The ‘Salary vs. Commission’ Debate, The Talent Quality Gap, and The ROI of Clinical Education

Don Adeesha: We are told that the only way to motivate staff is to pay huge commissions. And we are also told that the only way to grow is to buy the newest, most expensive device. But what if the commission model is actually destroying your patient retention? And what if your most profitable asset isn’t a new machine, but the knowledge to use the one you already have? Welcome back to the Business of Aesthetics podcast. I’m your host, Don Adeesha. And to help us challenge these industry norms, we are joined by Kim Laudati. Kim is the CEO of Somercel LLC and the founder of IT Intelligent Treatment. She is a trainer’s trainer. After spending years teaching for giants like Candela, she built her own technology to disrupt the consumable heavy business model that drains practices profits. She is here to have a hard conversation about why we are hiring wrong, paying wrong and training wrong. Today we are going to be discussing the death of the commission model. We are also going to talk about the hidden ROI of clinical education and how to bridge the talent quality gap in your hiring. 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, let’s fix the model. Kim, welcome to the show. Before we dive into the heavy lifting, I want to touch on your background.

Kim Laudati: Hi Don, thank you so much.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. Now you’ve spent years as trainers, trainers for giants like Candela and Luminous. Was there a specific moment or a specific frustration in a boardroom that made you say, I need to stop teaching for them and build my own technology?

Kim Laudati: Well, when I was an educator training classes for a lot of the big guns, I was not actually employed directly with them. It was more collaboration. So I was operating my own training center and also training through other schools in Manhattan. And we would incorporate, the way we would expand the school program is by incorporating those big names. Because obviously, if you’re trying to bring in your students, you want to have a partnership with at least one big name company. You know, it’s the key to everything we do. How do you differentiate yourself from everyone else? Why does someone want to come and pay you as opposed to everyone else that’s already out there?

Don Adeesha: Got it. Now let’s jump right into the controversy. The industry standard has long been base salary plus high commission but you argue that this model often creates a transactional cutthroat culture rather than a patient-centric one. If a practice owner removes the commission to stabilize their payroll, what is the specific alternative incentive structure that they must implement to keep high performance driven without creating a volume churning factory?

Kim Laudati: Great question. Since I’m located in Manhattan, it’s been very interesting over my years in medical aesthetics where, as you said, the norm forever has been low salary, high commission, and you couldn’t have described it better. That creates a cutthroat atmosphere where it reminds me of the NFL, how they became like free traders. And you would see players leave in midseason, you know, like to me, that was always crazy. Like what happened to my team? What’s going on here? Right. So it creates a chase the money situation where in-house, if you’re not losing staff, you can pit your staff up against each other in a negative way, because I’ve seen a lot of hijinks with like a lead esthetician or a head nurse becoming extra buddy buddy with whoever the head manager is to make sure that their book was always stacked with those high ticket items. And other staff members that were just as fantastic were always getting the short end of the stick. So you’re always wondering why your staff is turning over. And it’s this in-house battle behind your back. As the business owner, you might not even be aware this is happening. And it can really poison the atmosphere. I’ve seen that happen a lot with many different med spas that I’ve gone into over the years and some private clinics that I’ve gone in just to conduct education for. And it becomes very evident immediately when someone such as yourself or I walk through the door and, you know, and you’re evaluating that staff immediately. You could hear it. You could see it. They open up to you and they even admit to these things happening. So that for me, that has never seemed like a great way to retain staff or keep a healthy staff on board where, like you said, it becomes patient-centric and your staff is just concentrating on patient care and being the best that they can be. So if you go straight salary, the problem with that is you have to be able to afford a very high salary to retain the best staff. We all know that, right? So that’s extremely hard to do, especially if you’re small, if you’re a startup, or maybe you’re extra large, maybe you have multiple locations and that would maybe put you on the edge of not being in the black anymore to afford the best staff at the highest salaries. So I found, and from talking to colleagues and observing this, and firsthand also as an educator but also like I said speaking with colleagues, that if you could afford a more median salary and then give a scaled bonus structure based on performance… what I mean by that is it’s quite common now in New York City to retain your best staff that you’re paying a slightly higher salary and then you’ll have your list of services, right? So if you sell a package for say a laser treatment it’s going to be higher than a package of hydrafacials. So your commissions are scaled based on how much money that package is bringing in. But then many of the really savviest offices are starting to incorporate quarterly bonuses. Things like corporations do, you know, so to keep those incentives going. So maybe your bonus structure is not 20% or 15% or even 10%. Maybe your bonus structure is salary plus 5% commission, but then you have performance bonuses every quarter. And it gives your staff something to work towards, and then they tend to work together towards this goal of being the best of the best, as opposed to being at each other’s throats.

