Scaling Without Compromise: Closing the Associate Competency Gap, Ensuring Multi-Site Consistency, and Integrating AI Automation

Don Adeesha: One of the biggest fears for any successful practice owner is the dilution effect. You spend years building a reputation for excellence, but the moment you open a second location or hire that new injector, you lose control of the quality. Welcome back to the Business of Aesthetics podcast. I’m your host, Don Adeesha. So how do you scale your business without downgrading your brand? To answer that, we are joined by Mary Ford. Mary Ford is a powerhouse in clinical education. She is a CRNA, the co-founder of Smiley Aesthetics, and faculty trainer for the Allergan Medical Institute. She has successfully navigated the challenge of scaling multi-location practice while maintaining elite clinical standards. Today we are going to be discussing the real competencies new injectors need, the operational stress test that you must pass before expanding and how AI automation is changing the way modern clinics operate. This episode is brought to you by Ekwa Marketing, the digital growth partner behind this podcast and a trusted resource for aesthetic practices looking to dominate their local markets. Now, with that being said, Mary Ford, welcome back to the show.

Mary Ford: Thank you, Don Adeesha. So happy to be here as always.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. Let’s get into the conversation.

Don Adeesha: Now, as an Allergan Medical Institute faculty member, you see hundreds of injectors. When an established practice owner is hiring their first or second associate, what is the specific clinical competency gap you most often see that separates a certified injector from one who is truly ready to treat patients autonomously?

Mary Ford: Yeah, it’s a good question because we get super focused in on our hands-on skill, which is obviously very important. But, you know, the market is dominated by nurses, and most nurses already are pretty skilled with a needle, actually, as it comes out. So the hands-on, it’s a confidence booster and really just about nerves in what I see in training more so than the actual skill set. So my answer to what is the gap that is consistently missed is much more anatomy focused and then rheology. So two totally kind of separate things that are obviously connected and extremely important. But the rheology behind the dermal fillers, that also goes to the background of neurotoxins and just what’s happening down at that molecular level, which then folds right into how and where we inject it. And then anatomy being the second, you know, not secondary by any means, but just another thing that there’s a gap for it. It’s just not, we’re not taught facial anatomy. Most, I would argue, nursing and physicians are not intentionally taught this unless, of course, you’re a derm or ENT or oculoplastic, but those are pretty specific fields. And this is just glazed over kind of in school for all of us. And then we glaze over it as well as injecting. If I know where to inject, you know, why does it matter exactly anatomically what’s going on? And we find out every day more and more with research that it does. So those gaps of rheology and anatomy are just ones that, they certainly come in almost 100% of the time with zero knowledge, literally, quite literally zero, aside from maybe what we had given them in their pre-course materials. And then it’s just kind of skimmed over after. They’re just so focused on hands-on. So I think those are the two things I see the most, I don’t think, I know, those are the two things I see most consistently.

Don Adeesha: And how do you structure a mentorship or perhaps a shadowing period at your own practice to actively close this gap before they ever see a patient alone?

Mary Ford: You know, training’s expensive, right? And so I’m going to acknowledge that first off. And while the easy answer is like, it’s investing in the training, you know, it’s them, you know, we either, a lot of our shattering opportunities are free, especially once internally. But, you know, it costs money to go shadow people, all these things. So that’s typically kind of the cost is always the excuse. So while acknowledging that as a practice owner, still thinking that’s the number one thing we should be investing in as clinical providers, but then bringing back in the money part of it, which we have to, which this podcast and business is so good with, is acknowledged. So then my best answer is when we do mentorships or training, we bring in the free resources or make sure that they are done or if it’s an outside person who has no affiliation with Smiley and is just simply training with me, I just ensure they have the access and understand the importance of it. You know, the AMIs of the world, GAIN, you know, really all of the large manufacturers, but I can certainly speak to AMI and GAIN, their programs are exceptional. Like the free resources, the free tools, the videos. I mean, it’s just… It’s really not even comprehensible how you can go Google a webinar that costs $300 and AMI has 17 of them that are free and done with a $2 million budget. And so didactically in video, it’s just… It’s getting people to realize that the at-home work continues, right? We had to study to get a nursing degree. We had to study for anesthesia. We had to study for these medical degrees. That only continues at home in a brand new field of medicine. It’s like you’re getting a new degree, Don Adeesha. I mean, it’s like you’re getting a brand new degree in a certain field of medicine or a fellowship or a residency, and you have to treat it as such. And so… Back to your question, I love, you know me, I get on my little tangents, but I love structuring our hands-on and our mentorship or our shattering and with the free resources that are out there or the best options, the Patreons and stuff that are low cost, but are offering just so much value to trainees and stuff.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. Free doesn’t mean you’re lacking on quality as long as you choose the correct option. Right. Now, a little bit of a follow up question to that. A lot of owners are kind of terrified to over invest in training because the projector might just leave and open up a competitor. How do you balance that rigorous clinical training with staff retention?

