Why Providers Hate Selling, Fixing the ‘Retail Gap,’ and Operationalizing High-Margin Revenue

Adeesha: We hire incredible providers to deliver incredible results. But why is it that the best injectors are often the worst salespeople? In a crowded market, your growth isn’t limited by your clinical skill. It’s limited by your team’s willingness to communicate value. Welcome back to the Business of Aesthetics podcast. I’m your host, Don Adeesha. And to help us fix the disconnect between treating and selling, we are joined by Laura Crowley. Laura is the CEO of Laura Janet & Co and the founder of Laura Janet Aesthetics. She is a unique voice in our space because she has lived on both sides of the needle. As an award-winning aesthetician who scaled her own clinic, she now acts as a fixer for practices where the revenue doesn’t match the talent. Today we are going to discuss the retail gap. We’re talking about why your staff feels guilty about selling, how to fix your checkout process and how to build a culture where your team sells because they care and not just because they want a commission. 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 market. With that being said, Laura, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Laura: Happy to be here. Adeesha: Absolutely. Let’s get into the conversation here. Yeah. So let’s start with the mindset. The biggest frustration for owners is hiring talented providers who refuse to sell because they feel it compromises their clinical integrity. How do you psychologically rewire a provider to see a product recommendation as a medical necessity rather than a commercial upsell?

Laura: I think it’s, again, it’s those that it goes back to training and it goes back to education and it goes back to the tools that they have. So providers, whether it’s an esthetician, whether it’s a nurse injector, NP, you have all these tools at your disposal. You have all these tools to help not fix a client, but help a client feel their best. And so you’re really recommending that. So I kind of look at it as like, for example, like I don’t know too much about HRT right now. And like everybody’s talking about peptides and HRT and these things. And I am a consumer too. And I want to feel optimally like my best. So you’re educating the client. And same, we can go back to units. Again, I’m an esthetician. I have over 20 years. I’ve worked with many injectors, of course, and know a lot about filler and Botox and things. But I don’t know how many units I need. I don’t know what filler I need in my face or what is the best thing for my neck or anything like that. So I need them to really educate me and tell me and I really want to trust them and their recommendation of what you know, not put themselves in like our wallet so much. I feel like people do that so often, you know, what do I need? And what do they recommend for me? And we’re really asking them as, you know, as example of like a personal trainer, I don’t know what I need for my body or to train or things like that. The personal trainer is going to train me and tell me what I need. And I think we get so hung up on maybe they get hung up on the price it’s so expensive like they can’t afford that right now oh my gosh it’s like this whole plan is five thousand dollars they’re like oh my gosh like i wouldn’t spend that right now because i can’t afford that right now but they can or and especially if now like i just did a really amazing um commercial with uh sunbit um i’ve of all these like um You know, practices, but we work with payment plans. There’s so many options now to, you know, divide up that payment for them. So I think it’s just like getting into that mindset of they want to be treated and people want your education and they people want you like the best results to feel better and feel better about themselves. like no matter the cost, like, and then I’ll be the one to decide if I, you know, can afford, you know, if I want to take a $10,000 vacation next week, or I want to spend $10,000 on my face, like, let me decide, but please show me like all those options.