Don Adeesha: Okay, that’s very interesting. How did you come up with this framework?

Kim Laudati: I think from an employee’s point of view as a provider, I always would think back to what was I paid when I was an employee? What are the bonus structures that I worked under versus salary versus both? And how did it work out with me? Which establishment had like the most toxic environments because it was at each other’s throats, like we just said, and a lot of backstabbing when it came to clawing at each other for patients. But then also from attending webinars and going to speaking events, not just in medical aesthetics, but for corporations, like big corporations, quite often you can join webinars for some of the biggest corporations in the world where they are giving tips and tricks to their corporate structure on how to succeed. And you can always take away something or many teachings or many learnings from those free webinars and how to incorporate that into your own management. And if it’s working for a huge company, then you can definitely figure out how to make it work for you. And that also seems to be like a bonus structure that keeps it rewarding. So it gives an open chance to everyone on your staff. It’s not just designating your best employees or it’s not just favoring your brand new employee to get them built up, but it’s giving everyone a chance to shine and whoever shines gets a bonus and it works. It just keeps people happy.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. Now, when you transitioned your own staff, or coached others to move away from the commission, what was the immediate reaction? And did you lose your top sellers? And was that actually a blessing in disguise? How was that like?

Kim Laudati: That’s a great question. It was actually a blessing in disguise. I was nervous. I was wondering how I thought, you know, just because I thought it was a great idea, I wasn’t sure the staff was going to think so. And there are certain staff members, of course, like your front desk, usually they’re just salary. But, and, oh, and I’ve noticed here, especially in the Upper East Coast, not just in New York City, that many med spas and cosmetic offices like cosmetic surgery and dermatologist offices have gotten away from retail bonuses for any of the staff members. And those same offices are telling me that, oh, my retail is down. Of course, your retail is down. If you’re not incentivizing your staff, they don’t feel like quite often they have a reason to sell for you. So that even if it’s just 5%, it’s just something. It’s like a pat on the head. You did good. Give them something to keep them happy and they’ll keep working hard for you. So it, for me, it actually went over well. I was pleasantly surprised and I kept an open forum with a, you know, I had a group meeting and an open forum and I was like, I’d like to implement this moving forward. And I gave it a couple of weeks. It wasn’t an overnight shift. I said, you know, like in two weeks time, I’d like to shift our payroll, the next payroll cycle to reflect this. And how do you all feel? And I would like to offer some, this tiered commission. And, and again, you know, like you can, you’re going to get a year ends for my office, at least you get a year end Christmas bonus, regardless, it’s not performance based. But I put in performance based bonuses, and everyone was excited about it. And that was years ago, and it’s continued to work really well.

Don Adeesha: Fantastic. Now, moving to the team itself, we are seeing a massive gap in the quality of certified staff applying for jobs today. So a resume says laser certified, but the hands-on skills are non-existent. When you’re hiring for IT, intelligent treatment, what is the single practical audition test that you use to instantly expose whether a candidate actually understands tissue interaction or just passed a written exam?

Kim Laudati: I think I focus on the specialty that I’m hiring that staff member for. So if you tell me on your resume that you have X amount of years experience and you’re naming particular energy-based devices, I’m going right there and I’m going for the throat in a very nice way. I’m going to be asking you insider information on like, oh, all right, well, if you had a FITS-5 on this device, and they were in the sun two weeks ago, how would you treat them? And it’ll be a question where you wouldn’t treat that patient depending on which laser or energy-based device you’re discussing. So if they’re trying to impress you saying, oh, you could do this and this and this and this, if it sounds like you’re being a cowboy in the room, you’re not the one for me. And if you’re just kind of looking at me bored, like, well, you know, then you’re also not the one for me because I want a level of enthusiasm. You know, I’m looking for the answer that says, well, technically on that device with that person, because also because of sun exposure, we would not treat them with that device, but I already looked at your menu online. And I know we could offer them this. And that’s your gold star. That’s like, you better throw a rope around that person and tie them to your treatment room because those are the best staff members usually. When I feel like whenever you have a great interview like that, they actually put out, not just for like when they’re on their best behavior the first couple of weeks, but they usually put out and they turn out to be a great employee for you and become like part of the family.

