Why Education is the Most Powerful Tool in Aesthetics

[01:01]

(PATRICK) Can you imagine you have maybe a little bump here that's supposed to be there and you're laying there. Or, you go home to maybe to your husband or significant other and they're like, ‘What is that bump?’ And you're freaking out. And then you jump on to, you know, Web MD and now you have this crazy disease that came from getting an injection, and you're spinning out of control. No one's answering you at 1 a.m. And just a quick conversation prior to about expectation setting and you would be sleeping at night. Education goes so far.

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[00:30]

(SKYA) Today's guest is someone who brings a powerful mix of leadership, strategy, and grit to everything that he does. With over 20 years of experience in sales management and customer service, Patrick has led five high-performing real estate teams across the country and built a reputation as a results-driven leader who knows how to grow business and develop people. He later stepped into the role of an executive business coach, helping entrepreneurs unlock their full potential, which eventually led him into the world of aesthetics. Today, he is the Chief of Operations for Texas's fastest-growing medspa and plays a key role in building systems, scaling operations, and creating an amazing client experience. Patrick's people-first approach, combined with his deep knowledge of business makes him a true force in the industry. We are so excited to be talking with Patrick Hammond from The Injection Room.

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[01:26]

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[01:51]

(SKYA) Thank you so much for joining us. This is Last Client of the Day with Boulevard. We are so thrilled today to have one of my personal favorites, Patrick. Patrick, I know a ton about you,

but tell the listeners about how you got into the industry, how you started, because it's a really unique story.

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[02:07]

(PATRICK) Funny enough. So I have actually been in real estate for 16 years now, and part of that career trajectory, if you will, took me to kind of the executive level, business side of coaching. And so I actually used to travel around the country and teach business objectives with a life by design. So, really, finding the balance and how you have to be balanced in all areas of your life, professional and personal, in order for any of it to work. Right? So you think of a wheel and you've got five different kinds of spokes, if you will. If any one of them is off, you've got a wobbly, bouncy car. Right?

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[02:41]

So that became like a passion for me, like near and dear to my heart. Now, I'll flash forward to meeting my lovely wife and the founder and creator of The Injection Room and our school, The Injection Collective. We actually met. We had a really amazing, ADHD, high-energy all over the place date, and I'm all about business. And so I had kind of seen her stuff following her. Maybe, creeping on her a little bit and saw that she had started this business. And so even before the date, I'm DMing her, we're talking a little bit and then I'm like, ‘Tell me about the business.’ And she's like, ‘I don't even know you, like what?’ You know. We start talking and I hear about it and I'm like, this is incredible. I didn't even know what aesthetics were. Or, I mean, it just wasn't in my purview. It didn't come up in my daily life at all.

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[03:28]

So I kind of started helping out a little bit. I'd go down to the practice, just kind of do a little maintenance man stuff. I never needed it to happen, just trying to impress, you know? I'm like, I can do it all, work, handyman, whatever. I went to pick her up for a little lunch date one day, and she gave me toxins, much to my surprise, because I'm just sitting in the chair thinking I'm waiting for her to do whatever else, and we're going to go. And I hear, like, the metal mayo stand clanking around, and I don't again, I don't know, nothing.

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[03:54]

And it turns around with a syringe in her hand and is like, ‘All right, lay back. Do this, do this, do this, smile,’ And I'm like, what is happening? And she's like, okay, cool. And I hold that and just start sticking the needle out of my face. I don't dig needles. I don't like blood draws. I don't like any of it. I don't know that I'm afraid of them. I just don't like it, you know? Now, I love it, by the way.

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[04:17]

(SKYA) That’s funny for someone who runs The Injection Room.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          (PATRICK)  Yes. Well, I'm in now. You can stick a cannula down my face. You can do whatever. I've got threads. I have everything, and I'm always wanting more. And she's like, ‘No, you're cut off.’ So getting in the industry was me just helping out around the practice when it was really just a fledgling business.

Flash forward, maybe almost a year later, I think a receptionist was sick or something. They had nobody. And I'm like, you know what? I've had a thousand lives and a thousand jobs. I used to work at a car wash.  I think I can be a receptionist in a medspa, and I loved it.