Mary Ford: Yeah, so we, if I was being fully transparent, which why not, we at Smiley don’t have, my answer is going to be surrounding like a callback, you know, in their contract. I think that’s the best, most practical way to do it. But those can be, if I was being practical, and I hate to kind of say this out loud, those are really difficult to track down. You have to pay somebody to go after this person, and it costs to pay said person. The attorney to go after you know whatever amount of money it is and it’s typically you know not nothing crazy right if i send someone you know to a two-day training or i mean depends on your definition of crazy let’s just say 10 grand well an attorney going after this person for that can be you know pretty costly in doing that so it’s still the best protection would be putting it in a contract you know and then if they leave within a certain amount of time you know their initial training or orientation is kind of given they owe that back to you if they don’t stay for a certain amount of time. That would be contractually how to protect yourself. Outside of that, I mean, it’s a risk that you take. I mean, the way I see it, and I’m overly, I’ve been told, I’ve been an overly positive person in some things, but at least I’m putting out, that person left, that would be unfortunate. They were probably not the right fit to begin with. And at least I’m putting someone out in the world, a medical provider that has my level and standard of training. And I know at least that they’re going to run out and do hopefully okay, knowing that they came from that basis. So that’s the very positive one. But there are some things in, you know, once again, tiny tangent and something that my sister and I, who owns Smiley with me really good on is focus. You know, that’s something that we can’t control. You can’t control people’s lives change, you know, whether it’s truthful or they’re just leaving to leave and following up, following them up, being mad about how an attorney going after your five grand, your six grand, you know, it’s a distraction. It’s ultimately a distraction. Moving on is really what’s going to produce the revenue, not not the other way around. And I will say I hate I do hate to say that out loud because. You know, it’s like, oh, maybe I have an employee in my current, you know, practice that has been there for three months. We’ve invested all this time and consider and they’re considering leaving. But, you know, it just kind of is what it is. And then I’ll say one more thing with this. You could utilize, you know, once again, our manufacturer trainings, our AMIs, our gains, you know, that the hands-on trainings that have people who, you know, AMI trainers who come into your practice, you know, ask your start there first, ask them if they have one available in their budget, because typically if the rep’s providing, it can be free. You can include other employees and it’s a great way to get some training that, you know, you don’t necessarily are coming straight out of your pocket.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. So certain clear expectations from the get-go. And then of course, yes. Better safe than sorry yeah for sure uh yeah i said a lot without um letting you letting you say anything um but it truly if you go you have your expectations set um you know you will end up and there needs to be a backup plan for someone just leaving now that plan may not be a backup injector that you’re ready to just plug and play in there but just the thought of could i survive if you know this person doesn’t produce revenue for the first several months um and yet i pour a lot of stuff into them because just like in a hospital orientating somebody is extremely expensive um and having your processes and stuff down for doing that to make it as efficient as possible um you know can try to save you some money but it is a risk we take absolutely and as a business there’s always risks but yes positive acceptance bring about peace of mind.

Mary Ford: Yes, for sure. That’s a little, you know, up here or whatever. But, you know, that’s where I live. I live up here in the clouds, as my sister likes to say. So it’s beneficial as well as distracting sometimes.

Don Adeesha: Now, Mary Ford, scaling to multiple locations is often where clinical quality breaks down. How do you operationalize your clinical protocols and culture to ensure that a patient receiving treatment at location A gets the same exact high standard experience as a patient at location B, even when you aren’t there?

