About This Episode
In this episode, host Anji sits down with Audrey Campbell, founder of The Audrey Aesthetic, to tackle a costly growth mistake: treating AI as a shortcut to opening a second location. Audrey explains why technology cannot compensate for unclear standards, inconsistent patient experience, or a founder-dependent operating model.
The conversation breaks down the practical systems that make expansion more controllable: current SOPs, role-specific dashboards, provider-led rebooking, retention campaigns, and AI-supported training. Audrey also explains how to use automation for repeated outreach and early warning signals without handing over clinical assessment or treatment planning.
Audrey’s framework is simple: let technology execute consistently, but keep the judgment, differentiation, and relationships human. Her final advice for owners planning expansion is to start documenting the experience now, so the second location can reproduce what makes the first one work.
Read the full conversation
Introduction & the AI Expansion Myth
Audrey Campbell explains that AI can extend a second location only after the operating foundation is already in place.
The conversation sets the boundary clearly: technology can support consistent execution, while leadership, clinical judgment, and relationships remain human responsibilities.
The episode focuses on the systems that make multi-location growth more visible, repeatable, and profitable.
[View Transcript]
Most owners hear AI and think it's a shortcut to opening location number two. It isn't. AI can carry a second sight further than you'd expect, but only after you've done the foundational work first. And it can't replace the parts of the business that require your judgment, leadership, and relationships. Welcome back to the Business of Aesthetics podcast. I'm your host, Anji.
Today, we're joined by Audrey Campbell, founder of The Audrey Aesthetic, where she writes about AI in medical aesthetics and builds AI architecture for med spas, plastic surgery practices, and wellness brands. Audrey helps practices design systems that connect marketing, operations, and execution from single locations to enterprise groups. Her approach is built around one key idea.
Technology should handle consistent execution while people keep the clinical judgment and relationships that drive the business forward. Today we're talking about what needs to exist before you connect a single AI tool. How AI changes the way you manage a location you're not physically standing in. Why rebooking systems can become a major revenue lever and which systems actually protect margin as you grow.
This episode is brought to you by Ekwa Marketing. Audrey, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. All right, let's get into it. Now, owners hear AI and assume it can shortcut opening a second location. So before practice connects a single tool to a new site, what has to already exist on paper?
Document the Experience Before Adding Tools
Before a second site adopts AI, the practice needs current, scalable SOPs for both patient and employee experience.
Clinical protocols alone are not enough; owners must define the details patients feel at every touchpoint and the development path employees follow.
AI should be explicitly embedded into onboarding and escalation procedures, including what happens when automation makes a mistake.
[View Transcript]
Yeah, of course. I would hope if they have a second site or are already open that they have all their SOPs for patient experience as well as employee experience and then have those SOPs updated with AI in them. A lot of people, yep, we have SOPs, we have the systems in place, but...
I think that you should do quarterly reviews, especially if you're opening another location or if you're adding AI on. So that's great. Now you have it all here. How is AI integrating with your system of rebooking? So when you have that second location and you hire someone new, when they read the SOP or have the onboarding, they can see, hey, we have this tool.