I had kind of excelled in my career to a big picture kind of guy. And it was like, I just loved it. I was answering the phone, I'm smiling through the phone and I'm like, yeah, we can get scheduled. I would go, ‘Oh, girl, those lips are going to be looking right,’ you know? Okay, perfect.

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[5:06] 

(SKYA) It’s kind of like a sales job.  It’s a very similar success path to sales if you have that personality. 

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(PATRICK) Yeah, 100%. And so now I'll bring in a little bit of the drama. She had a business partner. Not the 50/50 kind of stuff. And I saw your face. Right? So, like, you know, you hear the stories and sometimes it's like, ooh, partners no. You know, there can be great partnerships, which I think is evidenced by Andy and I now. Right? Because we're really walking the tightrope. Marriage and partnership. What? Yeah. Things weren't working out at all. She had been talking about stories, and I had been giving my coaching advice over that time. And I'm like, you know, babe, everything I'm hearing, all the time, I know this person's a friend to you and so on and so forth.

But, I think they probably have to go. And it was really hard. But finally something big happened and she was like, okay, this has to go. So I'm like, look, here's the deal. Let's get her out of there. I'll step in. I'd love to come work. Maybe I'll hang out. For me, I was thinking I'd be there for maybe two weeks. My goal was to really look at what the other person wasn't doing and the business side of it. Don't get me wrong, Andy is a brilliant business person, and

she just has a mind for it. Yet at the time she was on the artistic side, so she was really the injector, bringing in the business, doing an amazing job.

And the other person was supposed to be doing the minutia, you know, that kind of stuff. Well,

I started finding little holes and plugging them. It was cool. I was going to hire a manager to replace the partner, and I was going to go back to my life, you know? I never left. That was five years ago.

I mean, I fell in love with the whole thing. And I really touched on everything. It really touched on, like, the ADHD qualities that I have, because I've got these injectables over here, I've got inventory over here, I've got numbers over here, I've got QuickBooks. I've got EMR systems, I've got just everything. And then girls running around and injecting and patients come in and out and I'm like, this is amazing. So, so yeah, never left.

I started to look at the business as a business and see it for what it really was. I've learned in my time now that all businesses are the same, frankly, whether it's real estate, concrete, whatever, it's the same. I just wanted to grow the business. I saw it for what it was and what it could be.

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[7:11]

(SKYA) Saw the opportunity that there was something to be made there. I think we see that too, so much, with the different industries we work with. Jade and I both come from medspa but you see across all beauty businesses that we work with. Some of those foundational things are the same across all, whether it's barbershops, salon, medspa, whatever it may be. Like you were saying, real estate, sales. 

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(PATRICK)  You've got to find a client or a patient. You've got to treat them well and have a great experience and keep them coming back. And you have like a product, you know, to sell, whether it's a home or whatever it is, you know. It's all the same. You're improving the face card.

And so that's how I got into the industry. And I mean, I really knew nothing at all. And now I know probably more than I desire to. It's great. And then, of course, with this industry, it's constantly changing. And so I get to continue learning, new, what do we call it? Modalities.

And I am the guinea pig, by the way. That was the perfect word. Like, ‘Oh, new toxin dropping, stick it to my face.’ Whatever you know. Just don't drop my brow.

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(JADE) The Injection Room has built a reputation not only for excellence in service, but also the strong commitment to education. Why do you feel like that's such an important pillar to your business?

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[8:29]

(PATRICK)  I love that question. And I'll give you a couple of answers here. And I love, you're going to hear me sprinkle my amazing wife, I mean, I guess my mentor in a sense, into this entire thing. Education, first of all, if you heard from my coaching background that's huge for me.

Knowing everything about what you're offering is super important and not just to make a sale, but to really educate everybody. And so when I talk about education, I think it's important that, of course, the injector be educated on the service that they're providing. We don't want to hurt anybody. It is medical treatment after all. I think it's important that the patients are educated, and I think that helps to limit horror stories, late night phone calls and texts about totally normal things that are expected. Just a little bit extra step in education is big there. And then the part that's near and dear to my heart right now with, you know, the explosion of social media and opinions and misinformation and trolls, educating your audience at all turns. And so the power of social media with that. And so not just when they're in the chair, but whether it's educational videos before and afters, talking about all of the different products and, like, what the steps take.