Mary Ford: So you, this is like a multifaceted question to me. And the word that you use that I think what we can control for the most is experience, right? Is their experience. So I, you know, so if I go start under that, that’s the top thing that I would say my number one answer is what we would focus on. And I’ll explain that in a second. Secondarily, for me, also very difficult. And I can speak firsthand to this and happy to ever talk to anybody letting go as we scaled and the, this injector, this first injector on, are they going to do it the way that I do it? Know like you know we cannot like just know they’re just it just isn’t um it’s not a realistic expectation once again setting expectations in your own mind and if I expect uh them to inject the exact same way that I do I will most likely drive myself insane and then multiply that times you know our 10 like nine locations and all of a sudden I don’t you know my mental health I’m not even really here anymore right so it’s all you, you know, you can set your expectations that injecting and you learn this as you go, you know, and hopefully as you, when you go to hire your first person, you have kind of already learned this, but no one injects the same. No trainer really trains the same. Love going to basic, basic trainings with other trainers and listening because I pick up something every time. And that’s true in the injecting portion as well. We just, even if you poke in the exact same place is how the syringe is held, the amount of pressure that’s pushed, everything, the amount of products we think is, it should be put in that area. It can just be different and be correct. Right. And can be, you know, gosh, Don Adeesha, and this will ring true for any nursing. It’s like our daggone boards where, you know, all I select all that apply. It’s like there’s multiple best answers. What’s the best best? Who knows? Who knows? I’m not even really sure. And so that is true. We’re still too new to the industry to know that, you know, a certain amount goes right here and is ejected this. We don’t we don’t know the best, best option. So with that being said, allowing yourself as the clinic owner or the master injector. I don’t I do not like that term as the initial injector, most experienced, whatever you want to call yourself. You just got to let go and you got to know and trust in your training. Trust where you either sent them to be trained or trust in your own training, however you decide to do it and believe in it and know that it’s solid. And then that’ll kind of help you, you know, let go because it’s really just a letting go situation. If you, you know, assuming you don’t just have a brand new nurse come in and say bye, you know, then it’s just letting go of that control. The experience piece though, we can’t control for. So if a client walks in and, you know, has an amazing, has a experience in spot A that is extremely similar to spot B from the warmth of the staff that they walk into. If you’re a solo provider, same thing, how you greet them, their check-in, their check-out, just the whole process, their follow-up, everything. If that is great, if that is consistent, then if an injection doesn’t go as well in spot B or that’s not, you know, that injector is, you know, struggling a little bit with the skill, whatever it is, the client is so much just less likely to I want to say care, but if this is all 10 out of 10 and this is a six or seven out of 10 for some reason, we can work on this. This experience and stuff will send them packing and they won’t come back. So I think making sure that experience from point A to point B, objectively, you know, that’s SOPs, that’s how you do things, you know, that’s knowing how to check somebody out. It’s just having your processes down before you open your second location. And then the subjective experience, feel good stuff is clean environment, you know, making sure we do the things that are nicer, tone of voice, following up with clients, you know, your basic stuff that is super important.

Don Adeesha: And now culture is notoriously hard to document. Is there a specific, tangible way you codify the smiley aesthetics culture so a new manager in a different city replicates it perfectly?

Mary Ford: You know, that is difficult because now I think we’re taught we’re just, you know, culture is just subjective. Right. And when it’s it’s twofold, it’s the culture that we have within Smiley amongst our employees and our staff and the culture that we present to the clients and more of the experience and and everything that they go in. My favorite thing about Smiley Aesthetics, talking about specifically that we see, and we’ve had a little time to have some, you know, have the ability to have learned this about our practice, is the word warm that gets put in reviews at every location. And, you know, just the warm environment. And so to that, for me, you know, we’re all in the South over here. So, you know, that is the tone of voice. That is the, you know, smiling. That is the therapy-like sessions, if you will, where we talk to our clients like they’re people and stuff. And that really, really matters. And so when I see reviews on every single location that has that word and, you know, those similar descriptions, I know we’re doing, you know, we’re doing something right. And I can let It’s difficult for me, as I said. I’m probably one of the worst of letting go of the control of the injecting and knowing and trusting. It’s much better now, but in the beginning, it was really hard for me. But the warmth of the environment and stuff and the client’s just leaving happy. And even if we do need to follow up with them or we need to correct or enhance or do anything, they just leave, they just leave happier. And like I said, we have some data kind of now to prove that, that, you know, a bad outcome or a less than ideal outcome can be superseded by their experience. This will be fixed, you know, assuming you don’t go, you know, you have, and then if this is good, then they, you know, they’re, they’re still with us for life. And that includes on some, you know, a pretty VOs. You know, we had one recently that was the worst I’ve ever seen. She is doing perfectly fine. And I look forward to presenting the case to the world. We’re working on a video and stuff, but she is a client of ours for life because of her experience. But she had, you know, we, you know, dissolving, just had to send her to another provider when she was on vacation, just the worst kind of case scenario. But we did exactly what we needed to do. Thankfully, she had an amazing outcome, but regardless of, it was the experience. So that can really matter. And she’s already been back to have her, the VO and the lips, and she’s already had her lips refilled with us. Of course, it was about a month and a half later, fully healed, blah, blah, blah. But that really says something. So that’s where I’m most proud as a business owner. And when we hire a new employee, to circle back to the original question, that’s what I point out. I want your reviews that come in to read these. Here’s a summary of all these. I want them to be reflective of that and I’ll be very happy. I’ll take care of the rest of your training and stuff and ensuring you get what you need. That’s your part. That’s what I need you to do. Amazing.

