Are You Being Paid What You’re Worth?

Andrea (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this, while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Andrea (00:27):
Welcome back to Practiceland. This is Andrea Watkins, and we are so excited about this episode today. One thing we really want to do here is helping everyone listening, reaching your own goals and advancing your careers. So today we are going to talk about money and how much should you be making in your role in an aesthetic practice. So there's a right way, there's a wrong way to approach this. Everyone should really have a desire to earn more and to grow in your career. And so we have brought a really phenomenal guest on board with us. I don't know, she's kind of renowned in the aesthetic space. So we're really excited and thank you so much, Jessica, for being here. We have Jessica Hunter and she is going to help walk us through this whole thing. So Jessica, welcome to Practiceland, first of all, we're so happy to have you here.

Jessica (01:19):
Oh, thanks Andrea. Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about. I talk about it often and a lot. So yeah, I'm excited to jump in.

Andrea (01:29):
Could you just start to tell us a little bit or start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what makes you the expert?

Jessica (01:36):
Sure, absolutely. Well, obviously my name is Jessica Hunter. I am a business consultant. I started my own consulting firm about five years ago, and prior to that I spent five years with Allergan Aesthetics as a business consultant. So I've spent 10 years in diving into financials with my clients in really understanding their business. And so that's always where I start with all my clients because I really do believe that the data that we take a look at tells a whole story about the past, present and then the future. And so that's really sort of the foundational work of understanding someone's business and understanding sort of the direction and where we want to go.

Andrea (02:10):
Perfect. So today with our target listener, being a patient care coordinator, a front desk patient liaison, patient concierge, there's a million, again, million names for that. Nothing's really standardized as far as it's concerned. We really want to hone in on that and focus on our listeners and really helping them understand their comp, maybe what they should really be working towards and talking with their leadership about. But before we get into the individual compensation, I'd really like to set the stage a bit and really discuss more about just things that a lot of us don't realize as far as just what does it mean to open the doors every day and key overhead expenses that we might not be aware of in those administrative or sales roles. Because a lot of people too, they'll look at a doctor say, well, you're driving a Porsche, whatever to the office, and here I've got my Honda that's from the 1990s, you need to pay me more. And so I think a lot of misconceptions happen about what it means to just turn on the lights every day. So starting with that foundation, what are some of the key terms and ideas and things that people need to consider when we're just talking about providing an opportunity for us to have a job and the expenses that come into play for that?

Jessica (03:31):
I think it's such a great question, Andrea, because I think what happens a lot is I'm working with the staff in the clinic about trying to figure out their compensation and what works best for them. And so we kind of have this misconception that what we, after someone pays us, they take home everything else that that's their profit. And so just to lay that foundational groundwork I think is really important. And if we're working in this industry, we should know that. So first and foremost, when we're talking about overhead expenses, really simplistically that is just our sort of fixed costs that we incur regardless if we see a patient or not, regardless if we're open for business or not. So for me, in this bucket item, we're going to see your lease or your rent, your utilities, I'll actually put malpractice insurance or any sort of insurance in there as well. And these are just costs that just incur every single day regardless, like I said, if we see a patient or not. And so those are really our baseline overhead costs, we call them. And typically that's about eight to 10% of our revenue gross. So that's sort of what that looks like. Not a huge expense, but our two biggest line items of course is payroll and cost of goods. And remember that cost of goods is anything that we use. It's a consumable product for the service we provide. And so that could be your Botox, your filler, your consumables for laser devices. It's also every single syringe, every alcohol swab, every gauze, every glove, right? It's a ton of things.

Andrea (04:59):
Everything that's overflowing from the cupboards that we're trying to smash in so we can make the clinic look nice. Exactly.

Jessica (05:04):
Yes. Every numbing cream, I mean, there's so many things that when we're obviously assessing prices and stuff for that. And so cost of goods and payroll are two biggest line items in terms of our biggest expenses. And so I think one thing that's really important to understand is depending what our service mix is, our cost of goods will be 35, 40% of our revenue. It's a huge chunk of it, but it's really common for providers to just think, Hey, you are going to pay for the Botox, you're going to pay for me, and then you get everything else. But remember, we have this overhead expense, we have the rest of our support team, our marketing team, our accountants, our lawyers, everybody else that's on our payroll, cost of goods of course. And lastly I always say is other. And then marketing. So our other expenses is educational funds. If there's any other expenses that are incurred that are not directly with the operational of the business, but they may be to help grow the business or things that just aren't daily impactful.

