Aesthetic Appeal

A flawless procedure can still turn into a bad review if the clinic hands the patient off with nothing more than a printed discharge sheet. Bill Walker talks with Louise Hobbs, RN and founder of ViraLou Aftercare, about what a real concierge recovery service looks like: RN-led home visits, vetted and trained nurses, and a vitals kit stocked for whatever the first 24 hours throw at a patient. Louis...

Every ambitious med spa founder eventually hits the same fork: expand into satellite locations, or double down on one destination. Amanda Barrett tried the first path with Vadara Med Spa in the greater Seattle area, then reversed course to save her business, her staff, and her sleep. Bill Walker talks with Amanda about why satellite offices sound smart on paper but crush rebooking rates and drain...

Most practice owners can tell you their monthly revenue. Very few can tell you where inside that number the next $10,000 is actually sitting. Ben Wolber, founder and CEO of Illume, joins Bill Walker at The Aesthetic Show in Las Vegas to break down what his platform finds after pulling together the scattered systems most med spas run on — booking software, EMR, POS, and beyond. One single-location...

Getting new patient leads is the most expensive marketing you do, and the least profitable. The growth in 2026 is in the client you already have. Recording live at The Aesthetic Show, Jessica talks with Skya Jones of Boulevard, a former practice manager who now teaches medspa teams how to put their marketing on autopilot. Skya walks through AI-driven automated campaigns that quietly fill the sched...

Most medical spas are held together by a patchwork of disconnected tools—one or more for marketing, another for scheduling and charting, a third for photos, another for payments. Every handoff between them quietly eats staff hours nobody is tracking. Bill Walker talks with Walker Szurek, co-founder and CEO of Prospyr, about why he built a single connected platform instead of one more point solutio...

You built a loyal following on your own name and your own hands. Now the calendar is full, the ceiling is close, and the business is worth almost nothing without you standing in the room.  That is the wall most injectors hit right before they decide whether they own a job or a company. Jessica Hunter talks with Catherine Marben, who rebuilt her Scottsdale practice from a one-woman salon suite into...

For any practice owner eyeing a sale, or an investor sizing one up, the real risk in a med spa or surgery center rarely shows up on a P&L. It's in what happens after the doors close: whether DVT protocols get followed, whether a medical director has ever set foot in the building, whether anyone can prove any of it. Tom Terranova, CEO of QUAD A, walks through how the organization's new med spa...

She started injecting Botox out of the front seat of her car, reclining patients onto her lap at gas stations between Encino and Laguna Beach, back when almost no one knew what Botox even was.  Today that one-woman operation is a multi-location medical spa group across Orange County and Los Angeles. How does a burned-out nurse with $4,000 in her checking account turn pure instinct into a brand? Er...

Most owners add a new service because they're personally excited about it. Jessica Hunter has a harder test: before you spend a dollar on a device or a drug, can you prove that 40% of your current patients would actually try it? That one number is the difference between a home run and an expensive mistake. Jessica and Bill Walker get into how to add GLP-1s, hormone therapy, and peptides without bl...

The same tool that can save hours of admin work in an aesthetic practice can also quietly erode the thing patients are actually paying for. Jessica Hunter explains where to lean in hard, where to pull back, and how to tell the difference before a practice accidentally automates itself out of relevance. Jessica walks through her own daily use as a consultant — sorting financials, templating protoco...

Most consultants will tell you one thing when revenue stalls: just charge more per unit. Jessica Hunter, Head of Aesthetic Consulting at Aesthetic Brokers, has watched that advice quietly cost practices money for years. Her position is simpler — pricing is a strategic tool, not a number to bump every January. Jessica walks through three distinct pricing levers most owners collapse into one. Acquis...

A direct buyer reaches out, the number sounds generous, and the temptation to skip a formal process kicks in fast. That’s where most founders quietly leave the biggest check of their career on the table. Bill Walker breaks down what a real M&A engagement looks like next to the “list it like a house” approach most founders default to. He walks through a recent client who came to Aesthetic Broke...