Adeesha: Got it. And you’ve written about emotional intelligence in sales. Yeah. How do you teach a provider to read the room if they don’t feel like they’re pushing a product on a patient who actually can’t afford it? Laura: I think it’s about it’s about it is it’s about reading the rum and it’s about taking a step back like sales. You I I’m not pushy at all. I recommend and I write out a treatment plan, but it’s about showing that to the provider and then basically stop talking. Stop talking. And I’m sorry, showing that to a patient and just stop, like stop talking, stop overly talking, because I think providers, sales, right, we try to over explain or we try to justify the price. And it’s like, just stop. The price is the price. And this is my recommendation. I am the expert in the field. This is what I recommend. Stop talking. And if you want to adjust the scope or want to adjust the treatment plan, of course, we can do that. But I think you need to take a beat and Write it all down for somebody. That’s why I love, we can get into this later, but I love like a consult pad of like really writing it down for somebody to kind of see it in black and white of like, what is this going to look like for the year? Like we’re still in January right now. So this is such a good time. Like I’m actually doing this for myself this year. I’m really trying to take care of myself. So I am writing down like, and trying to like stick to it. what I want like done for the entire year as far as aesthetic treatments, you know, working out health, everything. Adeesha: That’s very interesting right there. So Laura, you’ve identified a specific retail gap where clinics fail to capture the high margin revenue sitting on their shelves. Beyond just forgetting to ask, what is the specific operational breakdown in the consultation or perhaps the checkout process that causes 50% of patients to walk out the door empty handed? Laura: Oh, gosh. I mean, there’s just no there’s no system. Right. It starts with even before when they book an appointment, there’s no system. There’s no paperwork like their paperwork should include home care and should include retail. Like they’re going to get the best results when everything is combined. You can’t get a laser treatment or a really invasive like microneedling treatment and and just not have home care. Right. So we it’s that’s just so, so important. Um, you’re just not going to get the best results. You’re setting them not, you’re not setting up for failure, but you’re not setting them up for like the best success possible. Right. So if somebody is, um, and you want to prep their skin, like that’s how you’re going to get the best results too. So if somebody just tomorrow or even today, for example, books like a microneedling treatment with our practice, um, And they’re a new patient, I might say like, no, or I might say like, we have to prep your skin first, or we have to like look and see where we’re at. Because again, we care about getting that best result. So that comes with the paperwork ahead of time, we have extensive paperwork that they fill out and they can fill that for a consultation in practice, or they can fill that out ahead of time. And then it starts with the consultation in clinic. Our consultation is not just about like health and wellness and what we’ve done. It’s about your skincare and retail history. And again, retail is a lot about the unknown. I guess you’re teaching like when I think about that, people don’t know what an oil cleanser does or what why they need that or anything like that. So you’re educating them. on like this is a really really great you know retail item that you might be interested in or appeal pad or again they don’t know what appeal pad is like they are consumers i think we always we always think that we’re talking to like other experts and we’re talking to consumers that have no idea what they’re doing maybe they use like god my husband still still uses like irish spring it’s like awful but like we’re we’re talking about people that have pretty basic regimens usually or we’re talking about the connoisseur who loves this stuff but maybe hasn’t tried an oil cleanser you know so i think again we’re putting ourselves in their mind they’re like oh they know everything or they have it right well no they don’t and you might have like even like makeup like back in the cosmetology days of like makeup or really fun lipstick or Things like that. You’re just introducing them to like fun new things. And then the checkout process, same thing. You’re, you know, writing them a treatment plan. So not only are you writing them a treatment plan for the year for services and health, but you can write them a treatment plan for retail and have it all down there. And again, you can, you know, you can add it up, you can recommend, you can follow up with them. You can have all this put in the system. I have clients really honestly take a picture of their bathroom counter and have it send it to me in our portal on our CRM. And that’s what, and then we go over that. So it’s a lot of like following up too. Okay. Adeesha: And how do you follow up really? What’s like the best practice of that? Laura: We’re using a lot of, I mean, we’re trying to get into more AI right now and automation, more automations, I would say. So our CRM is amazing. It’s links to our EMR. So we use that to like, if it’s a trigger, like these trigger links, so they buy a specific item or they have a specific service, they are getting automations. You know, usually within of like a Google review, of course, is in a couple hours or a product or a check in is within like a couple of days to check on them, depending on what they get. Adeesha: That’s awesome. And that’s completely automated. Laura: Yes, we’re trying to get it completely automated, but then we do have customer service representative, which I do have a customer service representative that works Monday through Friday, you know, just usually during the day. And she is monitoring that too. But then she is also setting up the automations and checking things. Mm-hmm.