That's huge. The social media part of it's huge to me because I am tired of the trolls, you know, they're going to be there as a way of life. I just don't like it when someone has perfectly great treatment. Maybe the patient wasn't educated properly on the process of what to expect, they're in the healing process, and they take to social media to complain about something that they weren't educated on. Cue the trolls; they jump in, ‘Oh, I know, I can't believe they did that to you. You've been botched.’ This is someone that's never had treatment. In fact, they don't even have a profile picture. You know, it's like James 57639 and they're just commenting about how terrible it is. And they go on. Then you have a viral post and then your business looks bad. Obviously, we’ve been through this. We've had the million view thing go off about nothing.

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[10:20]

We've had the patient that absolutely had a cold sore. That was an occlusion. No, not an occlusion, honey. Not an occlusion. Back on the education piece too is like, when we bring anybody on, and when she was like 100% full time injecting, we really built the entire practice on that education.

So we had full in-house training. We've always encouraged to go learn from other injectors, doctors, surgeons, NPS whoever's skilled in their area. We bring them in, fly them in. We send our girls to these trainings.

More importantly, it's like a community and a culture, right? And so when they would come on board, we really see who's going to excel, because someone will sit in their room and wait for a patient while the other ones are trying to jump in and just stand in shadow Andy injecting or shadow any of our top producing injectors just in there. So we built this whole culture around it and you can see it. And so we encourage it. So, don't worry, nobody is just sitting there waiting.There's some gentle nudging like, ‘Hey, you should go check that out. You know, they're doing something you've never seen before.’

And it goes a long way. But I think it's most beneficial at the end of the day for the patient, patient safety, all of that. But it's just the mental aspect that I think we're preventing because can you imagine you have maybe a little bump here that's supposed to be there and you're laying there. Or, you go home to maybe to your husband or significant other and they're like, ‘What is that bump?’ And you're freaking out. And then you jump on to, you know, Web MD and now you have this crazy disease that came from getting an injection, and you're spinning out of control. No one's answering you at 1 a.m. And just a quick conversation prior to about expectation setting and you would be sleeping at night. Education goes so far.

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[12:02]

(JADE) I think when you have well-informed clients that can be so critical not only for the service, but your relationship with the client. Like we just shared, I think we’ve all Googled our symptoms on Web MD and been scared to some point  where we’re panicking, so very easy to see from the client’s perspective as well how that can kind of spiral. 

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(PATRICK) Oh yeah. And it does.

(SKYA) And I think that the number one factor for effective upselling is education of your providers, of your front desk. If everybody knows the treatments, pre and post care instructions, what to expect, whatever it may be. I want whoever's at the front desk greeting clients to know, hey, you can't work out for 48 hours after your tox treatment

(PATRICK)  And why, you know. Don't just say can't because I'll do it anyway. 

(SKYA) Actually, I yeah, realistically, clients want to know at the time they schedule what can I not do and what can I do after this treatment. But yeah, you have to be able to educate the client on what to expect outcomes because then it avoids that negative client interaction or experience where they’re like, ‘I’m dying. My lip filler feels weird.’ But, it’s all expected. 

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[13:09]

(PATRICK)  One of my funny expectation-settings that I've heard the girls do, and I wish I was responsible for it because it's just so off color, if you will. Vulgar even. And it's, you know, after you get your lips done, no straws or anything else, for 24 hours.

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(SKYA)  I think that's something that really stands out about your guys' business model is the sending and providing that level of education isn't something that's super common, especially with smaller medspas just starting out. They fear that if they spend a lot on an injector’s training, that they could potentially leave and take that knowledge somewhere else, and then they're out that money. But I think from everyone that I've seen experience-wise spending on education is worth it. 

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(PATRICK) Yeah, absolutely. And you said something earlier just was near and dear to my heart, which is why I clapped. You know, I just have a background in sales. And what I've learned in my career is that you don't sell anybody anything. You find out what it is they need and you provide that service to them.

And yet education is it so when I talk to them, especially our newer injectors, it's like, no, don't sell this. Don't sell something to them. Have a conversation with them. And when you're educated, you can conversationally express all of the information and they're going to arrive at the conclusion themselves. And so you've got to be educated in order to get them to their proper goals or even set a treatment plan in place.

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[14:33]

Another important piece of everything is like the Wild West. I'm sure you guys have heard this before. It’s the Wild West in this industry. It does vary state by state. I literally live in Texas by which, you know, was or is still considered like the Wild West, right?