Don Adeesha: Amazing. So that, you know, that practical or rather I should say proactive research into, you know, your clinic itself and seeing the nuances there that makes a big difference for you when it comes to hiring?

Kim Laudati: Yes absolutely because even if you you know maybe if we’re looking for someone that is a junior member that we want to bring up and you haven’t been out in the industry very long I’m looking for the enthusiasm. I’m looking for someone that followed the instructions even when they apply so I always ask for a short cover letter with a resume and if I get no cover letter I won’t even read your resume because you obviously didn’t even follow instructions. And if you gave me a cover letter that’s like a book, 16 paragraphs later, that’s wonderful that you’re that passionate, but that’s not following instructions. And those are those little things that become big headaches once youre into that day-to-day of working together with the staff. So I always say you want a potential staff member to research your location before the interview. So apply properly according to the instructions that you requested in your ad or your post, whichever you like to call it, and show that studiousness, that they know something about you and your entire business. Sometimes they can even talk about your history you know they went and actually read your bio so that’s also great and I also don’t want just for me personally I like that in the middle of the road excitement I don’t like too much of a cheerleader because to me that reads as fake or maybe way too hyperactive. And I also don’t, for me personally, the monotone, I can picture like patients just not being engaged when they’re having consultations with that same person because the person doesn’t feel like they’re excited about being there.

Don Adeesha: Right. Right. And that person might be very good technically. You know, they might be able to take a laser or an ultrasound or hydrafacial or microneedle, whatever it is, and recite everything to you as if they had a 65 page manual in front of you. But you and I both know that’s not the human interaction and that’s not that human connection that we’re seeking to share with and patients are seeking to get from us. Right. And this skills gap, is it the fault of the schools churning out graduates or is it the manufacturers who sell foolproof machines that claim anyone can operate them?

Kim Laudati: I think it’s both. I definitely, from an educator standpoint, from a provider standpoint, and now from a B2B creator standpoint, I feel like it’s a combination that we all have to shake our fingers at each other for and at ourselves. Because, for example, in New York, the aesthetic license, the basic aesthetic license for estheticians is only 600 hours. And it is 100% up to you to seek out and try to work into your budget as many courses as you can, you know, on a regular basis. And then I find that nurses and doctors that are transitioning into medical aesthetics, for instance, right now, I’m coaching a doctor that just left their very long term in the hospital for many years and has entered into cosmetic aesthetics. But the excitement is there, but they haven’t really done their due diligence with any aesthetic training yet. And they’re already talking about opening their own office. I feel like that’s a huge red flag and a big no-no. I’m like, wait, if you build it, they won’t come. It’s not that easy, but you need to be an expert at what you’re putting out there. You should at least be educated in what you’re putting out there. So I do find it shocking, quite frankly, that a lot of the neurotoxin training and a lot of the filler training can be a one-day course and it’s not even the whole day. I’ve always been disappointed with something that you touched on and you and I have talked about on the side is that you can spend $200,000 for a laser and you have one day of training. You know, that’s a lot of information to try to jam into one day. And then again, not just here in New York, but so many aesthetic schools and nursing cosmetic courses are so short. I mean, even my courses have been short, you know, like a lot of them are one day or four days or five days, but I’ve tried my best to gear each educational course bracket timeframe to what you can truly absorb and turn that into working knowledge. So I won’t do a three-day course condensed into one day. It doesn’t do you any justice. It doesn’t do me any justice. So I think as a practitioner, we have to take the responsibility to understand just like the technology in our phones, our world is moving very quickly from our delivery ingredients and our mechanisms in our skincare products to the biologics that are coming out every single day, all these new peptides that we’re using for wellness and longevity. All the tech when it comes to our energy-based devices, everything, right, is going like this at the speed of sounds. We’ve got to stay on top of it. And I find that schools that don’t evolve with the times also, you should just bypass. So seek out, save your money, budget. If you have to travel to go to a great instructor, do it because it’s going to come back to you in spades.

