but let’s bring this all back together again. November is not just about gratitude. It is about growth. It is about turning appreciation into acquisition. It’s about building systems that scale. So on the foundational level, every spa should do this. Send personal thank you notes to your top 20 clients. Launch Your share and glow referral program, train your team on the referral scripts and how to use them, and execute at least 25 referral conversations. If you’re advanced level, okay, then your and your goal like, hey, we want to systemize this. We’re on our path to seven figures, plus build your Monday board referral tracking system, or get ours set up your KPI dashboard tracking, ask rate, participation rate, conversion rate and lifetime value again that can be in monday.com create team accountability with individual referral goals, start building one or two professional partnerships for cross referrals and implement automated follow up systems for referred leads. And here’s your benchmarks for November, right? We want to based on how many people you’re reaching out to, set a specific goal of how many new clients you want to have from referrals. Look at your gift card sale. Sales from last year. How many gift card sales did you have, and what percentage of gift card sales can we increase by? All right, so what percentage of November, December gift card sales do we want to have? What’s your booking percentage rate that you want to have for December? So for example, do you want to have 80% of December appointments booked by November 30, and then, if you don’t have a percentage increase for gift card sales, maybe you have $1 amount, like, I want to do $5,000 in gift card sales in the month of November, right, or in the month of December. So really, do those things have specific goals that are very easy to understand if you’ve met them or not, okay? The referrals that you generate in November are going to continue to compound, compound. Those are going to be repeat clients. Those repeat clients will become refers themselves. Okay? So you are not just filling next month’s schedule. You are building your client base or your patient base for years to come. And when you systemize this, you can make this referral generation a part of your business DNA, a part of your business culture, rather than just a one time campaign, okay? And that’s when you create the predictable, sustainable growth that’s going to get you to your next major milestone, whether that’s seven figures or beyond. All right, that is what I have for you today, friends. I hope that this gave you some real, actionable strategies that you can implement right away. 

 

Now, in the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that I wanted to invite you into spa marketing Made Easy our Facebook group. I’m going to remind you of that again. I would love to see you in there. We have 12,000 spa professionals, everyone from solo aestheticians just starting out, to multi million dollar medical spa owners, and we have such a wide variety of people, because what we focus on is systems. Okay? Systems can be applied whether you’re solo or whether you have a team of 35 plus. All right, so let’s be in there. Let’s work together as aesthetic professionals. Let’s celebrate each other’s wins. Let’s support each other through challenges. And if you’re going to implement this referral campaign, let’s talk about it together inside of the group, let’s share results. Let’s ask questions where you get stuck, and connect with others that are on the same journey as you. All right, so I’ve got the link below this episode. Make sure that you request to join if you’re not in there, if you’re in there and you haven’t been in in a while, come back in say hello. All right. And if you want to go deeper with these systems, if you want the Monday board templates, if you want all of the resources that we’ve got for you inside of growth factor fundamentals, that’s the next step. That is the next place. How you can work with us on a closer level. We’ve got information about growth factor fundamentals below this episode, we would love to have you in there. All right. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I am Daniela, and I will see you on the next episode of Spa marketing made easy. Now go out there and turn that gratitude into growth.

Read More