And it is, you know, we're actually a pretty heavily regulated state compared to some others, and yet they've kind of missed the mark on some things. I'm not going to put anybody down right now because I don't necessarily believe in this. I'm a person that went to college for 90 days and dropped out and still succeeded.So I anybody can learn anything from anywhere they go.

And where I'm going with this is, we in Texas, you can be literally nothing. You don't even have to be an aesthetician and you can stick a needle in someone's face and put filler in and as long as you have a medical director and yet there are many that don't even have that. Right? And so we've got a lot of fly by night places and the places that do have an MD at very least, and yet no other qualifications whatsoever.

And, that lack of education translates to more problems for the industry. So there you have this person that decided to pick up a needle two months ago, because they can. Now this person has a bad taste in their mouth about the experience they had. They don't want to go back anymore. You've just ruined it for everybody, you know? And that's terrible.

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[15:44]

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[16:10]

(SKYA) Yeah, I think that's the hard part of the industry is that balance of the artistic piece, but also with the education, so you want to find someone who's obviously very good at their craft. But you also want to find someone who's able to  provide a service safely with the level of education needed. Tell us a little bit more about the educational program you and Andy put together. 

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(PATRICK) Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up. And, Andy, it's funny because with my background in the coaching and training, it was probably a year into the place being open and I was like, you know what the next step in is going to be in the business—as we're going to grow, it's going to be wildly successful, and then you're going to be asked to teach or travel and train and so rewarding and fulfilling.

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And of course, I'm just projecting, you know, my own feelings. And that's yeah, you're going to love it. It's going to be amazing. And she was like, I mean, I know all about it. You know, I started off in this because she went straight from nursing school to work for a plastic surgeon and heard about all the, or dealt with all the toxicity and B.S. that comes along with it and that's kind of what motivated her. 

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But on the school, I wanted that immediately. I was like, the school we needed to have; it's going to be amazing. At the time, with my limited information, that was honestly just money driven. I was like, there's so much money in education. She was very smart.

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And she's like, it's not time. You know, we've got to work on the practice. It's got to build. It's got to be big enough, successful enough. We've got to have enough of a name, like this expectation that's built, before we start talking about teaching anybody or giving back or anything like that.

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[17:35]

So flash forward to a year ago. It was time to open it. And so we call it The Injection Collective. And, a  lot of that name comes from our entire brand identity, if you will, which again, is community. And so The Collective, is that it's the collective of all of us. The collective consciousness, the collective of the whole industry.

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And so we want, medspa owners, we want other injectors from across the country to know and trust that they can send their people to us because it is a collective effort for us to all reshape the industry properly and kind of combat everything that is going on the negative side of things and shift perceptions. That's our main goal.

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And so with our school, we actually offer - I want to toot my own horn, I would say unique - maybe something else is out there, we have it where it's set up where you have, a basics course, an advanced course and a business course, which is just about to drop, by the way, coming super soon. It's actually ready. Just gotta teach it.

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And so with basics, you know, we actually offer a shadowing program. So it's just a day they come in and they're shadowing real life patients. We don't make any changes to our schedule or anything.

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[18:42]

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We have two amazing injectors so far, and we're about to bring a third on board. The two, I really love them to death. They are very good at their craft, and they really helped build it out.

My wife, unfortunately, has experienced some  pretty severe health issues and has had to really step back. Then I've had to really step up, you know, and they stepped up a year ago and really built out the program.

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They had some meetings with her, but they poured themselves into it. We've got the manuals

and something that I found so unique when you go into the advanced program is that while we have a curriculum, each of them has their own perspective, right? Their own artistry as you mentioned earlier and like their unique perspective on it.

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And so when you go into that advanced, we've got pre-scheduled models. And just typical patients, they're already there. They're okay with, you know, maybe a student sticking something in their face and they get to go hands on training for a whole day after the shadowing day and just really dive in and treat patients. And we're talking, you know, filler and toxins.

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And you can go as advanced as you want as well. What I have learned from just talking with other people in the industry and just finding a big lack, especially from vendors,

who are now sending us their people too, which is great, is that, there's a lot of disconnect between that craftsmanship and business. And there really is. There's a book that I read a long time ago from Michael Gerber and it talks about the difference between a technician and a business owner.

