In this episode, Samantha shares her insights on the transformative trends and innovations shaping the aesthetics industry. She emphasizes the shift towards natural, regenerative, and non-invasive treatments that offer minimal downtime and lower risks compared to historically invasive procedures. Samantha discusses the importance of science and innovation behind aesthetic products and highlights how early interventions can help women age gracefully. She explains how the industry is evolving to meet the demands for more effective, natural solutions that maintain youthful skin. Samantha’s expertise underscores the significance of embracing these advancements for better, more sustainable aesthetic outcomes.

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Ethical Sales Practices: Learn the importance of maintaining ethical standards in recommending and delivering aesthetic treatments, ensuring client trust and satisfaction.

Client-Centric Approach: Understand the significance of listening to clients’ needs and tailoring treatments to provide personalized and effective solutions.

Marketing Strategies: Explore how word-of-mouth and creating exceptional in-clinic experiences are crucial for client acquisition and retention in the aesthetics industry.

Operational Challenges: Get insights into the challenges of operating a small, independent aesthetics clinic in a market increasingly dominated by large corporations.

Building Trust and Rapport: Discover strategies for building and maintaining strong client relationships through transparency, realistic expectations, and consistent results.

Adapting to Industry Changes: Learn how staying adaptable and responsive to industry changes is crucial for the long-term success of an aesthetics business.
Customized Treatment Plans: Understand the value of developing customized treatment plans that address individual client needs and preferences.
Team Building and Training: Understand the significance of building a skilled and passionate team, along with providing ongoing training to ensure high-quality service delivery.

Financial Management: Gain insights into effective financial management practices, including pricing strategies and cost control to maintain profitability.

Market Analysis: Discover the value of conducting regular market analysis to identify trends, opportunities, and potential threats in the aesthetics industry.

[00:00:00.14] – Mickey 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mickey, and I am and I am the host of Beyond Page One podcast. Our guest today is Sam. Super excited to have Sam. She’s had over 14 years of experience in the medical esthetic and plastic surgery world. She excels at overseeing daily operations, ensuring compliance, and maintaining high industry standards. Her strategy in the business development world in this particular industry is cool, and I’m looking forward to getting to explore what she knows about the industry. Key skills and expertise range from anything from the operational management side to strategic planning, leadership, and mentoring. I could go on forever, but I’ll stop there. I’ll let her talk a little bit about herself. But Sam, welcome. Super happy to have you here today.

[00:00:45.29] – Samantha

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Honestly, this is, I’ll be very candid, my first podcast. I’m excited to be sharing my journey with you and your listeners because the only people who know about what I do on a day to day are the people I work with. Even some of my close family and friends are like, What do you do? I’m like, I don’t know. What do you do? How do I consolidate this for you? We’re excited.

[00:01:13.05] – Mickey 

We’ll send you a podcast at the end of this, and they’ll know exactly what you do. Sam, share a little bit about who you were as a child, and did you always have a passion for the beauty and the esthetics industry? Oh, gosh.

[00:01:23.50] – Samantha

Well, as a child, I was a wild one. I grew up on a farm. I grew up with animals. I grew up picking blades of grass and looking for grasshoppers and things like that. It didn’t necessarily start as a young child, but definitely, as I grew and had grandparents that pushed me into, I don’t know why, but in the ’80s, modeling was a thing. Started appreciating the beauty and esthetics. From that perspective, I used to do beauty pageants. Where I grew up in Brantford, Ontario. I think I was 12 years old, and I won the Little Miss Brantford Beauty Pageant. So it’s crazy. I have a newspaper clipping. I show my kids that it’s like, This was your mom. This was me at your age. It was I would say, pretty early on that I got into this field. Coming from a family of laborers and workers, I was the first to get a degree outside of post-secondary education. My journey has evolved from from beauty pageant. 

[00:02:41.29] – Mickey 

What was your first job in the industry and how did it shape your professional journey?

[00:02:45.55] – Samantha

Interesting. At my first job, I tried owning my own business out of my home. Really? It was pretty interesting. When I got started in this field, it was outside of the university when I was thinking, What is it that I want to do with my knowledge now? Where can I translate that? Where are my passions? I opened up an article, and I’m not a super religious person by any means, but I’m very spiritual. I let the universe guide me. My first opening and reading was, I think it was Times magazine in 2005. It was an article on laser hair removal. I was like, Oh, this is interesting. The world in the United States was taking this by storm. I remember reading, This is a cool trend. Let me see what I can do with this. Back then, the whole organic movement was coming about and pushing for EDA approval, and all that stuff. I took to that. I was like, Let me dive a little bit deeper into this. My business started with holistic health care, holistic wellness, organic and sugaring, and all that esthetic stuff. That was my first intro to that.

[00:04:05.55] – Samantha

It didn’t fly. I had a young son at the time, a newborn, graduating from school, and trying to start my own business. I found it to be challenging to bring in any, I would say, any income to support a family, to help contribute to a family. What I ended up doing was owning my own business, going and learning about this industry. Where is this industry? What is it called? Medical esthetics. I went to a private college and fast-trapped through it. I’m like, I don’t want to spend another two years in school. What I did, I took, I think was a fast track of under a year. I think it was under a year, that I learned all about lasers, everything you could learn about, like skin anatomy, lasers, and the different types of treatments that were available at the time. I ended up learning a ton of information from there. Funny enough, my school ended up hiring me to be an instructor from there. I went from trying to launch my business to learning about the business, to teaching what that was to other students who were eager to learn. Then from there, I got into sales, I was like, How do I learn about this industry?