Andrea (06:02):
Like going to conferences and when we take our teams.

Jessica (06:05):
For dinner and we do activities and all of those things are expenses are incurred from the business. And that can really vary in terms of how much we're spending depending on the clinic owner. And then of course we have our marketing expense, and this can absolutely vary depending on what stage we're at in the business and if we're growing our business or what we're doing with it in terms of external and internal marketing. But this can be a massive expense when we're talking about in 2025, creating content, social media managers dealing with our website and updating that constantly. I mean, there is Google ads and Facebook meta ads. I mean, there's so much in there, that bucket kind of item. And it's so important to understand that because as a business owner, I could be spending five, six, 7% of my revenue potentially more on just patient acquisition. And it's a huge massive expense that I think that we sometimes don't think about.

Andrea (07:01):
One thing I did want to point on out as well when I was younger in my career and didn't really understand business is when we talk about payroll, we're also not just talking about, well, I make $37 an hour, and so that equals blah. We're also talking about all the taxes, the insurance, the 401k, the unemployment insurance, everything on top of what they're paying you. Your employer is also paying all of these other expenses just to have you on the payroll. So it's not just the money that you see in your take home check, it's everything else that your employer has to incur in order to have you as a part of the team as well.

Jessica (07:39):
Yeah, absolutely. And it goes quickly. It really, really does. When we talk about those differences of those things, we're talking about what we're going to be for profit, that's our net profit at the end of the year of what we're going to take home, and that's not the same as gross margin. So those two different sort of things that we have to kind of understand what our gross profit would be from our consumable costs and then the services we provide, and then the net is what we're left with at the end of the year.

Andrea (08:06):
So when we're talking about the types of compensation plans specifically for the administrative and sales teams within aesthetic practices, what are the different types of compensation plans that you see as far as salary, commission based, hybrid type types of things like that?

Jessica (08:23):
Yeah, listen, I think it's the Wild Wild West, I think I've seen it all. I've definitely seen the hourly and the commission structure combination. I've seen just hourly structures and I've also seen per sort of treatment, so some of the most complicated compensation plans I've seen is you get X percentage on this service and X percentage on that service.

Andrea (08:47):
I've seen those as well. Because the margins are different on different services from the ownership perspective. So when they get really granular, they're like, well, my margins for this are maybe 50% so you can get 15, but if my margins for that are 80% because the machines paid off, you can get a little more or something like that.

Jessica (09:04):
Absolutely. So in theory, it makes a lot of sense, and I think if you're looking at it to your point in that way, it can make a lot of sense. I think where I struggle with the variety of services in terms of what we're giving is it's really complicated. And my number one rule about compensation is it needs to be simple, easy, and both the provider and owner need to know it because the number one thing that I sit down with a provider and I say, tell me about how much you're getting compensated. And they're like, well, I make $50 an hour plus I make 10% commission on injectables. I said, okay, so what did you make last week? Well, my check said blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, so how much did you make in both that they have no idea? I mean, nobody can tell me.

(09:43):
And I say, how much did you make an hour? I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, I have yet to come to a provider who can really drill down when it's a combination like that and able to tell me what they're at. So that tells me that, okay, we're not doing a good job at really laying out of how much did you make on what, where, when, and why. So for the month of July, how much did I do if I'm getting paid on total sales versus net revenue? Those are two different things. So how do I know how much I did. So if it's on total sales, if I did $20,000 in the month of July and I did 10%, I should be able to understand that. Plus I made, I don't know, $50 an hour, then I can break it down and I worked a hundred hours in the month. Okay, now I know how much I made an hour. And that's what you want to be able to understand because how do you give yourself benchmarks? How do you know what targets you want to hit for the month of September, October, November.

Andrea (10:39):
Don't know where you're starting.

Jessica (10:40):
Gotta know where you're starting. It's also really, it's that visibility too of like, okay, well, I know that I did X amount of Botox and X amount of filler and X amount of Morpheus eight, where's your service mix of like, oh wow, if I sold more of these packages, I would actually make more money. Or if I did multiple syringes in one treatment visit, I would make more money. But you need to have that lay of the land of understanding first and foremost of where you're currently at right now and what you're doing and how you're getting paid for it because just the basics.

Andrea (11:12):
So then once someone understands how they're being paid and what they're being paid, and again, I don't think in some of the PCC roles, of course it's going to vary greatly on procedures booked and completed and things like that. Maybe at the front desk it's going to be more of an hourly type of thing. Once we know where we are currently. How would you suggest that somebody in our field goes about figuring out how much they could realistically be making?