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And so a lot of people are really good at their craft. They're technicians. They're the best, maybe the best nail tech of all time. And then they're like, ‘I'm going to open up a nail place.’ Oh no. And then they fail and they're like, ‘Why I'm the best’. And they just don't get it. And there's so much.

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[20:19]

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And don't get me wrong, business as much as I love it, I mean, it's kind of boring, compared to doing the craft. And so you've got to sit down, look at numbers, you've got to do projections, you've got to see this and see that a different way, taxes, comptrollers, and then still inject and, and do all of that stuff. So we want to teach people about that as well because we want to see them succeed. And so our whole goal again, is to collectively help the industry, rise above, where it's at and where it could be going if we don't get a grip on things. 

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(SKYA) I love that type of business, because I feel like there is such a need for that business acumen in the industry. Like, some of these injectors are coming from the hospital where they just know how to do what their day-to-day job is and they're not taught the important KPIs or how to look at your numbers or any of the other aspects of owning a business. And so I think it's very true. We probably both see it where you can have someone who's the best injector, people will travel to see them, but they aren't going to know the day-to-day of running a business. 

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(PATRICK) Yeah. And so when you say KPIs because in our business at The Injection Room, we really roll that stuff in there. So they all know what that means, first of all, and they embrace it.  So you think you have people on your staff that are just good at injecting and they're showing up each day.

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They crave this stuff. So something I would implore anybody to do besides send them to our school, is to really put some of the numbers in front of them and make it personal. And so this is the passionate part of me with coaching. Money is not good. Money is good for the good it can do. You really got to talk to people like how many vacations do you want? Where do you see your family? What are your financial goals?

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And then they share that with you. So you break that down. You make a calendar. You show how much this would cost. You show how much it would cost you in terms of not making income while you're gone for two weeks.

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And then what does that look like to your daily productivity numbers? And they love this stuff at first. And I'm like, do I want to talk to them about this? Is this going to bore them to death? No, they love it. And so now they come in and are like, ‘Where am I at today?’ It'll be like 3:00pm. I’m like, ‘All right, well, you know, you're at 12,000 for the day’ and they’re like,’Cool, I can, I can do a little bit more,’ And then they know it's going to get there, or they go on vacation and they come back. And so I've got my management team now all plugged into this. And so they'll come back and take a look at it. Well because you were gone for two weeks, remember you were looking at it for your personal goals. You needed to produce about 10,000 a day. Well, now that's 17,000 to get caught up. So, they’re like, ‘I got it.’  And so, I mean, it's important for some reasons.

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[22:51]

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(JADE) I love that so much because you’re not only making it personal, you're not speaking in business terms, which are going over people’s heads. You’re making it really digestible and personal to that person where they're then like, okay, now I have this like competition with myself that I'm looking to achieve these milestones. Because there's nothing more rewarding than hitting those goals or coming back from vacation and being like, okay, now I know what I gotta do. Having somebody on your team who supports you but is also presenting that to you like, ‘Okay, this is how we're going to do it.’

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(PATRICK) Yeah. And that's the healthiest way to look at it. You know, you can go cliché, right, with the ‘isms and whatnot. But you're really in a race with yourself, right? You're competing against yourself. And your goals suggest you to be 1% better right, each day.

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We’re really focusing on them and that's what I think has helped drive our success. And what I hope to see drive the success of other practices is the family element and caring about them, knowing about their family and, why are they working? Why are they seeking money to begin with? What is it really for? And a lot of people don't know that. They have a goal. They're like, I want to make $200,000 a year. And it's like, okay, well, why?

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Because it sounds nice. I'm like, well, do you own a house? Not yet. Okay. All right. Well, how often are you vacationing? I haven't been on in two years. Okay. What's important to you? How old is your kid? Are they wanting to go to private (school)? All the stuff. And they start to think like that and then they show up with a different motivation and a why, you know? In fact, not to get too boring. I don't know if you guys are fans of Simon Sinek, heard of him or not. Amazing guy. And he has the [Start With Why] book that he had written and that reshaped probably my entire life.