Don Adeesha: There we go. Now, Kim, most owners try to fix a revenue plateau by buying a new device, but you’re arguing that investing in advanced education for existing devices yields a higher ROI. So walk us through the utilization math. How does spending 5,000 on advanced training for an old laser generate more profit than financing that $200,000 new machine?

Kim Laudati: Right, so there’s argument and there’s a place for everything. When we get excited about a device, and this might sound funny to you because I, you know, Somercel is a B2C, but also a B2B. You know, my business is to, I hopefully will put a device in every med spa across the country, just like Hydrafacial, because it is a class one and it’s not dermal wounding, et cetera. However, I don’t want to sell my device for Somercel to the wrong practice because I don’t want you to have a device that sits there gathering dust. If it doesn’t belong in your demographic because you’re not, maybe you’re concentrating a lot on, um, maybe you are heavy in lasers. Maybe you are very heavy in surgery and you don’t really do med spa. You do like surgery and just Botox. So you’re not really looking for a device. Maybe you’ll get excited about it, but then you’re not going to use it and you don’t even have staff. You know, you maybe have yourself as a surgeon and an injecting nurse and that injecting nurse doesn’t even know how to use any machines. You know, I’ve seen those case scenarios. So when we get excited about things, we should take a breath. It’s just shopping retail, no matter what it is, right? Whether it’s a luxury handbag, a new car or a new device, especially like stop and look around, look at where you are in your practice and where do you want to go? Like, why are you attracted to this device? Is it because you feel like they did a great marketing campaign or is it because your patient demographic and a lot of new patients in your area are calling specifically asking for that? Is it because like with Somercel, it’s truly novel technology and it’s easy to delegate to your staff so you could get this exciting new infusion into your patients and say, hey, we’re not going to talk to you about another radio frequency machine. This is like truly new, right? Here’s something exciting. But if you can’t afford anything or you’re not meeting these criterias where you know you will have a patient base to pay off this device and get you into the black and a device that actually works so your patients are happy with it too and keep coming back for it and telling their friends, then I always say look at what you have in your clinic, especially as you said with lasers in particular. Before you go investing in a new laser, you need to look back at your own laser, and then you can do a quick Google or an AI search on the year, your model, your make model, what upgrades, if any, are out there. How popular is this still in your demographic? You know, we go back to even 10 years ago, that was a lot of marketing research. It was expensive. It was time consuming. Now it’s 30 seconds. Ask the question, is this fill in the blank name popular in my area? So like, for example, the age old Fraxel. Is Fraxel still popular in my area? Do patients still want this? And you’ll get a great educated, you know, real time marketing answer from your AI. So if that’s the case, why would you get rid of your device if you have a patient demographic and a demand for it? So much rather, as you pointed out, spend $2,000 or $1,500 or $5,000, depending on the size of your staff, whatever it is. Much better to invest that into re-educating your staff, bringing your staff back up to speed. Maybe if there’s an upgrade, you can put the upgrade in for pennies on the dollar versus buying a brand new laser incomplete. And everybody gets excited. The staff gets excited. The patients get excited. You’ll be excited because you’ll see more money coming through. And you’ll probably be doubly or triply excited because you didn’t take on a new $200,000 device.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. And when you consult for practices, do you ever tell them to sell their unused devices? What is the dust collector criteria for getting rid of a machine?