Don Adeesha: So two things, ensuring that the best possible outcome of the treatment and then of course, Doing it warmly. Yes.

Mary Ford: Yeah, that’s a good yes. Doing it warmly. That’ll translate. Well, that’s the best. It’s still the best word, I think. Like, of course, we want best possible outcomes, but we’re not perfect, right? We’re human. We can be very close to perfect on ensuring they have a great experience, regardless of the outcome.

Don Adeesha: There we go. Now, you identified operational foundations as a critical step before expansion. What is the single most operational stress test a practice must pass before they even consider signing a lease for a second location?

Mary Ford: Oh, gosh, so operationally. So, you know, it’s kind of, do we put finances, if we want to take finances out, because there’s so much to be said about being financially ready, which you could put on, you know, you could tuck under operations and stuff pretty easily. But if we take out the, are you financially ready, which is a whole, you know, just another conversation, how to know you’re financially ready, what KPIs are we looking at, those types of things, which is very important. But if we took that out, then, you know, those processes, those SOPs that are distracting for us as clinicians. So not everyone, you know, opening a second location, what we have found typically doesn’t come with, I get a front desk person, I get a medical assistant, I get, I’m a provider, I get someone to help me with this. And it’s usually it’s me as the owner going to the second location one, two days a week. Sometimes I can open it full time with another provider and that’s it. And so if our foundational operational stuff, a like also, or AKA SOPs and our, and the things that causes to be distracting the inventory, the, the, that just, if that is all just not efficient, running well and perfect, it’s just a distraction. And that just ends up at things get, you know, the experience becomes not the best experience that it could be because I’m too, you know, I don’t, I don’t have this set up. I don’t have that, that product that I I need. I mean, just the basic processes, everything else kind of falls apart after that. So, you know, The SOPs, you know, we talk about that a lot on business aesthetics and with you guys and stuff. It’s a broken record thing, but the processes with which you do that, the step-by-step, doesn’t have to be fancy, doesn’t have to be anything, should be nailed down and repeatable, scalable at that second location. And I think that’s probably the best thing to have going outside of, of course, you know, making sure you can afford it.

Don Adeesha: Right. So tell me, when do you consider an SOP is complete? Or rather, you know, you have all the SOPs down pat. Uh-huh.

Mary Ford: Well, you know, the, you know, the MBA answer, which I’m getting my MBA, my executive MBA right now, I’m almost finished with, would be the SOPs never done, Don Adeesha. It’s never. It’s a living document. This feels like a pop quiz. It’s a living document that’s changing as you refine your processes and everything. That’s the textbook answer. But to your point, we have recently updated our SOP. We feel we’re doing the most efficient thing we possibly can. Reviewing those quarterly or biannually, you know, okay, that’s definitely necessary to do. It’s not something we have to look at every week and see if we can refine a process. But if we’ve looked at that, if that SOP has been done and proven to be an efficient, effective, safe, compliant, you know, process, then that would be my, it’s ready. You know, perfection, And what is perfect, right? You know, it’s an SOP for checking somebody out, you know, using the EMR system, you know, having everything in place in there to successfully check somebody out, you know, four or five clicks, know that it’s gone to your inventory correctly, your traceability, you know, your POS system is working. That’s a pretty easy step-by-step. And once it’s nailed down, we don’t change that often. So if we’ve tested that, you know, several times, several times really hundreds of times there’s no special time limit for how how we’ve tested these but if we’ve tested it several times it flows literally without any flaw any update then that sop or that process is probably ready but ultimately they’re living and they’re ever kind of ever changing and just something that we’re constantly mindful of and if you keep them updated now i sound like carla If every time you do make a little change, if you could just make a mental note or a sticky note to pop in your SOP, you know, have it pinned on your desktop or whatever and edit that, then these up-to-date things are scaling a location is, gosh, it’s so much easier. It does become about revenue and stuff. And everything else is, you already know how to do it. So just go repeat it. Is there a feeling attached to a ready SOP? Oh, gosh. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think that it’s, I think it’s, I don’t know, I think it’s a lot more objective. I think it’s something that if you’re reviewing it, you know, quarterly, let’s just, or when you’re starting out really every month, right? That first year, we should be looking at these often and you look up and two, three, four months have gone by and you haven’t changed that or you haven’t, you know, there’s not a thing you can think to kind of make it more efficient or better. You know, for me, like that’s a process that I can then, okay, that one’s ready to be repeated. You know, in terms of it’s just I think it should be pretty objective on those things. There are objectives. SOPs are objective anyways. Right. Extremely objective. So I don’t think so. I’m really trying to think about that. I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s if you know, you know, I think it hasn’t been repeated effectively with no changes repeatedly.