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[24:24]

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It's a lot of people begin and end with what they do when they're either motivating themselves or even conveying their value to someone else. Some will go to how. They'll explain how they do it. So I'm an injector. This is what I do. This is how I do it. And they never get to why. The whole premise is that if you start with why and go out, have your big whys. Why do I need this money, or why am I doing this? Why is this important to me? And then all of a sudden, your brain will subconsciously come up with how are you going to achieve this ‘why.’ And when you have the how, then you have like this, why, what, how? You know. And so you start to really shape it out that way. Often beginning with why. And so I want to help everybody really understand what their why really is 

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(SKYA) That’s such a lever for success for your guys’ team to have somebody who can actually sit down with them and say, ‘What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your work life balance to be? How do you see that recognition of doing a good job? I think that's something that, in the health care industry, it's hard because you're really just, you know, if you have the role in a hospital or whatever it may be and you get your hourly pay, maybe some bonuses. But when we go into the world of self care businesses where there is commission, there are some sort of KPIs being measured. Sometimes, like sitting down and asking your team on an individual basis, how do you receive recognition best? Do you want financial recognition, do you like being shouted out? It’s hard because some people are like hey, ‘I don’t want you to tell me good job in front of a team. That puts me on the spot, makes me feel uncomfortable.’ But then you'll have another injector that's like, they love that shout out. So, I used to always - Google, survey, how do you like recognition? If you just want cash, let me know. If you want that hurrah, let’s have a hurrah. 

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[26:08]

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(PATRICK) Which just reminded me like I've got to get back to what we were doing full disk profiles when people were coming on so that I can know how to win with them and they can know how to win with me, and then they can learn how to win with each other, like really teaching them what that means. And it really helps with their patients, too.

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And even on the ‘why’ communication with Simon Sinek. When you're teaching them that, that pours into their patients because then they're like finding out why it is important for you to have lip filler, you know?

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(SKYA) Yeah it breaks it down on a deeper level. It's all very psychological. On one of the panels we were talking about there is a signature scent for The Injection Room. And there's such a psychological connection between someone getting their treatment, looking in the mirror, feeling good and the satisfaction and relating it to the scent. I was like, that's such a genius business idea.

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And it's just so crazy how the human brain works you know, when we are wanting to feel that confidence or that satisfaction and how that even relates to just a scent.

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[27:08]

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(PATRICK) And it's funny because where that came from is, of course, Andy. So what you'll notice in anything is that my wife, she is a visionary. And some would describe me maybe as like a visionary strategist. I don't care about the visionary part. What I do care about is she's got ideas on ideas on ideas and then I've got to execute them, which sometimes is annoying because it's like I'm like, hey, as fast as you say the idea, I need you to understand that it might take weeks to implement it. So like, chill. However, we travel a lot. We love traveling. 

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There's a hotel. It's actually in San Antonio. Thank God it's one of the best luxury hotels in the United States right now. Called Hotel Emma. No plug for them. No, no, we just love - we got engaged there. It's a great place, but they pump their own scent into the whole hotel, and they sell their own scent in a candle, and they have a pillowcase spray, all the stuff.

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That was where that came from because we bought it all and took it home. And then we're sitting there breathing it in like, you know, we should book another staycation. And then we're like, wait a minute. You're like, smells like The Injection Room. I need to go get some more filler. So the olfactory sense, you know.

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[28:14]

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(JADE) I think that’s genius. I do want to go a little bit back to the education piece. And we talked a little bit about some risk and clients having that panic attack. But, tell us some of the risks clients face when they are going to injectors that don’t have proper training or they're doing a quick weekend course that’s barely hands-on.

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(PATRICK)  And so first of all, let's talk about that and I'll dive into the risk. It's just like courses, what are they really? What is this accreditation or whatever that you got? At the end of the day, one of the biggest problems that I think the industry, I wouldn’t say it's a problem, it's just a reality, is that there is no real thing. It's not like you went to college and you learned anatomy and musculature and all of these pieces. Injecting is injecting, you know, and so, yeah, it's a quick weekend thing.

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They go sit in a class. This person talks [and] most of them are filled with ego. And so they're just talking about themselves. And then they're like, ‘Oh, I like to use this product. I inject the cheek.’ Maybe they have a model and they show that and they inject. And then you're supposed to go back and provide this amazing service to patients. And that's just not real, which is why I again, from getting onboarded at our practice, you're doing a lot of hands-on training. We don't even let you step up, get to graduate each thing, even though you are working and they're motivated to because then they can see and treat more patients. The risk with the way things are set up now for most is let's, I mean, let's dive right into the worst, right?