Kim Laudati: Yes, absolutely. That is something that the business owners and managers will actually tell me, you know, it’s in a questionnaire before we even get together. But as soon as I walk through the door or we get on a video call, they’re like, let’s just say there’ll be a business owner and their head manager. And the head manager’s like, Kim, first thing we need to talk about is what I sent you on the questionnaire. Could you please tell them that we need to get rid of this? And they’ll tell you right away. There’s this machine taking up floor space. The patients don’t like it. We don’t like to use it. Or, hey, it’s a great device, but we don’t have patients that want to do this. You know, maybe you’ve got an Emsculpt Neo, but there’s 15 more locations within five blocks of you that have an Emsculpt Neo. And maybe you’re not really known for body treatments. Maybe you’re more concentrated on face or whatever that is. And your patients are just not interested in it. So this all becomes a problem. So there are many reputable laser resale companies and some of the actual energy-based device companies do have buyback programs or they’ll help you. Maybe even your salesperson, if the company doesn’t have a buyback program, they can help you place that device with someone else. So, you know, there are so many things you could do to be able to alleviate yourself. If that device is paid off, then it’s easier, right? Then you can run ads and talk to your sales rep and put up a couple of social media stories and jump on a few Facebook groups and call one or two laser resale companies. You’re going to get it sold, but there’s no pressure because it’s already paid off. You just want to clear the floor space. But if you’re looking to have someone take over your lease payments or your purchase payments, then you definitely need to reach back out first to your rep. And quite often, you’ll find that they can help you more effectively than anybody else can. And it’s so important because floor space, no matter where you are in the world, comes at a premium. And we don’t want something that’s a very expensive device sitting there either, you know, propping up your skincare products or where, you know, in the back of the break room where everybody throws their coats. It’s just, it’s such a waste of your time and it’s that energy suck. It’s like that one elephant in the room and everybody knows it’s there. So let’s just move it out, get that fresh energy going and you’ll be better off for it.

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. So what I’m understanding there, Kim, is the difference between shopping for retail versus investing in an asset. Is that accurate to understand it?

Kim Laudati: Yes, absolutely. Yes, I think you should always look at your assets first. And like I said, if you’re really excited, if you’re already sure of your assets and you’re really excited about a new device, just pause for a split second and be like, okay, I’m so excited about this, but do I have the patient demographic? And as your point is, educate your staff on the devices that you have, keep your devices up to date. You might be surprised at how many really big top name offices that I personally know of that can fall way behind on their servicing for, you know, again, using lasers as an example. And that can become even a dangerous situation for the provider and for the patient. So keep your devices up to date. And like I said, service, just like you take your car for an oil change. Make sure these things are serviced once a year and keep that excitement for your education going. And that becomes a really successful formula.

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Don Adeesha: Now, Kim, you’ve developed Somercel not just as a clinical treatment, but as a business asset with zero consumables. For a practice owner drowning in disposable tip costs, how does shifting to a zero consumable modality fundamentally change the profit margin and valuation of their service mix?

Kim Laudati: It’s huge. As a provider for myself, that’s always my number one concern because we have a lot of great technology out there that has extremely high disposables, like single-use disposables as you said, can just drown you with the costs. And as you know, when you first launch your device, especially if the company has a strong marketing campaign behind it, patients are going to be excited. But just like a child with a new toy, there’s going to be a big drop off. And then you’ll have a certain amount of your patients, a certain percentage will stick with it. And they will like to incorporate that either monthly or however often they’re supposed to be doing maintenance treatments after their initial treatments. But the rest of your patients have moved on. And maybe they’ll jump in here and there and do it, but it’s not that regular earnings potential like some of your other treatments can be. So it’s a dangerous trap that you can fall into. Never fall for the dog and pony show. You know, I go to all of those invitations to stay on top of all the new tech releases and you’re in a room with 20 to 200 people and they literally have the open bar with all the top shelf alcohol. And there might even be showgirls literally or a live band. Right. And then these beautiful videos and then this amazing panel and the panel is up there telling you that we had a launch event and we made $75,000 in two days because you know the company came and they brought balloons and they had a truck or whatever it was and we had a Friday and a Saturday event we made that much money we paid off our device after two of these events and you’re like, when you really talk to, and my colleagues could get very angry with me for saying this, but when you really talk to some of these KOLs behind the scenes, this is not exactly the case. So to think that you’re going to take a device, you know, that’s over $80,000 and be able to pay it off like in one weekend, bless you if you can, but it’s not the norm. That’s definitely not the grind is the norm. Paying it off in one weekend is not. So we all pray that that happens for each and every one of us, but, you know, we have to keep a dose of reality about ourselves. If we want to stay successful with anything that we bring on board, a new staff member, a new skincare product line, a new device, whatever it is. We have to look at it from a standpoint like this has to make me money or it cannot be here. So with Somercel, there are some long-term consumables, but they’re usually only parts that cost under $3,000. For example, like to revise the handpiece costs right now with the tariffs for the import pieces, under $1,000, just under $1,000. And that takes you through a whole year for a busy practice. So for me, it’s really a bad business model because as the seller, I don’t stay in your pocket. But as a provider of me, that’s what I wanted. I wanted a device that wasn’t going to stay in my pocket, that I could delegate to staff legally, that compliance-wise as a class one, it was also easy to insure. I wanted something to fill the gap between the injectables, the chemical injectables, the biologic injectables, the surgery, and the heat energy-based devices that we have. And Somercel ended up sitting right in the middle of all of that. So it’s more of a thrill for me to tell you that, hey, listen, you can come in at under 70,000 and you’re going to have everything you need and you’re not going to need to buy anything for another year. So I just felt like as a provider, I would like, okay, wait, you know, my reaction would be like, let’s talk. Tell me more about this. So I took two and a half years of R&D to get to that point. Another full year of just treating patients out of my own clinic and my CMO’s clinic to make sure that we were delivering on our promises. And it didn’t turn out to be, oh, like, wait, the other clinic started doing it. Now the consumables, you actually do need them more often or they’re not getting the same results that we’re getting. This is not easily… I can’t speak English today. You can’t replicate it easily. So we checked off all the boxes with that. So Somercel is the real deal for the list of promises that we’re telling you. That’s where it’s at. You truly do not need to worry about having to call me once a month to keep ordering supplies. And life will be much easier when we all work together in ways like that.