Jessica (11:40):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And like I said, I don't think there's anything that just going to do some research on your role within your demographic area can give you some context. But I think there's two things that I would suggest for an owner. And so I think when I'm thinking about you as a team member of things that you can go back and feed your owners as to why you should make or deserve to make a certain amount is your expertise and knowledge that you bring obviously and your past experience and that past experience can be anything within the customer service field that you feel like is really valuable. And I find that, for example, somebody coming from hospitality, there's a really good core set of values and interactions and skillset that comes with that that lends really nicely into medical aesthetics. I personally have hired quite a few people out of hospitality into our industry because guess what they know how to do? They know how to manage their time, deal in time, stressful situations, right? Multitask and definitely deal with customer conflict and issues. And so all of those things lend really well to someone managing the front desk, who's answering the phone, checking someone out, dealing with complaints or issues or concerns and having that skillset. So to me, it's not necessarily about like, okay, am I getting paid enough? Am I bringing value to the clinic? Am I becoming that irreplaceable employee? And then am I communicating that to my management team, my ownership team, about what else can I do to be valuable to you?

(13:19):
And as being someone that's valuable, I believe that I'm worth X amount an hour. And I think it's coming from that mindset instead of being like the clinic down the street pays the same position, $25. Listen, we don't really care what the clinic down the street does. How are you impacting the business? How are you helping the business? And I think it is really about justifying that you're not just a plug and play sort of employee. You're doing the extra you bought into the culture, you're a good team player. You don't have to be asked, you're self motivated, all of these things that really lend to helping build a practice.

Andrea (13:54):
Are there KPIs, which stands for key performance indicators, so are there KPIs maybe at the front desk that you would evaluate when you're advising and consulting with an owner that says, Hey, this person is a rockstar. You need to make sure that financially we're doing everything that we can to make them feel valued and for them to see that in their paycheck as well.

Jessica (14:17):
Absolutely. So I think when we're talking about front desk, for me, I kind of split it up between someone who is sort of client facing, checking in and out, engaging with the client, and then someone who potentially maybe is answering the phone and managing all of those sort of communications with clients. And only because typically now we do try to separate those two roles just so that we can really focus on the client that's in front of us typically. But when I think about the client that's in front of us, I think a couple of things. I think one, when you're looking at metrics, you can look at rebooking rates that is so important to try to pre-book somebody for their next treatment or appointment before they walk out that door. It's key. It really, really is, and it focuses on a lot of things.

(14:59):
It allows us for our utilization to really sort of button that down and know that we can have the right staff amount for the right day and really maximize that and optimize our staffing schedule. That's number one. But so I really like rebooking rates. I really, really do. I also want to measure of, okay, how many people did you, if we're really trying to push certain things, we're really building up our Google reviews, we're trying to build our credibility. So we give them sort of these different metrics every month to really try to push towards. So yes, everybody before they leave, let's get them to do a review. If they had a great experience, let's ask them if they had a great experience so they can share that for us. So there's different things that we can do to engage them instead of just looking at the typical things of, oh, how many new appointments did we book?

(15:46):
How many consults? Because some of these things are out of our control, let's be perfectly honest. And again, the person who's engaging with the client, who's forefront and facing, I do think that they have different metrics than the person who's answering the phone personally. And I think those are two different things. And if we have somebody right now who's doing both, because we're in that stage in the practice where we have someone who's answering the phone and as well as engaging face-to-face with clients, then we can kind of take a look at different metrics. So I think it's just about finding things of where you're trying to really impact the business. The other one that people will definitely talk to me about is skincare. And it's like, yes, our front desk can be a great salesperson or educator on any of our retail products. Absolutely.

(16:28):
And if you want that to be their primary focus, you need to drill down a whole systematic process of what that looks like when they're engaging with the client. In my opinion, it's solution based, package based and customized to every single client's needs and wants. And then you got to educate them on that because just the one-off products and stuff is not going to suffice. That's just filling the need for the client who says, Hey, I'm out of cleanser. Right? And so to me, that's a whole nother role too. So I guess it's just sort of figuring out, okay, so what's my actual role? And then how are we going to measure it based on the realistic tactics that I'm doing every single day? Because like I said, kind of lumping the sum as KPIs or key performance indicators into one role doesn't always make sense for me if that.