Adeesha: And now many owners try to fix low sales by throwing commission at the problem. But that often, you know, backfires or creates a bit of a cutthroat culture. So instead of just offering more money, what is the non-monetary culture switch that needs to happen for an hourly employee to start acting like a stakeholder in the business? Laura: I think transparency, honestly, too. I was thinking about this transparency about the business. I think it’s so true until you’re an owner. you really don’t know where the money is going. Like you just don’t, you think that like all this money and it’s coming in and you really just don’t know. So I think transparency of like really breaking down, like, no, this is actually how much this margin is, you know? And I, I think cutthroat for like in between like providers, it’s, you know, really talking to them. Honestly, it’s more one on ones. I really felt like the more one on ones are so important. I think like that old school of like once a year or once like every six months for a meeting is just not OK anymore. You have to have individual questions. one-on-ones all the time, like pretty much like, like month, like I would say minimum, minimum monthly, but you really should have check-ins. Like, um, again, you don’t have to have a two hour check-in weekly, but like you should have a check-in weekly and then you should have a group check-in weekly of the vibes and how is everybody feeling and things like that. Um, commission it’s like it’s like you and you want to have a group goal like you guys all want to work together and have like a group goal too it’s not just individual i think it should be a group goal a staff goal i think you could have like again like a monthly meeting um or check-in and huddles all the time but of like what is the goal for this month for this quarter and really write out like what are your sales goals what are your individual sales goal and And what is like the team sales goal and really try to achieve that and help each other. Okay. Adeesha: Can you take us through one of those meetings, the one-on-ones? I want to understand how they effectively address this problem. Laura: The one on ones, I think I just had one the other day. And again, we’re telling them, this is what I need you to bring in per hour. This is what I need you to bring in retail per hour to afford your salary. I need you to bring in this. I think you need to tell them what you are bringing in, what you did last year. Like I just had this conversation, what we did in December, what we did last year. In order for you to get a raise, I need you to do X, Y, and Z. I think just, again, being super transparent with that. And then being like, this is your commission for retail. This is your hourly for services. Of course, some of them get gratuities if they’re an esthetician. This is your opportunity for spend this year for classes. I invest in my team for classes like that’s not a lot of that’s a lot of money networking opportunities. There’s networking events. There’s there’s so many classes that they want to do. I really address like their goals and I can do that if they, you know, if they bring in X, Y, and Z, and I will pay for it for them. So it’s about just laying it all on the line and being super transparent and then giving them other opportunities, which we can get into too. Adeesha: Yeah, absolutely. And you spent time as a director of education before opening your own spot. So how much of this culture switch is simply lack of product education versus lack of motivation? Yeah. Laura: I think some of it, a lot of it is that they… they don’t know the products. If they’re not selling the products, they’re not selling something, they don’t know about it or like they they’re not educated on it. So that’s when I say, OK, nobody’s selling this product, this product X, for example. Let’s get the rep in. Let’s get a webinar. Let’s set up a webinar because they’re probably going to go home again. They don’t own the business. But you have to motivate them in some way of, again, that they could make so much more money to really own their money though. So you have to, so, but some would just want to go home and watch Netflix. They don’t want to watch a webinar right at nighttime. So you have to kind of like always like schedule those meetings too. So you have like, say like, again, you have all these tools, you have all these skincare lines, you have all these neuromodulator lines, you have again, filler lines and, You have to set up these education opportunities for them because if there’s a reason that they are not recommending this filler or not doing this filler, it guaranteed is because they are not educated about it and they need more education about it. Or so they need more hands on training about it. I always felt that like, especially back in the day with skincare, if somebody is not recommending a specific line, they just need to be more educated about it. Adeesha: Right. And it reminds me of a really amazing quote that I heard last week, which goes something like, everyone wants to get paid at the end of the month, but no one wants to admit that this is a business. So what you’re doing right there is really bringing transparency and, you know, giving them that ownership of like, okay, you know, this is how much work you need to do to really afford your place at the practice. Laura: Yeah. Yeah, it’s very expensive to even afford their salary. And to know that they even not even cost like the other stuff, like the other expenses, but to even afford their salary is super expensive. So I think it’s just super nice. It’s really, really nice. I feel like over the years, it’s really changed on the transparency of money and where all the money is going and what it takes to really even open a business and for a business to survive in 2026. But yeah, I feel like lack of sales, lack of that is all about education. They usually don’t know. They need more education about it. Absolutely. Adeesha: And before we continue, a quick message from our sponsor, Ekwa Marketing. 