Business of Aesthetics Podcast Show

Hosted by Business of Aesthetics

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Episodes

296

Latest episode

Aug 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

The Business of Aesthetics (BOA) podcast show continues to inspire and help our community of aesthetic doctors grow their practices. We bring outstanding leaders in Dermatology, Plastic Surgery, and Aesthetics together to not just achieve more but experience fulfillment in their practice.

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60 recent

August 12, 202628 min

The Operator Trap: Why Your Practice Can't Survive Without You and How to Fix It.

In this episode, host Manjali Kulathunga joins Mike de Jong to expose the operator trap, the profitable but unsellable reality that forms when an aesthetic practice cannot function without its founder. Mike breaks down the GSD, architect, and hunter leadership types, then shows owners how to capture decision-making in SOPs, delegate simple tasks first, train through role-play, and build a team that can sustain patient volume without constant founder involvement. His final framework is uncompromising: transfer trust from the owner to the practice, incentivize capable leaders, and systemize the first location before expanding, or risk scaling chaos instead of building a valuable asset.

August 6, 202649 min

Fully Booked on $0 in Ads. Here's What She Built Instead.

In this episode, host Don sits down with Dr. Sinehan Bayrak, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon who filled her Philadelphia practice in under two years without spending a dollar on paid advertising. She takes apart the assumption that growth requires more ad spend, more staff, and more square footage, arguing that most practices are buying volume when they should be building fit. Dr. Bayrak walks through the actual mechanics: how her first 25 surgical cases came out of non-surgical appointments, why she never discounted them, and how Instagram functions as pre-education that shortens consults instead of just filling them. She details the free online consult pre-assessment that screens candidacy and pricing before anyone books, the $100 non-refundable consult fee that separates serious patients from browsers, and the self-scheduling technology that let her operate for two years without a receptionist. Her framework for scaling is deliberately unglamorous. Grow revenue by raising prices you can genuinely justify, reevaluated every six months, before you grow complexity. And her closing warning is aimed squarely at anyone trying to copy someone else's model: patients can tell when it isn't yours.

July 30, 202642 min

Why Aesthetic Patients Don't Move Forward: Finding the Hidden Breaks in Your Patient Journey

In this episode, host Don Adeesha joins double board-certified dermatologist and somatic trauma specialist Dr. Kiera Barr to explain why a clinically excellent aesthetic consultation can still end with, "Let me think about it." They reveal how rushed communication and unseen nervous-system responses can quietly undermine trust before price or treatment quality ever becomes the deciding factor. Dr. Barr breaks down the visible and subtle signs of fight, flight, and shutdown, from shallow breathing and repeated reassurance-seeking to silence, flat affect, and disengagement. She shares practical ways to regulate provider presence, slow the pace, ask better questions, use consent-based touch, and design the full patient journey - from scheduling and the waiting room to the consultation and follow-up - around safety. Her framework centers on helping patients feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure while keeping nervous-system awareness ethical and free from manipulation. The final message is clear: regulation is not about staying calm; it is about consistently returning to a grounded state so the entire team can build stronger relationships, better outcomes, and a more trusted practice.

July 23, 202622 min

Why Discount Ads Fill Your Schedule With the Wrong Patients, And the Trust-Based Funnel That Fixes It

In this episode, host Don sits down with Naren Arulrajah, founder and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, to dismantle the med spa playbook of cheap ads and low-price Botox deals. Naren argues that discount-first marketing doesn't just underperform, it actively damages your position in the market and fills your schedule with patients who were never going to stay. The conversation gets specific about the numbers owners are ignoring. Naren breaks down why the average practice books only one in three new patients and just one in six from ads, why organic leads cost $60 to $70 against roughly $300 for paid, and why a patient who doesn't book is a phone-handling problem rather than a marketing one. He closes with the framework he insists on with every client: build the funnel around find, like, and trust, rank for at least 100 search terms to survive Google's messy middle, and generate 10 or more paragraph reviews every month. Ads earn a place only after all three are working, as an adjunct, never the engine.

July 16, 202636 min

The Consult You Already Lost: Reading the Room, Killing "Let Me Think About It," and Why Clinical Skill Doesn't Close

In this episode, host Don sits down with Dr. Mark Tager, CEO of ChangeWell Inc. and creator of The Art of the Healthcare Presentation, to solve a problem hiding in plain sight: the most technically gifted injector is often the weakest closer. The high-ticket case is rarely lost over price. It is lost in the quiet minutes of the consultation. Dr. Tager breaks down why a researched patient is investigating, not sold, and how presence built on attention and intention lights up new possibilities instead of pushing product. He shares the practical moves that shift a consult, from splitting the injector and closer roles, to disarming "let me think about it" by surfacing the real objection, to creating genuine resonance by slowing down and truly listening. He then makes the case for integrative aesthetics, the idea that real beauty also comes from within through nutrition, hormones, and gut health. From crossing the Rubicon with GLP-1s to capturing spontaneous, camera-ready testimonials, Dr. Tager lays out how the practices that treat the whole patient will own the next era of aesthetics.