Don Adeesha: Now you build this technology to be non-damaging. Does this open up a new demographic of patients who were previously too scared to get laser treatments?

Kim Laudati: Absolutely. You get your patients that are too ethnic, you know, your high Fitzpatrick’s, you get your sun exposed patients that maybe there are lighter skin types, but they’re out in the sun all the time. So they don’t want to be bothered because they don’t want, they don’t want to have to change their lifestyle. Then you get the patients that they like the idea of a laser, but they don’t want the downtime. So they might do shallow laser, like glowy, you know, like weekend peels and such, but that might become frustrating for the patient because they have to do that very often to see results because they’re not listening to us saying, hey, if we can go a little deeper safely, you’ll get to the results faster. And this won’t be like a year round process, but they don’t want that downtime. So they’re going to stubbornly stick to a lighter program and then complain to us about it. So that’s all those problems. And then also the higher insurance, who is compliant legally in each state to be able to provide it? So which staff members do you have on board that can actually provide your services? How educated are they? Because we’re all always worried about the burn factor. And then you have laser fatigue. So it’s exciting to be able to advertise, hey, it’s laser season, right? Coming into the fall and the winter months, you can get on your social media and into your patient email blasts and remind everybody that’s laser season and time to clean up, et cetera, et cetera. But some patients are just over it, you know, and they don’t want to hear about that anymore. They’re craving the next best thing. What is coming? Is there something new? Don’t talk to me about everything we’ve already been doing. What’s new? So these were all the motivations and the challenges that I myself and my clinic have had to deal with and the clinics that I coach and from the class the colleagues for the classes that I’ve trained and just going to these conventions and educational evenings and listening to my colleagues talking to me during the breaks we’re all complaining about the same thing so I was really always searching for a solution.

Don Adeesha: Fantastic. Now, Kim, finally, we are seeing record turnover in aesthetic space with providers leaving to open their own suites after six months. Beyond just the money, what is the specific cultural anchor you have built into your leadership style that makes a talented provider want to stay and build with you rather than compete against you?

Kim Laudati: That is very interesting. And I know it’s personal for every business owner. Like how do you retain your best staff? How do you incentivize? Not just through money, but because you and I both have known the excellent staff that has left an excellent place of employment. And they were like the highest paid person there. So you’re like, wait. This office or clinic or med spa has an amazing reputation. I know other people that work there and they say it’s great too. And I know this was the highest paid person. So I wonder why they left. So it might be like a non-drama type of atmosphere, but if you’re not feeling nurtured, I think we’re in an emotional point in history where sensitivity levels are a lot higher for many different reasons across all different age groups, not just the younger age groups. So if we’re not nurturing a culture of support, I think your staff needs to feel like they’re being heard and they’re being supported. But just like children, they don’t want like a best friends. They have their best friends. So they want leadership, but they want a respectful way to be led. And they like the pat on the head, but not just the extra money in their wallet. So I think we as providers have to work really hard at nurturing that and making sure that we’re going a little bit of the extra mile whenever we can. It’s impossible to do on a daily basis, right? But maybe have a weekly team meeting and that makes everybody feel hurt because everyone has an opportunity. Remind your staff that, hey, look, I’m really busy, but you can email me or text me. You can call for a meeting at any time. If you have an issue with another employee, if you have an issue with a treatment, if you have an issue with a patient, you have an issue with me. Let’s sit down and talk. Don’t hold that in. Don’t let it become a frustration. Just reach out. Whatever it is, we’ll work together on it. And when you can send that kind of a message and keep reinforcing that message, remind them every now and then randomly, I think the team comes together and gels much better. And we all pull together instead of pulling into visual weight.