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 will get a personal diagnosis of your online presence and patient funnel, uncover untapped growth levers across SEO and social networks, 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. Now, Laura, moving on to visibility, you advocate for personal branding, but many owners are terrified that if they let their staff build a brand, they will eventually leave and steal the patients. How do you structure an employee branding strategy that gives them Autonomy while ensuring the patient loyalty remains with the practice and not just the provider. Laura: I think it’s, I truly advocate that for everybody. Everybody, even as an employee, has their own personal brand. I just think it’s so important these days. I think it’s so important to, again, give them that own, own that. For example, even when I was an employee, I felt like I owned my schedule, kind of, for example. Yes, we had a huge practice and a huge front desk and huge marketing teams and things like that. And that was necessarily… the job of them to like, you know, help me get booked and stuff like that. But I don’t know, it came to the point where I if I had I was just telling somebody else, if I had white space, which was rare, or like a blank space or a cancellation, it was so super rare, I knew that I took it upon myself to like fill that because I wanted to fill that. So I was thinking like, you know, I just always wanted to be booked and busy and I really cared and I really took it upon myself for my sales, going back to like sales too. So it kind of, you’re kind of transitioned, some people kind of transitioned to that intrapreneur, right, in a business. Yeah. And they want other opportunities. They don’t want just opportunities just when they’re in clinic. So they want other opportunities that they can do and monetize. And now with platforms like like to know it and shop my. it’s so easy for employees to make other streams of income. And I just think that’s so important to give them that opportunity. And it really excites them. And it makes them just super happy. And again, another stream of income that they can do, again, as long as they’re not, you know, doing you know, they’re shot my why they’re in clinic, you know, but they I feel like they to make another stream of income for them. It’s just super exciting where the world is going. And I just felt that even a couple of years ago, I was like, the world is changing. And I that’s why I wanted other streams of income. I wanted to consult. So I opened up a consulting practice. I wanted affiliate links. I wanted digital products. I wanted to start speaking and like my speaking career. Um, there’s like, I could be guests on podcasts, you know what I mean? There’s, there’s brand deals now and there’s like huge brand deals and these user generated, you know, content, like it’s just, it’s, it’s wild that the, where the world is going. And I think to, you know, to restrict that on an employee, because you’re afraid of them to leave, like If they leave, they leave. You know, I think just if, yes, it stinks and it’s hard and it’s huge revenue loss and everything has to shift and it’s, oh my God, it’s frightening. But that’s why you have contracts in place. I think you can have contracts in for a place of reimbursement too, for especially if you spent a lot of time and money on training them, of course. But I think they with them marketing on their own again they are also bringing eyes to the practice they are bringing patients to the practice they are bringing leads to the practice so maybe you didn’t have to do as many ads that month they are doing your marketing for you if you think about that i think about not doing many um spending on ads spending on google ads meta ads or spending on your social media manager can you imagine if a practice like say like a 50 plus practice with all, you know, people, they did all the marketing. Like, I mean, you wouldn’t have to have a huge marketing team. I just think that that’s, and I think getting everybody like that operation down, if everybody commented on the post, if everybody shared the post, if everybody, you know, like, I think that’s like, that’s so cool to me to have everybody on board with like social media and marketing with that. And yeah, I just think it’s really going to enhance the practice and bring so many new eyes to the practice if everybody else had their own personal brand. Not everybody wants their own personal brand. Some people just are like, no, I don’t want any part of this. And that’s totally okay. But the people that do… And then, for example, to stay at the practice, again, that one person is not going to do everything. So the person that injects your lips is probably not going to do your facials or do maybe your threads or do maybe your laser. Like I think everybody’s really niching down too. I think that’s super important. Again, I really want to go to like a laser specialist for like my CO2 maybe someday that just does those pretty much all day, you know, or I want to go to a specialist that does full facial balancing for my, you know, fillers and neuromodulators and things like that. So that person is not going to do my Um, facials. So, or my, maybe my retail or my derma planning, you know what I mean? So you’re seeing everybody in the practice and, um, and then again, the practice, the brand itself, you, again, you have to have those small touches that make you, you know, super unique too.