Don Adeesha: So how do you measure if it’s sufficiently efficient?

Mary Ford: Yeah, well, I mean, that’s where… Uh, well, that attaching your KPIs here to your SOPs is a wonderful way to, um, to assess those. Right. So KPIs is such a comment. Oh my God. If it’s like, it’s thrown around, you know, so, so much in all entrepreneurships or whatever. And it’s, it’s really cool. And it sounds really fancy. And it does sound like, you know, you’re talking about, except if you don’t even know what your KPIs are. I was like, yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got these, I’ve got these great KPIs and, and everything. And we meet these, you know, and it’s like, well, what are they? It’s like, Well, you know, it’s client retention. Well, what does that even mean? Like what exactly, you know, they’re defined, you know, sentence demonstrative statements that can be measured, you know, objectively. So I lost my train of thought a little bit. Your original question, I love my tangents. What was your question?

Don Adeesha: We were talking about the operational foundations originally, but I wanted to dive a little bit deeper with regards to when are SOPs efficient and, well, sufficiently efficient.

Mary Ford: Oh, yes. Yeah. And like I said, I mean, I think it’s just when it’s been repeated multiple times with no changes. And then that deserves another question. Like, well, how many times and how long? I don’t you know, I think like it’s just a really difficult thing to to put a time on. I don’t you know, and then I would I would argue every every industry and then every task within every industry would, you know, would need to be like studied to determine those numbers. So. Those are hard questions, Don Adeesha. I mean, how do you know? I think it’s just, I think attaching that KPI to it, like I said, where you can get some data from it and see the trend or see the data improve and whatever that looks like would be the best way to know if your SOP is working effectively.

Don Adeesha: That’s perfect. That’s a great answer, Mary Ford. Really appreciate it. That’s a hard one. Perfect. Yeah, but I think, you know, because I was really curious as to how are we measuring these SOPs, right? So absolutely, SOP is tied to KPIs. You can see the KPI benchmark in your industry, in your own market, and see how that’s doing.

Don Adeesha: Before we continue, actually, a quick message from our sponsor, Ekwa Marketing. So, Ekwa Marketing are offering our listeners a complimentary 60-minute digital strategy session. This is a one-on-one consultation with the senior strategist to help you map your 12-month high-value patient acquisition roadmap. You’ll get a personal diagnosis of your online presence and patient funnel, uncovering untapped growth levers across SEO and social, along with all those most important KPIs related to marketing, digital marketing specifically. And you’ll be walking away with a clear actionable plan tailored just for your practice. You can check the availability and reserve your spot in under two minutes at www.businessofaesthetics.org/msm. All right, let’s jump back in with Mary Ford.

Mary Ford: Well, Don Adeesha, let me speak to that real quick. I will say we took advantage of that. We actually did ours with Naren. This has been a while ago because we’ve worked with you guys for a while and just exceptional. It’s just something that, aside from the free part and it’s not the same analysis that you get no information that we do with some other people. I just have to say this. It actually gave meaningful feedback and stuff. And we weren’t actually ready initially to, I believe, back then to be able to start with you guys. But the depth and detail with which it was done. We were right back with you in two months later, you know, and then in the community and everything. And so, and able to join later. So it’s just exceptional and so valuable. So I just have to say that when you bring that up.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. And we are grateful, Mary Ford, for that wonderful presentation. Feedback.