Don Adeesha: There we go. And now you operate on Billionaire’s Row in New York City, arguably the most competitive square mile in aesthetics. How do you keep your team loyal when a competitor next door offers them $5 more an hour?

Kim Laudati: That’s exactly what I was just saying. It’s just, we operate like a team and every staff member that comes on, we have very rigorous training and, you know, I’m very much a stickler about looking at things like we, we have a private bathroom. So I expect the bathroom and the hand towels to be rolled a certain way. I’m not like anal crazy, but you know, that five-star luxury hotel frame of mind is the mindset I want my employees to have, whether they’re front desk staff or they’re providers. So this way, the responsibility is spread across the entire practice. And again, that’s one of the things that brings together everyone as a team, because it’s not like one person was responsible only for, you know, the floors. So if you, God forbid, you come in in the morning and you see hairs all over the floors, I will freak out. However, everyone on my staff has that same feeling. They have that same attitude because we’ve all learned that respect together from the beginning. So I think if you raise your staff correctly and train your staff correctly as part of your family unit at work, you’re going to get the best of them and they’re going to feel like this is where they want to stay and they want to protect that because they’ve bonded with their coworkers and maybe not everybody. It’s not human nature to get along with everyone all the time, right? But if they feel safe and they know they can have little issues and they’ll be able to work it out and they feel like they’re heard and they feel like they’re incentivized and they know they’re valued, why would you leave, right?

Don Adeesha: Absolutely. Now, we have reached the end of our podcast here. Before we close things off, I would like to ask you, Kim, do you think there’s a question that you wished I had asked you during our conversation?

Kim Laudati: You’re always fantastic with your questions. Oh, that’s a trick line. I don’t think so. I think when it comes to being successful, I think you hit all the nails on the heads. We would all love to have a room full of the best of the brand new everything and be able to instantaneously sell whatever’s not working and be able to reach into a huge pool of fantastic employees that are gonna stay with you forever and then have an easy out when an employee’s not working out and be able to just like wave a wand and they’re gone. But none of this is reality. So I think we just have to, no matter how busy we get, we have to just hit the brakes in split second increments to be present to whatever situations right in front of you. Because I make the same mistake where my mind’s always two steps ahead of where I’m at at the time, unless I’m actually performing a treatment. So, you know, that’s how people will not feel heard or that’s where you might have misunderstood something that you were trying to learn or something somebody was presenting to you to buy or whatever it is, right? We have to be present in the moment and we have to force ourselves to it because we’re getting bombarded with way too much information on a daily basis. And we have to focus and stay in that lane so we can continue to thrive and succeed.

Don Adeesha: There we go. Thank you very much, Kim, for joining us today. Thank you. I really appreciate you and everything that you do.

Kim Laudati: Absolutely.

Don Adeesha: So that was a refreshing reality check with Kim Laudati. If you’re tired of the commission hamster wheel or feeling crushed by device consumable fields, we hope that this conversation gave you the permission to look at your p l differently sometimes the most profitable move isn’t buying more it’s training more. Now we’ve just discussed fixing the hidden leaks in your profitability now let’s secure your future growth. Don’t guess your way through the next year Ekwa Marketing is offering a complimentary 60 minute digital strategy session to help you build a custom 12 month roadmap for attracting high value patients. So stop leaving revenue on the table. Go to www.businessofaesthetics.org/msm and reserve your spot in under two minutes. I’m Don Adeesha and this has been the Business of Aesthetics podcast. Thanks for listening. Keep on leading.