Most practice owners have a daily habit they wouldn’t call a habit. Scrolling through competitor accounts, clocking what other clinics are charging, watching what new memberships and treatments they’re rolling out. It feels like research, but it’s stealing your energy from your own growth. In this solo episode, Jessica makes the case that almost none of what you see your competitors doing connects...

Email blasts, cold calls, and decks full of stats stack up for months before most aesthetic practice founders are even ready to sell. The buyers on the other end of those messages know exactly what they're doing — they're hoping to lock in a deal before anyone runs a competitive process. The question is whether you understand the playbook well enough to recognize one when it lands in your inbox. I...

Almost every day, a medspa owner calls to talk about selling, and almost every one of them hasn't given it enough time yet. Jessica Hunter walks through the real math and timelines behind building a sellable practice and what actually separates a practice worth buying from one that isn't… and it's not credentialing. Comparing an RN who does the same skillset every single day with a nurse practitio...

Most practice owners walk into a valuation conversation with a number already in their head — and that number is almost always wrong. Bill Walker breaks down the real math behind what an aesthetic practice is actually worth in 2026, starting with the gap between top-line revenue and the EBITDA buyers actually underwrite against. He walks through the hidden adjustments most owners forget: the fair...

Independence in aesthetics sounds empowering until the operational reality hits. Bridgette DeBrino, CEO of Belvara Collective, shares how her journey from treatment room to operations revealed a major gap in the aesthetics industry: highly skilled providers who want independence, but not the overwhelm that comes with it. She explains how blending hands-on patient insight with marketing and operati...

Pricing tends to get set once and then forgotten, even as demand, costs, and services evolve. Jessica Hunter shares why regularly reviewing pricing keeps aesthetic practices healthy and aligned. She explains when high-demand services support higher prices, how tiered offerings shape perceived value, and why consistency across providers matters. Listen for how data can guide smarter pricing decisio...

Med spa money myths spread fast, and believing the wrong ones can quietly stall your business. Jessica Hunter tackles the most common assumptions owners make about profitability, growth, and “easy money,” and explains why expectations often clash with reality in aesthetic practices. Listen for why profitability usually takes longer than anyone hopes, what real margins look like in aesthetics versu...

If you constantly feel behind in your business, it’s probably not because you’re lazy. It’s because you’re doing too much of the wrong stuff. Jessica Hunter explains why time is the most overlooked asset in aesthetic practices, and why working harder almost never fixes the real problem. Understanding where your time actually goes, getting comfortable with delegation, and knowing your numbers can c...

Planning an exit feels like something you’ll deal with “someday,” but Jessica Hunter says it actually starts on day one. She explains what makes a med spa truly sellable, from having more than one provider to systems that don’t rely on the owner to function. She also shares why profitability has less to do with your top line and more to do with operational discipline, and how small inefficiencies...

Seven figures sounds glamorous until you’re the one signing the checks. Jessica Hunter is back to explain why a “million-dollar” med spa often isn’t profitable at all, and what owners should prioritize once the revenue starts rolling in. She uncovers where money really goes in an aesthetic practice, what healthy margins look like, and why most first-time owners misunderstand the difference between...

Thinking about going out on your own in medical aesthetics? Jessica Hunter shares the questions you must answer before starting your own medical spa, like whether you can actually cover your overhead, how long you can float yourself without revenue, and what profit really looks like after rent, payroll, supplies, and credit card fees. Most new owners assume a $100K month means success, but tight m...

What really drives success in medical aesthetics? Jessica Hunter knows the answer—and it’s not fluff. Following her early career at giants like 3M, Jessica built a thriving consulting firm before becoming the head of consulting at Aesthetic Brokers.  Her entry into the medical spa world was pure chance, but her rise is a direct result of helping practices run smarter, scale faster, and be profitab...

This interview originally aired on the Practiceland podcast presented by PatientFi. Selling the practice is a big deal, but don’t panic just yet – you’re probably not getting fired! Doctors sell for a variety of reasons, and freaking out at first is normal. But a growth mindset beats a scarcity mindset every time and this is your chance to grow. An advocate for doctors through complex financial tr...