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Occlusions. You know, if this person doesn't know about, aspirating a syringe for different treatments then you now have just shot filler into a vein or artery, and somebody is now blind. Somebody now has necrosis, and their skin is peeling off of their face and that's the opposite of what their goals were, I assure you; down to a smaller thing when they go do that, like I mentioned earlier. The risk is that they go to this medspa practice, they had this goal, and now they're afraid to even see any of us ever again. Or, they get something done, say, to go on a vacation and they weren't informed of the aftercare that's necessary and now they've got more problems. I mean, the problems can be big. I mean, again this is your face and as much as all of us try to be less self-conscious or find peace from within, that’s not super real. We care about our faces. That’s why mirrors exist. We look at them. We put sunscreen on them. We care.  

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[30:37]

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When you talk about a why, that self-conscious part can be a big part of it. And so, you know, a lot of people get on there and talk bad on social media like, ‘Oh, you were beautiful before,’ and all that stuff. And maybe that supposedly coming from a good place. But we're talking about 

different beauty standards. And sometimes people just need that little pick me up and maybe they see something that bothered them their whole life.

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I mean, frankly, I had a big old nose and I was pretty comfortable in my skin. And still, I won my wife. I got her with my big nose. But then, I still, when the chance came up, like, hey, you maybe get a little nose job or something. I'm like, yeah, I'll do it and I feel great. I've got a cool nose now. Confidence boosted. Put my face out there. How does that translate? It translates to how you feel when you're walking around every day. It's important.

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(JADE) Absolutely. I think people underestimate when it comes to what you deal with internally and how that projects into aesthetics and beauty treatments. Oftentimes I've seen even providers getting on and being like, people don't need that, you know, you don't need that.

And it's not necessarily about a need. It's about getting something deeper inside of you that you've been struggling with for forever. Or, something that’s been bothering you that is going to give you that confidence boost, that's going to have you walking out feeling like a brand new person and maybe it’s something that no one else would have noticed. But it's just so simple but meaningful to you.

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[32:00]

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(PATRICK) Yeah. And I thank this industry and my wife, for this perspective that I've gotten because, you know, initially I see, okay, you're looking for this pick me up or you want to look whatever. And then I started to meet these women that come in and some of them are escaping abusive relationships, things of that nature, and they finally got away from this guy. And there's some things they just want to do to boost the inside, not necessarily outside, you know? 

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Despite my marketing team telling me my ideas are bad, I had a campaign that was,, beauty is skin deep and then parentheses, it's deeper than that. And it is. It's deeper than that. And so, I'm just really glad to be in this entire space. It's kind of  changed who I am as a man and my outlook on women.

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(SKYA) It's hard for someone who hasn't gotten treatments or dabbled in the industry to understand, but a lot of people will view it as like, oh, it's vain to get Botox. You should just age gracefully or  you should just accept it. But I think what a lot of it comes down to is it's self-expression, and it's a way of how we want ourselves to be viewed by others and how we want to, whether enhance it or change it a little bit while still building off of what we all have naturally.

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[33:14]

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(PATRICK) And it really is. When you say the need and the want type of thing, and then people commenting, ‘You didn't need that,’ and this is where the beauty standard one comes in. I think it is challenging for the injectors specifically because you still have a medical obligation where there is a line and we have to draw it and we have to turn people away sometimes.

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And yet other people, their goal might be these super pronounced lips, obvious features. Some of them are seeking the obvious. They want the biggest popping cheeks, biggest lips, and that is their standard of beauty. That's their goal.

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And as long as we're not overdoing it medically, who are we to say that was too much in terms of what they're seeking?

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And then you have the others that come in that are like, I want to look all natural. And of course it's like, well, if it was all natural, you wouldn't be here. But we know what you're saying. Subtle. You know, we want the subtle,

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I find it interesting now, too, when we're looking at the shift and we talk about education still. It's important to stay educated on what's coming around the bend. It's important to stay educated on what's being offered, too. And so, now we're seeing such an increase in the bio stimulators versus the filler. And then we've got whatever company is that says drop the F word. You know, we don't we don't do filler anymore. It's this. So anyway, it’s important to stay abreast of all the different changes that are coming around.

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[34:30]

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(SKYA) I think it's a constantly changing industry, too. So there's always something new. There's always a new treatment, modality that patients will ask for so that’s where education and stuff like The Collective is going to be really key.