Don Adeesha: Now, in your advanced training, you often discuss misunderstood aspects of injectables. From a safety or anatomical perspective, what is the one clinical myth that even experienced injectors believe, which you have corrected in your masterclass?

Mary Ford: Oh gosh, which one? I am still surprised always when experience, what is experience? Let’s just say someone who’s been injecting over three years, three to five years or more, comes to a training or is at a training that I’m at and does say something that It’s not that it’s, it’s not an opinion, right? It’s a black and white like fact about anatomy that is just incorrect. And so I think that the abundance of available information online is, is, is unfortunate, is not, is both unfortunate and unfortunate, but in a lot of ways, it’s unfortunate if we don’t, remember our backgrounds in learning and what is real, what is not, and how to research. How to research is what I’m trying to say. A TikTok video doesn’t qualify as research. I don’t care if someone’s wearing a white coat and their username is Dr. So-and-so. And until you go verify that they are who they say they are, But we just don’t. So the myths that are found almost that I found almost all come from social media. And I don’t mind it being a question. It’s when it becomes a fact before it’s ever a question. Right. I love there are no dumb questions. And I do. I believe that really. And I believe that in this. Sometimes in my head, I’m like, But also a question is a question and it should always, you know, be treated as, you know, as an opportunity. So, you know, a big myth that comes in, for example, surrounding migration was like dermal filler if we wanted to be specific and that it can, you know, the youth, the most, one of the most famous things in the last year or two was that MRI that someone posted that said, here’s the before 10 years and here’s the after 10 years of an MRI of a face and the filler. They lit up these areas on the face, which can also be done with AI and said, this is all filler. I mean, it went viral. The world believed it, right? Filler’s crawling up the face up here. It’s crawling down the face. It’s grown feet and arms, and it’s just like going all over, you know, and anatomically, it’s simply impossible. You know, we can’t, you know, filler doesn’t go against gravity and, you know, by itself and just gravitate up. It doesn’t grow feet, and it can’t cross over ligaments. It can’t cross through, you know, tendons, bone. I mean, just, it’s like, guys, we can’t get filler from over here down to here. It’s not anatomically possible unless you stuck a needle in here and somehow made it magically threw them out you know all the way across it’s just not possible so using our brains Don Adeesha like we are critical we were trained to critically think both in you know especially in nursing that’s where i give a leg up it is such a huge part of our uh nursing school and our training and stuff it’s this critical thinking piece uh which is so also subjective you’re like what? This is where the choose all that apply comes in or all that are correct. And we just, it seems like we’ve just lost, we lose that in medical aesthetics and we believe a TikTok video. And so, you know, the myths and the stuff are perfect for stimulating questions and stimulating research. But uh taking on or trying out or anything without critically thinking through it uh common sense and then you know doing research surrounding it is is just crucial you know otherwise you’re just a cowboy following a tiktok video and we can’t be doing that as medical providers absolutely now uh when you correct this myth uh perhaps on stage what is the typical reaction from uh these experienced providers do you get pushback No, usually, you know, usually it’s a light bulb moment, right? So, and I don’t, you know, I probably say things, you know, I’m not perfect. I, you know, I’m sure there are things that I say, although I’m very careful what I say, you know, you know, obviously what I say on a podcast or on stage to ensure that it’s accurate or as close to accurate or has some sort of evidence behind it. But typically when, you know, it’s a lot of times it’s just light bulb moments. We just, you know, those of us that people who train and on social media and are allowed on social media or whatever, you know, we’re not, no one’s perfect. So things can be said that aren’t true, or there are things that we simply haven’t studied with studied. And, you know, I, I’ve done this with 20 clients and here’s my experience. And so those things are okay. I think people typically, when they realize something that is a myth is, is a myth, it’s, it’s usually received well, it’s usually a light bulb moment. uh, and really kind of exciting because it’s just, I never thought of it that way or, uh, you know, I never, you know, whatever it is. And usually it’s, um, usually it’s received. Well, there’s, you know, you always have pushback on some things. You always have, you know, now I think we’re going through, and I bring up social media a lot because it’s just where people get their, get their information. We’re going through, we’re seeing some paid, paid campaigns to, you know, take down this product or that product by these companies, which is so unfortunate with medicine. Um, but, You know, we just have to use our common sense. We have to use that critical thinking training we have as medical providers. And then when you see something, just go look it up. Just, it’s just, Don Adeesha, we have chat to BT at our fingertips. Like, not to get to the AI question coming up, but at the very least… You know, going to AI, asking to, you know, review the literature on this. I just saw this. Can you give me any literature or peer-reviewed journal articles? I’d speak to this and then make a decision. I mean, we’re talking about 60 seconds at this day and age. So, you know, just make the effort.