July 9, 202622 min

Your Practice Is Hiding the Answer: The Internal Audit Method That Exposes What's Actually Blocking Your Growth

In this episode, host Anji reconnects with Kara McClanahan, executive business consultant at Aesthetic Practice Partners and VP of Operations at Genesis Lifestyle Medicine, to break down why most aesthetic practices aren't struggling because of marketing or device mix. They're struggling because owners have never learned to audit their own operations honestly. Kara argues that chasing revenue and vanity metrics misses the point entirely; the real answers live in the processes behind those numbers. Kara walks through her three-part "Uncovering Excellence" audit: process-mapping every patient touchpoint from first lead to post-treatment follow-up, knowing your true financial numbers beyond a sales report, and identifying which services are actually driving patient demand and profit. She also confronts the audit's hardest truth: that most team performance problems trace back to hiring, training, and leadership support gaps that owners are reluctant to own. The episode closes with Kara's framework for turning audit findings into action: clearly articulate the problem, build a realistic 30/60/90-day plan, assign ownership, and prioritize fixes instead of tackling everything at once. She leaves listeners with a single starting question for their own audit, one that, she says, will surface the exact obstacle keeping their practice from its next level of growth.

July 2, 202630 min

The Data-Backed Diagnostic: "What Your EMR Already Knows About Whether Your Med Spa Will Survive the Next 24 Months"

In this episode, host Don Adeesha sits down with Dr. Tiffany Hall, Chief Growth Officer at Aesthetic Record, to dismantle the biggest myth in medical aesthetics: that revenue is the number that decides whether a practice survives. Dr. Hall, who sits on top of one of the largest pools of real-world operational data in the industry, argues that most owners misdiagnose a marketing problem when the real bleed is happening at the operational and follow-up layer. She walks through the exact data trail an owner can pull tomorrow morning, speed to lead, conversion, retention, and frequency of visit, and explains why "fishing in your own pond" beats chasing new leads every time. From the 2.5-visits-per-year golden number to the 80% utilization sweet spot to the inventory and COGS metrics a PE firm scrutinizes during due diligence, this is a tactical map of where revenue hides inside your own EMR. Dr. Hall closes with her one Monday-morning fix for any owner staring down 24 months to scale, sell, or stall: run your 12-month inactivity report, find every patient who came in once for one thing, and start re-engaging them. The data is the goldmine, most owners just never sit down and dig.

June 25, 202627 min

How to Show Up on Google AI Overviews: What Aesthetic Practices Are Getting Wrong in 2026

In this episode, host Don Adeesha sits down with Naren Arulrajah, founder of Ekwa Marketing, to tackle the single most disorienting shift in aesthetic practice growth right now: the collapse of traditional search and the rise of AI-driven patient discovery. Naren argues that most practice owners are not just missing the opportunity; they are actively hurting themselves by applying yesterday's logic to a fundamentally different game. Naren breaks down exactly why Google AI overviews now appear on nearly 65% of question-form searches, how 'query fan-out' in Google's AI mode is rewarding deep content libraries over thin keyword pages, and why a single AI-generated blog post can trigger a penalty that wipes out years of organic ranking. He draws a sharp line between where AI should and should not be used, from patient communication and clinical note-taking to the one area where it will cost you dearly. Naren closes with a clear benchmark every practice owner can act on today: if you are not showing up for 100 or more different types of popular searches on Google, you are in the bottom 95%, dependent on expensive, low-trust ads while your competitors collect free, high-intent traffic. The path forward starts with knowing exactly where you stand.

June 18, 202642 min

The 1099 Trap: Why Most Aesthetic Practices Are One Audit Away From a Six-Figure Penalty

Host Don Adeesha sits down with Kara Kelly, CEO of Clinical HR, to tackle the people problems that quietly derail aesthetic practices, from the moment a clinician becomes a reluctant manager to the chaos of a private equity acquisition. Kara brings fifteen-plus years of direct experience inside med spas and medical practices, and she pulls no punches on the compliance traps that cost owners real money before they ever see an audit coming. The conversation goes deep on the W2 versus 1099 misclassification issue, one of the most widespread and expensive mistakes in the aesthetic industry. Kara walks through a real-world case where a five-location practice was hit with a $142,000 IRS penalty for misclassifying just 13 providers, explains why signed contracts and S-Corps offer zero protection, and outlines the SS-8 filing process and the step-by-step path to correcting classification before the letter arrives. Kara closes with her HR ETA framework, clear Expectations, the right Tools and Training, and consistent Accountability, as the foundation every practice owner needs before they hire their next team member, restructure their compensation model, or close on an acquisition. Her central message: the practices that build great cultures do not do it by reacting to problems. They do it by writing the rules before the game starts.

June 11, 202634 min

Building a Skincare Brand Gen Z Actually Trusts-and Turning That Trust Into Long-Term Revenue

In this episode, host Don Adeesha sits down with Dr. Whitney Havnik, a double board-certified dermatologist and fellowship-trained Mohs surgeon, to tackle a problem every practice is now facing: an entire generation builds trust with brands long before they ever walk into a clinic. The challenge is no longer spending more to acquire Gen Z patients. It's becoming relevant to them first. Dr. Havnik breaks down what actually changes Gen Z behavior. She explains why immediate benefits like glow and feel beat distant cancer warnings, how peer ambassadors and campus education outperform top-down authority, and why aggressive pricing and over-upselling quietly destroy trust at the counter. Her framework is simple. Be authentic, give patients a real range of options, and use accessible gateway treatments to start relationships that pay off for decades. Don't try to be Gen Z. Meet them where they are, and let trust do the long-term selling.

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