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

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.