Don Adeesha: Make the effort, absolutely. And for our practice owners listening in, Mary Ford, who might not be the primary injectors themselves, what is the one question they should ask their clinical team tomorrow to ensure that they aren’t operating under this myth?

Mary Ford: Oh, goodness. One question to ask their clinical team. It’s really difficult when you’re, you know, I can’t, I, we’ve had, we’ve had, we, We’ve had amazing quality in our compliance in our company or an organization. We currently have our current director of quality compliance is a clinician as well as that her 20 years of in quality compliance in the hospitals and stuff and in aesthetic practices. exceptional so fortunate to have her being able to have someone who is both clinically aware as involved in the operation or in the compliance piece of it um i can’t uh recommend that enough now we’re talking about a diamond that’s hard to find uh right they don’t exist compliance in med spas or compliance officers you know they’re not really a thing that’s like we’re kind of we were kind of new when we brought somebody on two years ago and um and like i said we’ve recently transitioned to to um to this woman and she’s amazing um so that would be my first like um non-practical answer right because a lot of people don’t necessarily have someone to hire but then that’s where business of aesthetics and some of these practices or some of these consulting services come in to be able to to offer that right and then it’s something that you outsource so That’s a tangent. The one, I mean, the question to ask is, you know, it’s like, is it safe is what keeps popping into my head. And so it’s like, that’s so broad. Like that’s not helpful at all. But if I can, if you ask me, isn’t, you know, well, is injecting Botox safe? I can give you a rundown of why it has been shown to be ridiculously safe. Can you do that for everything that you’re offering? And it is breaking it down into services. One question is tough, but it’s like, is it safe applied to whatever we’re doing? If you’re injecting something or using a device, is it safe? If your answer is just, well, yeah, it’s safe. Well, okay, that’s not an answer. Why is this considered safe? Maybe that’s a better question, Don Adeesha. Why do you consider this to be safe for your treatments? And they should be able to give… That answer should include… enough knowledge and enough background, enough research, enough of whatever for them to actually be performing a treatment. We have to know why we’re doing what we’re doing. So, okay, I’m going to refine it one more time. Why are you treating the patient with this? Maybe that’s the question. Why? Why is the best question? Why are we doing what we’re doing? Because that will inevitably lead down to the research, to the education, and to the training that we hopefully would have gotten for why we brought that into the practice. So I think why, which is my biggest TED talk tangent ever, why are you doing what you’re doing? If you can’t answer that, you’re not doing it. And if the answer is I saw it on TikTok, okay, well, we have our answer.

Don Adeesha: There we go. The source is very important where you get the answer from. Yes.

Don Adeesha: So now we are hearing a lot about AI in marketing, but less about it in operations. How are you specifically using AI and automation tools within Smiley Aesthetics to reduce the administrative burden on your clinical team so that they can focus purely on that patient care?

Mary Ford: Yes. So, you know, I, you know, outside, I’m glad we’re taking AI and marketing kind of out of it because, of course, it has its place. But, you know, that’s kind of its whole other topic. So, and operationally, you know, where you’re using it as automated messaging and responses and some of that, that can be considered marketing. But, you know, it’s getting a response to a client a little bit quicker, you know, on Meta for free. You can fill out FAQs for the AI, you know, to use, you know, to use to be able to answer your questions to get them some stuff that’s more efficient, gives them the answer quickly, kind of falls in our marketing as well. Where we use it specifically, like in our operations, a good example, we use a lot of, we use Microsoft, I’ll say. And so our co-pilot and some of our AI software For forms, for our employees, like our inventory, I’m trying to give a primary example. Our entire training process, for example, with our training clinic is automated. The form automates into Monday, which is a software that uses AI to adjust and filter and organize things. And then automated emails are sent out based on this flow of automation. So I guess the answer would be automations for our operations. We’ve automated almost everything we can with AI that is administrative. ChatGPT is something that Carla and I, I’m on it constantly, both personally and professionally, because finding out information, finding out ways to do things more efficiently, once again, outside of marketing, when it comes to just, you know, I can’t think of something to do or ideas for content or copy sometimes can be really great. It can help in that in that realm. And then in our charting clinically, which is in an operational way, you know, some of our EMRs are now integrating the voice to text or the AI summaries of, of our, of our appointments and stuff. So yeah, That was a really confusing answer for, you know, we’re automating all that we can with AI from email responses and out-of-office messages or in-office and I’m injecting messages if you’re a solo provider. Your EMR, I mean, if you’re still paper charting, we need to, you know, the software, we need to be investing in our software that we can then link into our marketing and stuff and be able to keep all that in one place. And then client responses, client questions, stuff like that can be, AI can be trained very easily and effectively to answer questions and stuff from clients quicker, especially if you’re the solo provider.