Andrea (17:09):
Oh yeah, they're definitely different based upon the role. A lot with the PCCs kind of moving from the front desk to the next step of the patient journey, which would be having a consultation phone call and coming in for a consultation with a PCC, and that person's responsible for scheduling a surgery and making sure that the doctor's time is optimized with good consults in a full surgery schedule and things like that. So for PCCs, what do you find are typically the KPIs that are tracked and measured when it comes to compensation for them?

Jessica (17:46):
Yeah, so I mean, listen, the obvious one is converting any new consults. We already know that that's quite an easy one. I think when we're thinking about that PCC role though, it's really, they're so embedded in that patient journey from from the start to sort of all the way end into their recovery. And so for me, it's like I really want to understand sort of how they can impact that and are we measuring their impact for that? So it obviously of course starts from the inquiry, getting them in, and then what are they doing for that sort of whole entire journey that leads them to someone coming and booking a surgery with a plastic surgeon, whoever. So I think things that I would definitely look at is how many new consults do we have booked? Not just how many are we converting, but how many are we actually actively engaging to come and walk in and sit down with us, that's so, so key. So that's the first funnel.

(18:40):
Are we actively proactive, engaging in people to come and see us and have a conversation about who we are, what we do, why we do it? So that'd be number one. And then number two, we want to obviously know what our conversion rate is to that. We want to be able to offer that. And then if we do not book a surgery that day, what does our follow up look like? Because just as important as not booking it is having a really great structure in terms of following up with them because they might not be ready today, but they might be ready in three months or six months. And so I think actually understanding those people of who have you followed up with and who has converted are also really great metrics to look at for a PCC who's really steadfast in their whole process of what they do with that client experience.

(19:23):
So I think that's really important too. I love doing reviews. Absolutely. I love doing referrals. So saying if they've interacted with a client and a patient and they've taken them throughout all this journey, how many reviews or referrals have they gotten from that? And that's an external piece to what they do. It's reaching out saying, I'd really love a testimonial from you. If you had a great experience with myself and with the surgeon, I'd love to hear more about it. We also do this referral program if you refer someone and then follow up with them on that because for sure they have a sister, a mom, a best friend, a neighbor who is thinking about the same sort of treatment procedure and they just want to be credentialed to someone. And we know that those people convert over 80% when it's a personal referral. So things like that I think are really, really great. And we can kind of move away from the, did we just book the,

Andrea (20:13):
Yeah. Did we schedule the surgery and did they have a completed and did we make some money? But how are we also growing the business moving forward? Not just what happened yesterday, but what are the next steps we're taking? I love that. Let's talk about, these are great all in concept, but if you are responsible for designing compensation plans, let's take the front desk role and the patient care coordinator role. Where do you start for each of those?

Jessica (20:36):
My whole rule is in 90 days we have a full assessment of every team member you ever bring on. So for the first 90 days, I am going to usually pay you an hourly rate. I'm usually not going to suggest giving you a commission or any sort of bonus structure, and I want to see what you're great at and what you struggle with. And then I want to be able to think, okay, is this person worth investing in and can I give them the tools and resource and education to be better at what they're struggling with and empower them to really optimize and be the lead at the things that they're already really good at? And that's how I personally create their bonus or their commission structure. If they don't have really a love for skincare and retail products or a baseline knowledge, to be honest with you, I'm probably not going to lean into them for that.

(21:21):
I'm going to keep that as our esthetician or our provider who is dealing with a client for an hour in a treatment room and goes into a full skincare assessment and sells the majority of our retail. I'm going to lean into them. But this person might be, again, really great at building up referrals, really, really great at patient acquisition. They might be really amazing at credentialing on the phone so that we can get away from our one owner provider schedule and start filling up our new provider schedule. They may be really great at that. And so depending on what the objective of the clinic is, I'm going to incentivize for that. To that point, we might have a situation where we have an owner and we're trying to spread out their clients or their revenue for new providers in terms of capacity issues. And so that might be our goal. Our goal might be like, okay, listen, we've got Sarah as our new nurse injector, for example. We got to take some plate off, Chelsea, this is our goal. And so how do we tactically do that? How are we doing that? And if you can decrease Chelsea's patient load by 40% for the month of October, that's our goal.

(22:29):
And so my thing is creating goals that are actually measured towards the objective of the practice instead of just sort of plug and play of, again, this is what Sally down the street does.