Adeesha: um that’s how long-winded small touches yeah absolutely but i would like to continue on that with the small touches there because i was wondering how do you really ensure the patient loyalty remains with the practice and i think you just scratched the surface there what are these small touches laura i think um Laura: I’m forgetting the book, putting the book right now. I think it’s about your customer service. And again, differentiating yourself and your customer service of your, when they, you know, again, when they go into your website, when they go into filling out your paperwork, your EMR, to them coming in, to your practice feel, your vibes, your practice feel, your, again, your entire consultation with your staff, your front desk. into your checkout, into your follow-up system. And that customer service, it’s very hard in your systems. These are like the brands like systems. So that’s very, very hard to recreate. I think you have to just make those small touches super, super unique to the brand of water that you get when you check out. Do you get a small gift? Do you get a small individual card when you check out? Yeah. Do you get, you know, again, branded water bottles, branded like ice packs, small gifts on your birthday. Again, a handwritten card from the owner once in a while, a box of Clean Skin Club towels. a nice you know bottled water we just do all these like small touches um or individual like kind of quizzes and already like always checking in on our patients to make sure that they have the optimal experience and if they want anything else they need to let us know there we go that’s the way to differentiate and finally looking at your own journey you successfully transitioned from being a busy esthetician to a ceo who works on the business Adeesha: For the owner listening in who is still trapped in the treatment room 40 hours a week, what was the very first operational system you built that allowed you to step back without your personal revenue crashing? Laura: I started delegating. So I got a personal assistant. That was the first thing I do. I got a personal assistant before I could afford one too. Um, not always recommend that please consult your finance people. But I knew that I needed that like balance of that trade to really step back and let go, um, and start delegating, start eliminating delegating and, um, really the very low hanging fruit tasks. like checking my email, responding to emails, doing numbers, doing inventory. Again, just via these very small tasks, I knew that I needed to, like some of the social media things, I knew I needed to get off my plate. So I started, again, and everything’s not going to be 100% to your liking right away. And that’s so hard. That’s just so hard to let go. But it’s so true that you can’t be doing… everything. And I think you’re still, you’re still, you know, working 40 hours a week, taking patients, and then you’re still doing all the admin stuff. And it’s just in the sales and the social media and the marketing and things like that. And it’s just not possible. Again, and everything’s not going to be even like 90% the exactly how you like it. But you then that’s where I love like tools like Loom or like just specific tools for SOPs to really, you know, to break it down of how you like to do things. I think that’s so important. But yeah, that was the first thing I did is I hired an EA. Okay. Adeesha: And was there a specific moment of failure? Like where is this a week where revenue dipped or a key staff member quit that forced you to build that system? Laura: Yes. Yes, it was this past year. One of my best employees, she had been with me from the beginning and it ended on very great ways, but she took a full-time, more of a full-time job. And so I needed to hire more people and I needed to Same thing. I needed to have more of these SOPs in place. So that was a big eye opener for me. All the stuff that she did as an EA for me, she wrote down and helped me really write those SOPs of what needed to be delegated and what needed to be done every day in both of my businesses. Adeesha: There we go. And Laura, for our listeners, what’s the one key takeaway from our conversation here today? Laura: A key takeaway, I think that there’s so much opportunity, a couple, well, a couple, maybe two. There’s so much opportunity for owners and employees now in this business. I see a lot of how hard it is. And it is so hard to own a business. It is to own a small business. It is incredibly hard, especially if you’re still practicing. Most business owners are still practicing and that is incredibly hard. So you really need to delegate to your team to help you grow the business or have somebody that is really business savvy to help you not just practice anymore, but to grow the business side and And again, we always say like, don’t just work in the business, work on the business. So I like, like, I call them like your CEO hours. So if you can delegate like a day to really work, and again, you’re not working on admin stuff, you’re not checking your emails, you’re not things like that you’re working on. on the business and the future and connecting with those people, looking at numbers, the really big stuff. And the other is, of course, yeah, what we talked about in the beginning is the sales. Like everybody thinks that sales are like a dirty word. I mean, I’m sold every time I go to Target, you know? I mean, I’m like, it’s not it’s not so sales. I think when people feel like a small business, sometimes sales is like icky and it’s not. I want to know what to do for to live my best life and to feel the best I can. And most people feel the same. So don’t feel don’t feel. weird recommending because really most people don’t know what they need. I actually just told this to an HR. I’m hiring an HR professional. Again, I always recommend hiring like your, you know, stacking your team, your lawyer, your HR, your operations, your everything. And I’m hiring an HR professional. And I know some of the stuff I need, but she is the professional. So I’m hiring her to tell me what I need to be completely compliant and to give my employees the best benefits that they can have. Adeesha: Absolutely. And that was a tactical deep dive with Laura Crowley. We covered a lot of ground today from the psychology of your team to the specifics of your checkout process. If you have been struggling to get your providers to embrace sales, I hope this episode gave you the script you need to change that conversation tomorrow. Ultimately, sales isn’t about pushing the product. It’s about patient advocacy. And when your team believes that, revenue takes care of itself. 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. You can check the availability and reserve your spot in under two minutes at www.businessofaesthetics.org/msm. Also, check out the show notes for this episode. That being said, I’m Don Adeesha and this has been the Business of Aesthetics podcast. Thanks for listening and keep on leading.