Don Adeesha: Amazing. And Mary Ford, just to round things out for the podcast session, what’s the golden nugget of the conversation? What’s the golden nugget, in fact, of March 2026 for the aesthetic industry?

Mary Ford: You know… It’s why. It’s the why. It’s the why. Why are you doing, do you have an answer? Because it goes into SOPs. It goes into, you know, why are you using paper charting? Which could be then like, why are you not using AI? Why are you not using, I mean, why? So the golden nugget is ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. And then if the answer, you know, I use paper charting because I just, I don’t want to make the change over to, you know, if the answer you know pretty well or talk to a consultant, If the answer is not sufficient that you know yourself or someone will call you out for, then okay, then you need to make a change. And feelings, fear, some of those things. In business, it’s just not going to work well. I mean, clinically, I don’t need to go back on the tangent of why. Why are you doing what you’re doing? If you can’t answer why you’re putting… Even Botox, exactly where you’re putting it with the depth, the needle, everything. If you can’t answer my why question down into the details, then that’s a problem. It needs to be resolved. If you’re able to answer why you do the things you do in marketing, operational, clinical, and you have a good reason, you’re probably doing… doing pretty well. And then I know we’re wrapping it up, but I’m going to, you know, I’ve been ending a lot of podcasts and talks with, you know, and in my email signature, it’s courage, consistency and kindness. You know, in this industry, we need this the most. Like we need to have the courage to change. We need to have the courage to be entrepreneurs. We have to have the courage to, you know, do things that we’re uncomfortable with because this is a brand new industry. We’re medical providers who really don’t make good entrepreneurs. We just really, you know, we, it just takes, it takes a lot of work for us. There are some of us that are OK, but for the most part, we chose medicine for a reason. And and so it takes courage to do this and to operate a med spa and to be a provider, to stick needles in people’s faces, to deal with cash based industry where people make their own dosages. And it takes courage to do that. If you’re consistent with the things that you do, you consistently work on your business, you consistently train and educate yourself clinically and you’re consistently have courage, consistently are kind, you know, consistency. You can reach almost any goal. If you thought about it, if you were consistent in working towards a goal, you’re going to reach it. And then we, Don Adeesha, we got to be kind. We got to be kinder. It’s gotten better since I started an industry set, you know, gosh, it’s like seven years ago now. But we got to continue to be kind. We don’t have to believe in everybody. We don’t have to like everybody. We don’t have to agree with everybody. But you can always, always be kind. Everything can present in a kind way. And sometimes silence is kind.

Don Adeesha: Wonderful. Wonderful. What an amazing way to end this podcast, Mary Ford. It has been an amazing conversation. Where can our listeners really go to learn more about you, Smiley Aesthetics and your training programs?

Mary Ford: Uh, sure. Yeah. I am at injector smiley on, um, on Instagram. And we put a lot of stuff flows through there, both with the, you know, in general of the med spas. And then a lot of my stuff is focused on training, uh, smileyesthetics.com and then slash training to get specifically to that. We have a Patreon page. Everything is just under Smiley Aesthetics or Injector Smiley. So those things will typically come up as ways to help. And then we love coming on business with Aesthetics. We plan to get some of these up on our website and stuff so that people can view these and really learn because they’re just invaluable.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. So that was an insightful session with Mary Ford. Before we sign off, a quick reminder, Ekwa Marketing is offering a complimentary 60-minute digital strategy session. This is a one-on-one consultation to help you map your 12-month growth roadmap. Check the availability and reserve your spot in under two minutes at www.businessofaesthetics.org/msm. With that being said, I’m Don Adeesha, and this has been the Business of Aesthetics podcast. Thanks for listening and keep on leading.

Mary Ford: Thank you.