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So what advice would you give someone entering the aesthetics industry if someone was brand new. You came into it brand new. What do you think - some advice to help somebody succeed in the industry from a business perspective would be?

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(PATRICK) Learn as much as you can—education in all facets Learn about your patient's needs. Learn about what really matters to them. Learn about your audience and what's bringing them in. And on a business side, that's going to be helpful, right? Because when we're talking about the content that goes out today, you got to know, what does the audience want? What gets the people going? You've got to ask the right questions and learn all of that so you can better engage with them so that you have a practice, first of all. 

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And another big part of my advice is to learn your numbers. If you're not charging the right prices, if you're paying too much for something, if you're not understanding the benefits of a wholesale bulk order,I don't care how good you are, you're going to be out of business if the numbers don't add up. 

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Funny enough for me, I wear many hats at our business. Some I didn't ask for. It is what it is. And so I'm the CEO, CFO, temporary CMO, maybe a fractional one, and co-CEO with Andy now. I guess I would encourage people to wear all of those hats at least once. I’d like for them to maybe learn what it's like to be the receptionist. Learn what those conversations are like. I think you should kind of do every little part of your business, especially if you're just starting out so that you know, from beginning to end, what that process looks like and you can provide a better experience for your patients that keeps them coming back. Because, again, you could be the best at what you do and if you have this boring, monotone, not-happy-to-be-there receptionist – Like, that's actually the first person. In fact, I don't even like calling them receptionists. I learned this from the real estate industry, but we call them DOFIs, which is Director of First Impressions, because that's what it really is like. That's the first impression of your business.

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So make sure you have the right team, make sure you have all the right skills, and you know how to really execute from beginning to end.

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(JADE) Well, looking ahead, how do you hope that The Injection Room and the Injection Collective will help shape the future of this industry?

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[36:43]

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(PATRICK) Well, I like to think that we're already doing it. Just the biggest thing is, impacting our community.

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From The Injection Room side of that question, impacting the community. So to make that big impact, make sure we're giving back to our community, the cities that we're in, the people that are coming in, our patients, not just to build a name for ourselves, but to build the right name for ourselves. We want people to just be happy and healthy really.

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And from The Collective side of things, we want to spread that same message, that same vibe, if you will, across the country, across the world, for that matter. Why have a limited mindset. We want everybody to operate this way because we've seen success with it, exponential success. And we continue to grow and our numbers continue to improve. And the reason the numbers are so important, is because that allows us to continue with that mission.

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And again, if you're not educated, if you're not learning, what is this thing? If you're not growing, you're dying, you know? And so we want to make sure that we're educating everybody properly so that they can put their best foot forward and therefore help the entire industry put its best foot forward every day.

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(SKYA) Yeah, sharing that knowledge just speaks so much to the idea of collaboration over competition. I think sometimes in the medspa industry we can get very siloed where injectors don't want to share their techniques or want to help other injectors out. I think there's so many clients. There's so much demand for it that there doesn't need to be a scarcity mindset. I think that speaks volumes that you guys are sharing that information and saying, hey, we're going to build this into a curriculum and give this info so that there can be other successful businesses, other successful injectors that get to do what they love.That's huge. 

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(PATRICK) Each and every one of our responsibilities is to lift each other up. We'll go further, faster if we have that mentality.

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(JADE) Absolutely. And I think that’s something that’s so lacking in the industry that we don't see. So I agree you guys are part of shaping the future of the industry by pouring into the education piece and also pouring into your team. I think it speaks volumes, kind of the way that your team is and how they speak to you and how they work with you and work for you because of how you're pouring into them. And I think that's something that everybody could take away and implement into their own business because it's often overlooked.

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(PATRICK) Thank you. Thank you. That was very sweet

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[39:09]

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(SKYA) Well, Patrick, let's let our listeners know where they can find you, where they can get more information, and where they can sign up for classes.

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(PATRICK) The injectioncollective is where you can find us to sign up for any level of the training that I mentioned. Just jump in, fill out the information form, and somebody will reach out to you as soon as possible. And we'll get you started on your career or furthering your career. And of course, if you're a patient just looking for some loving community, theinjectionroom.com.

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(SKYA) Beautiful. Thanks so much for joining us.

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[39:40]

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