Andrea (22:38):
Let's move on to the PCC role. I think this is the part that gets real spicy, at least from what I've seen in dozens of practices across the nation that I've worked with and have been a part of. So in a lot of PCC roles, we have a salary based compensation, and then we have an incentive that's based upon surgeries that are booked and completed. And sometimes there might be one PCC in a practice, sometimes there might be several PCCs. There might be one doctor, there might be two doctors, a PCC might serve everyone, he might only serve one doctor. And so we have this, I think the intention is great in that we want people to have buy-in to what their ultimate goal is, which again is bring in great consults, schedule surgeries, keep the doctor's OR schedule full. So from expert, Jessica, I really need, and I need this, I have a few clients that are in, and I was just so excited when Eva put this on my calendar because I was like, oh, this couldn't have come at a better time because I walk into situations where things are already set and then have these conflicts and have certain ways of going about it.

(23:47):
But I want to hear from you, what is your recommendation for PCC comp? And if you're in a situation that maybe has created some volatile issues between people in a practice, how do you address that?

Jessica (24:01):
Okay, so I'm going to talk sort of broad strokes here for a second. So first and foremost, my tagline for every single presentation and every podcast and presentation I do at a conference for compensation is we have this misconception that we need to pay everybody the exact same for every single role. The reality is that we can't and we don't and we shouldn't. So everybody is treated and compensated fairly in our industry. I believe that. And within your practice, they should be all be treated fairly, but they're not compensated equally. And I think that's a really difficult thing to swallow. And so I'll elaborate a little bit more, but it's this idea that as we have a PCC in a role who's been doing this for 10 years, who has a really good high conversion rate, who has a great rapport with the clients and who is able to convert higher, they do make more money than someone new who's taking on this task and still learning the ropes and getting their feet wet. It is that idea that we pay for expertise and experience and we pay according to that. And I think this is a tough thing to swallow sometimes when you're coming into the world in 2025 that not everybody gets a participation ribbon. And it's not meant to be political in any way. It's really just about running a business.

(25:26):
We can pay someone more as they generate more revenue. That's the bottom line. We can pay someone more as they generate more revenue. And how you want to do that is you do want to do it a percentage on the total sales that they generate in any role that there are. And so it's this idea that when we have someone who's new, so let's say they're joining our practice, they're a new PCC, we're going to invest time, energy, and resources into training them and getting them up and running. Absolutely right? But by no means do I think that they should make the same amount of money who's someone who is actually really experienced in this role, really has put in the time and the effort to become experienced and expert in it. They shouldn't be making the same. And so the first thing I would suggest with the team is to be fully transparent about what this looks like.

(26:10):
So for example, if you've been with us for five years, you're going to make X amount of dollars for per hour versus someone who's just started with us. So you create tiers, and these tiers sort of go zero to 24 months, like zero to two years, kind of two to four and five plus. And within those buckets, if you stay with us and you're loyal and you're continuing to grow and develop, we pay you more based on those buckets. And so that's just your hourly rate. Now, if you're going to do a commission based on yes, the revenue you generate the revenue, you book the revenue that goes and comes down to the practice, we do a percentage and those percentages increase as you get higher. So for example, let's say you did $10,000 in the month of October just for really simple math, we're going to give you 5% of that.

(26:59):
But what if you actually close $20,000? Should we give you 5% or should we give you 6%? Are you more motivated to grow that to 20%? If you're at 17,500 to close one more sale, to call one more person to book in, one more consult before the end of the month when it's October 28th? You might be more incentivized to do that. When we create tiers like that, and those tiers, like I said, are sort of based on your longevity, your experience, and your expertise. Does everybody start at 5%? Maybe not. Those that have been there for longer and are loyal, they might start at eight and then it goes to nine and then it goes to 10, whereas I just started, so maybe mine starts at five and then six and then seven. And as I grow and I build, I can get to where somebody who has more experience, more longevity and has shown to be a loyal, valuable asset to the business. And so I do believe that, again, tiered structures work really well. I think you have to do them in a certain time period. And my time period's always a month where it's small enough, large enough time periods to be impactful, small enough to be measurable and attainable, and it's something to build and continue to build towards. And I think this works for two reasons. One, I think again, it creates your own internal motivation. It really pulls people out that are internally motivated by monetary value, of course, maybe are also competitive. And then the second thing is transparency among the business. What you're talking about that sort of like, she got this, she got that, whatever. If you're transparent about your structure and how it's laid out, there is none of that, right? It's just this idea that if you continue to grow, you make more money, no problem. I'm happy to pay you more as you do more because actually your margin does better. So it really makes a lot of sense for the business owner, and it of course makes sense for the provider or the PCC or whoever it is. And so that's the structure that really works well, but you got to be transparent about it and you got to be open about it. And it's got to be, again, structured in a way that's based on experience and expertise because otherwise it wouldn't have any foundation to have legs and stand on.

