Hunter Consulting

Not every popular opinion in aesthetics is one I agree with.

After years of working alongside medspa owners and watching this industry evolve, I’ve come to realize "industry standard" isn’t necessarily the best strategy.

Here are 3 of my medspa hot takes...

Happy to pay you more as you do more.

That's how I think about compensation. Revenue per hour and the profitability of the services a provider performs are part of it. The bigger piece is what they bring to the practice as a whole. The right plan is a mix of both.

I'm passionate about this because it's something nobody in our industry wants to say out loud. So I'll say it.

From The Business of Aesthetics webinar, Scaling Smarter: Legal, Financial & Operational Strategies for Aesthetic Practice Growth.

If your comp plan needs a second look going into 2027, book a strategy call. Link in bio.

How fast does your practice respond when a new patient reaches out?

If it's a few hours, or worse, the next day, they've probably already booked somewhere else.

This is where AI can really help. Use it to answer the first message right away, share basic info, and get that person on the calendar while they're still interested. Then let your team take it from there.

Speed gets them in the door. Your people are what keep them coming back.

🎙️ From a past episode of the Aesthetic Appeal Podcast. Full episode at the link in bio.

Social media doesn't need you to be perfect. It needs you to show up as yourself and talk about what you know.

That's it. That's the strategy.

I'm a one hit wonder queen when it comes to filming. I tell my social media girl this all the time. One take, maybe two, and we're moving on. (Yes, can confirm. - social media girl)

Your patients want to hear from you. The real you, the one who knows her stuff and loves what she does. The more you show up that way, the more they'll trust you before they ever walk through your door.

🎙️ From a past episode of the Aesthetic Appeal Podcast. Full episode at the link in bio.

Three things I tell every practice owner I work with, and yes, you need all three, not just the one you're good at.

1. Understand your financials. Not "I glance at my P&L once a month." I mean know your numbers well enough to make decisions from them. Cost per treatment, retention rate, revenue per provider. If you can't answer those on the spot, that's the gap.

2. Build a yearly marketing strategy. Not a random post here and there when business is slow. A plan tied to your actual growth goals, mapped by quarter, with a budget behind it.

3. Invest in refining the patient experience. This is the one owners skip because it feels "soft" compared to the first two. It's not. Retention and referrals live here, and both are cheaper than acquiring new patients.

You don't have to master all three overnight. But you do have to know which one you're avoiding, because that's usually the one costing you the most.

Which of these three is your weak spot right now? Tell me in the comments.

Not every front desk hire is going to be a natural at selling retail and forcing it usually backfires.

If you've got a team member running your front desk or supporting patient flow who just doesn't have the interest or instinct for retail sales, stop trying to make them into something they're not. That energy is better spent somewhere else.

Instead, lean on the people in your space who are already positioned to sell, because they're not "selling" at all. Your estheticians are skin experts. When they recommend a product, it doesn't feel like a pitch, it feels like professional advice. Patients trust that recommendation because it's coming from someone who just spent 45 minutes analyzing their skin.

Figure out who on your team naturally builds trust and equip them to close the loop on product recommendations. Your front desk can still support the process (checkout, follow-up, restocking) without being the one carrying the sales conversation.

Play to your team's actual strengths. That's how retail revenue grows without anyone feeling like they're being pushed into a role that isn't theirs.

Your team's schedule is either making you money or costing you money. There's no neutral option.

If your injectors or providers have gaps in their day, that's not "flexibility." That's underutilization, and it's one of the fastest ways to tank your margins without realizing it until you're staring at a P&L wondering where the money went.

I see this constantly with practices that grew fast and never went back to rebuild the schedule around actual demand. You hired for where you thought you'd be, not where you actually are right now. So take an honest look: are you scheduling based on real booking patterns, or just filling a template you built a year ago?

If the answer is the template, it's time to rebuild it.

Consulting isn't for everyone. And I say that with love.

People see the podcasts, the client wins, the "175 clinics" in the bio, and assume it's all glamorous. It's not. Some days it's telling a client their numbers don't support the expansion they want. Some days it's the hard conversation about why their retention is actually the problem, not their marketing.

You have to actually love this work to do it well. Not the idea of it. The reality of it.

Here's what keeps me in it: watching a client go from "I don't know if I can keep doing this" to running a practice that actually works, for their life and not against it.

The reason I show up is the people. Getting to be in the room (or on the Zoom) when it clicks for them. When they stop white-knuckling their business and start actually leading it.

If you're building something right now and it feels impossibly hard, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It might just mean you're doing it right.