Andrea (29:16):
I absolutely agree with that in part, but I also know the realities that in a practice, everybody talks about what they're not supposed to talk about, which is what they make. And so if you don't have a very clear structure that is laid out in writing as a part of an offer letter or as a part of, we're starting a new compensation structure for everybody and this is how it is. So figure out everybody's going to fall somewhere in there. I think that's critical as well is the transparency piece because then it does end up affecting just the interpersonal relationships and it gets, I had one person that worked for my team specifically that was very salesy in this arena, which every practice is going to have a different culture. Our culture was not like that. We sold things without it ever feeling like a sale.

(30:09):
And this one in particular person, she would cherry pick leads where she could get the biggest multi procedure cases, and it created this really unfortunate environment. So in instances like that, because if you have, no matter if somebody is at tier one and somebody's at tier three as far as their base salary is considered, but their incentives obviously are going to be a percent of what they book, what do you suggest in an environment where we're sharing our opportunities and our prospects that come in and everyone knows that the PCCs are getting paid off of who they bring in and who they book. How do you suggest creating an environment where it doesn't pit your team against each other when they have to share their opportunities to make money for themselves as well?

Jessica (30:59):
Listen, again, it doesn't matter what industry you're in and who we're talking about in terms of leads and sort of ordering leads or whatever, this is a common problem everywhere. But what I would also say is, again, everybody's treated fairly, but not everybody's equal. And so this idea that you get a lead, I get a lead. I wouldn't agree with that at all. I would say if you've been here the longest, if we get a cold lead, who comes in, it goes to person X first. That's how it works. And for you who's brand new, you're going to have to hunt. You're going to have to try. You're going to have to do some outreach. You're going to have to go into our EMR system and actually reach out to potential people that have come in for a consult, never booked a treatment, or people that haven't been here, maybe were here three years ago, but also had an interest in doing a facelift or a rhinoplasty.

(31:51):
You have to go and be aggressive and build it out, but it's about being transparent to that. Listen so all cold leads, this is a whole systematic thing that you develop with your front desk team or whoever's managing that. If you're call center in the back and you're like, they go to Jessica PCC first, that's how it works. I don't know why we keep, in my opinion, keep apologizing for rewarding people that are loyal and good at what they do. It just blows my mind because I think everyone is not actually equal. They really aren't. But we want to give 'em the opportunity that, listen, Jessica, who comes in as a PCC, when you start showing that it's going up 20, 30, 40,000 every single month, wow, you're doing something great and you're making more money, that's the tiered structure, so we're going to start rewarding you. Great. So Jessica gets every third lead, and it's just about those little incentives of like, okay, they're recognizing my hard work of me trying, but by no means does someone off the street just sort of, let's just

Andrea (32:53):
Automatically get things.

Jessica (32:55):
Why would you? Show me that you're hunting? Because in my mind also, there is so many, depending on when we're talking about platforms and stuff that our clinics are on, but there is so many internal marketing resources now of how we can be proactive and reach out and engage in just our current client base that I'm like, again, it's just like we need to set that up and teach them how to use those, but why aren't we engaging in that? That's why we pay hundreds of dollars a month for these EMR platforms is to utilize that information that we're putting into the system to be able to outreach, to follow up, to retain. So those sort of things, like I said, those are tools for our PCCs, our providers or whoever to really start building their own client list.

Andrea (33:41):
I love the fact that you brought up technology because again, like you, I'm very much a data nerd, but also I think with the right technology, it gives us the opportunity to really fight for what we want, if what we want is to be successful and grow ourselves as professionals, as well as help grow our business as well. So from any, just to kind of next step, for someone who's never been exposed to the business side, what do you think is the one thing that you wish that they understood about how compensation works in this industry?

Jessica (34:13):
I think the number one, if we're just going to talk about a metric or something that they can just take a look at for themselves to empower themselves for sure is just in general your revenue per hour. And so this is your hourly rate plus your commission based on how many hours you're working within a certain time period. So like I said, if it's for a week and you make $20 an hour plus you make 10% commission and you sold $5,000, you want to do the math and do the 5,000 times the 10%, figure out how much that is, plus your $20 an hour and then divide it among how many hours you worked. And I think that will give you a really good understanding of like, oh, I don't make $20 an hour. This week I made $40 an hour. And that will give you a better idea of how you're compensated and what you want for the future.

(35:02):
Because when I sit down and do a review with someone and they're saying, oh, I would like $22 an hour, I would like a raise. And I take a look at the last three months and I'm like, well, really, you average $38 an hour for the last three months. Another $2 is not what I would be asking. I would be asking for 12%. You're obviously killing it. So I think some of those things is just that will really help you understand of, okay, how am I really being compensated? And if I want to ask for more, if I would like more, what does that look like? Because it doesn't always, I think, fluctuate that way or transpire the way that you might think.

Andrea (35:37):
I think too, from my younger years before really learning the business side of several different industries, I think as a young person you also kind of want that security and you're used to just thinking, I want a standard hourly rate or a standard salary. But what hustlers know and helps them actually achieve greatness is I don't want to cap on what you're going to pay me hourly. I would love in any of these roles to say, sure, a base is great and let's set up my compensation. So the better that I do and the better I help the practice do, the better I do. I know I'm going to hustle and I believe in me and really give yourself that opportunity because in an hourly or salary only type role, you're really limiting yourself of what you can do. And then you're just waiting for that next six months or 12 months, and is it time for my raise and all this stuff, but no, how can I be a very impactful part of this practice and how can I win too?

(36:42):
And I think that if we can change that mindset of just like, well, I just want to have my guarantee, you're going to get low balled, at the end of the day, you'll get low because no one really understands how much will you really do for that 22, 28, 37 dollars an hour. But if we can have an hourly or a salary with an incentive based on what you're actually contributing, you're giving yourself the opportunity to kick ass and really go out there and make a really good living for yourself. Just as a quick recap before we move into our "She did what?" segment, which I'm excited about to hear from you, is number one tip for someone who's in a front desk or PCC role that maybe thinks, Hey, my compensation structure does not reflect the impact that I am making in this practice. And I put it that way because I think it's important that everybody reflect on what is the impact I'm making? And that should be reflected in your compensation, not just the person down the road makes this, or I've been doing this eight years, I should make this, or I've been here now for two years, I deserve a raise. How can I talk to my leaders to make sure that my compensation reflects the positive impact that I'm making to the practice?

Jessica (38:02):
So what I would do personally is depending on what role you're in, if you're in a front desk role, if you are compensated on something and some sort of measurement, have that ready. Absolutely. If you're compensated on how many new clients booked, I would have that data. I would have that laid out. So for the month of October this week, this week, this week, this is how many new clients were booked. If it's based on your retail sales, pointing all of that out and show too? Okay. I obviously really like XO. I'm really comfortable with this. This is the number one product I sell. This is why I would love a little bit more education on SkinBetter because I'm finding that to be a struggle. Provide actual resources and data driven metrics as to where you're doing really well, where you'd some more support and how you plan to impact the business in the future.

(38:55):
It's just that past, present, future sort of thing. This is what I've done in the past. This is what I'm currently working on to be better at, and this is how I think I can impact the practice in the future. I mean, someone comes to me with that plan and that whole idea, and when we do and we sit down and do our review, you don't have to ask me for a raise. You don't have to ask me for a raise. You're just, I will give you a raise. I will say, listen, this sounds like what you're doing is outside the scope of what we initially talked about. You're in definitely more of a leadership role. You're taking on your own leadership role, which by the way, your role might not change. Your title might not change, but you're taking this on and building on what this role can be and setting new standards and new expectations for it. Yeah, I think maybe from 23 you should get 25 an hour for sure. And let's say you also get 12% on all SkinBetter because we make more money on it. And I'm going to get you this training, this training, this training to facilitate that.

Andrea (39:46):
That's like the ideal situation for anyone in a job to be in truly is to have someone they can go to and say these things and then have them turn around and say, absolutely, I'm going to support your growth because I believe in you because you came to me with this data and with this plan, which shows your initiative in making a positive impact in our practice.

Jessica (40:08):
Well, imagine if someone comes to you with that. I mean, what's your first initial thought?

Andrea (40:12):
Thank God you're a part of my team. Thank God you're a part of my team.

Jessica (40:16):
I can't be without you. Hundred percent. I can't be without you. Instead of just coming and saying, I should make more money, I should make more money. The person down the street makes more money. That's great. I mean, yeah. So that's what I think it's really about being really understanding and really thoughtful about what you're doing and why. And again, you always want to revert it back to how am I helping you, the business owner, how am I helping this practice grow and become better?

Andrea (40:39):
Exactly. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. It's incredible. Well, we're going to move on to this fun little segment that we always do. It's called "She Did What?". So what this means is we would love for you to share, it could be good, bad, indifferent. It could be some wild patient story. It could be a wild team member story. Some of the things we've heard have basically made me want to fall out of my chair. So do you have a wild story or a sticky patient situation, something like that, that you can share from your either consulting or working inside the practice with some of your other businesses that you're working with?

Jessica (41:15):
Oh, do you want it to be related to staff compensation?

Andrea (41:19):
Yeah, actually that would be perfect. If you want to relate it to the topic, that's even better.

Jessica (41:24):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think there's been a lot of different situations too, of providers sort of justifying what they should make. I don't know if it's a really sticky situation, but I had a call with a new hire that we had. I'm just going to be careful of what I'm saying, so I don't say too much. So I'll just say they were an injector from a state somewhere, and

Andrea (41:52):
They were on the planet Earth.

Jessica (41:53):
They were on the planet Earth, and they wanted me to sit there and justify their compensation plan, which was hourly in commission, and it was a tiered structure, and it was based upon a revenue. Now, this person didn't have any prior experience, and so I had to explain a little bit about what that meant. And what they actually did is they took a look at the tiered structure and the math, and while the owner was on the call as well and said, so you're going to pay me X and she's going to get Y based on all my work that I do, why would we give her any of that? This is the three of us are on the call. I'm like, well, let me explain about the expenses and what this looks like. And she continued to say, I don't think she deserves this as the business owner, and so how can we change this? I should get 50/50 of this. So those kinds of conversations.

Andrea (42:48):
Wow. Okay.

Jessica (42:49):
Right in front of the owner. Yeah. So it's really an education thing. It's almost like an ignorance piece of just you don't know enough to know. But being really, I think, and again, no prior experience, this was a new,

Andrea (43:03):
50%. I mean, if you're talking about injectables, that's going to pay for the syringe that you just did, that means the owner gets nothing.

Jessica (43:11):
We would be paying you to do it.

Andrea (43:12):
Yeah, we're actually losing money having you complete this treatment, right?

Jessica (43:16):
Yes. So it was really uncomfortable. I found it to be really uncomfortable. Obviously the owner was kind of taken aback, didn't really say much, but I think those situations happen more often than not.

Andrea (43:28):
It's an opportunity for education. And I guess the most important question is, so how long has she been working there now?

Jessica (43:34):
She's not. So yeah, she got started and that was that. Yeah, it was a very interesting, very quick. But it is just, again, not the right fit obviously for what we were trying to accomplish. But again, in those situations you can have that mindset. It's just about are you willing to educate yourself and listen as to why that would not work, why that doesn't make sense. And I think sometimes we're really nervous to ask or seek advice on things that we don't know about, to look maybe dumb or uneducated. And it's really not that. I always say this to my clients. I'm like, my clients are the smartest human beings in the entire world. They're so much smarter than I could ever, ever be. And I think you always have to come at that as somebody in the business world as being humble and just being open and interested and curious because you don't know everything. I've been doing this for 10 years. I don't know everything about the little tiny thing that I do, and you can't assume that because you want to just be really, I call it being curious and being open to other people's perspectives and their understanding and their viewpoint of the world because everyone's going to be different.

Andrea (44:45):
That's a great note for us to end on. So thank you again, Jessica, so much for being here. Where can we follow you online for people that are interested in working with you or learning more about what you do?

Jessica (44:56):
For sure. I mean, you can follow everything I do, obviously on Instagram at Hunter Consulting. You can go to hunterconsultingservice.com, check out our website and see kind of what we do and how we offer things. We do one-on-one consulting, so we do custom consulting with our clients, which is just one-on-one basis in terms of helping them, like I said, grow their practice and really financially understand their practice better.

Andrea (45:19):
I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. We will put those places to reach you online in the show notes so you guys can also find them there, and we'll be back with another episode. But thank you so much, Jessica. It's really been a pleasure.

Jessica (45:33):
No problem. Thanks so much. Andrea.

Blake (45:37):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise no cheap swag here.

Andrea (45:49):
Are you one of us? Subscribe for new episode notifications and more at practicelandpodcast.com. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and everywhere you can listen to the podcasts.