[00:05:18.19] – Samantha

Where can I find it? A position came up, actually, and I ended up selling IV therapy and minor surgical equipment, like plastic surgeon’s offices and medical esthetic clinics that were open at the time. From there, I ended up learning what worked in businesses, and what wasn’t working for these companies. It was like, I had a way in because I had an interest in selling them what I was presenting to them. But also, asked a lot of questions and learned a lot of different business models and things like that.

[00:05:54.18] – Mickey 

Very cool. It’s now in your role as director of operations, that you oversee complex networks of functions. How do you approach streamlining the processes to ensure efficiency at PearlMD where you’re currently?

[00:06:11.38] – Samantha

Currently, Pearland is, I would say we’re a boutique. We’re a boutique that offers very specific services, and we have a very targeted audience of women exclusively. Not so much for the cosmetic side, but on the health side. We have two business models. What that looks like is Complete Women’s Health and Wellness, which is anything from genetic testing to look for risk factors for diseases, understanding your micronutrient profiles to all of those health-related things that you’re not getting from your family doctor. This is all private health care and health management for very affluent women, very high-functioning women who need to be at the top of their game and who need to stay functioning at a very high level. We optimize their health that way. On the cosmetic side, there’s this translation between what we cover in our O-HIP system versus what we cover in our private health care, and then the whole cosmetic beast. That is a field that is constantly growing. When my job came on to Pearl M. D., when Dr. Polman had reached out, I wasn’t quite ready to make a move yet. But then she presented me with this idea that, Listen, let me explain to you what we do and I feel like I’m ready for someone like you.

[00:07:32.10] – Samantha

I said, Okay, this is exciting. This is amazing. I liked her as a doctor and what she believed in because it was everything that I had learned previously of this whole approach to health wellness, but also as part of being a woman and focusing solely on women, this how we look translates into how we feel, translates to how we function. People will look and say, Oh, it’s such a superficial industry. Why would anybody want to do that? Well, it goes beyond that for women. Women, from the beginning of time, we take pride in how we look, we take pride in what we do. To be able to help that is great. With that comes a lot of inefficiencies or things like that that we’ve seen bottlenecks in workflow. We have had to stay on top of the trends and industry development, just like your iPhone. We have to look at, okay, and my knowledge in laser and where I learned all of this comes in handy because you have all these reps and all these businesses and manufacturers that are developing nonstop this ever-evolving equipment. What I’m able to do is decipher, Okay, this is what I know to be tried, true, tested, the gold standard for the industry.

[00:08:55.32] – Samantha

Tell me your differences. What makes you different? I’m able to help guide when we’re looking at technological advancement, really looking, It’s like a gamble. I would say my knowledge of the lasers can help that. But also from a day-to-day workflow, operational, hiring, training, making sure that this is such a niche industry that It’s not like you can go to university and learn all about medical aesthetics. You need to have in medical background, and then you have to go to a special specialized school. Then if you’re not doing the specialized school, it’s on us to take that medical professional who’s most often a nurse to teach them all of the things. Streamlining the training and onboarding is important because we’re dealing with lasers that are extremely effective but can cause great damage if misused. That’s a big part of that. Streamlining that is, I would say, probably the most important from a day-to-day aspect.

[00:09:58.04] – Mickey 

Cool. You have a team, you’ve built out a great team. Now comes building successful marketing strategies. What have you implemented or you and your team have implemented for marketing strategies to focus on client acquisition at Pearl?

[00:10:15.02] – Samantha

I’ll tell you, having the right client acquisition is probably the biggest struggle for any business. How do you target the right client? I will tell you and be very upfront, that most of what we do is thought about. We do not heavily invest in print, in all of that stuff because the market has shifted in a way that our client base can’t be reached. These women are not sitting on their cell phones looking through TikToks for the next deal. They’re not. So trying to reach them, it’s all about what we do, creating an experience where a woman can come into our clinic and say, Oh, my God, they know me. They’ve listened to me. They get what I want. They know what I want. They know how to deliver that. So the biggest thing in our marketing strategy is word of mouth. So just creating that in-clinic experience for them. Our outbound marketing, we are just dabbling in this now. I’ve worked probably the past year to year and a half on a marketing strategy that will target a different demographic. We’ve hired new nurses to target the younger Gen Z, millennials now.

[00:11:32.37] – Samantha

Millennials have been in this for a while, but Gen Z are coming into this field, and how do we reach them? How do we target them? Because the existing client base that we have is amazing. They are with us for the rest of their life, believe it or not. They’re not leaving. Now we have to shift our mindset into what is relatable to these younger girls, and what are they looking for. Our marketing is now pumping out some good digital marketing. We just started launching that. Now, we have started working with the company. So email marketing has been a really big thing for us. We have a robust email marketing list. So email marketing is big in this field and things like that.

[00:12:14.53] – Mickey 

Yeah, awesome. You touched on it a little bit already. You said that your long-term client relationship is crucial in your field and you have people for the lifetimes of their lives. What are some of the key practices to make sure you maintain that really strong client connection?

[00:12:33.22] – Samantha

Yeah. The biggest thing comes down to when women come into these establishments, they are expected to be sold something. I’ve always thought in thought that you’re not selling anything in particular. At the end of the day, it translates into a sale. What we’re doing is we’re listening first. What are their problems? What are they looking for? Because although we might have the latest and greatest, newest thing, it’s this delicate balance between, yes, let’s try to make this sale, or maybe we’re putting this on promotion, but ethically, it doesn’t make sense. So we listen first. We listen first, we hear them, we reiterate to them, Okay, let me understand, make sure that our community, what I’m hearing from you is right. What we do is deliver a solution as opposed to a platform, a technology, a device, or whatever it might be. It’s ensuring that every step of the way, their needs will change throughout their lifetime, even the first year, or two years. A big thing is being forthcoming honest and transparent about what results you can deliver and what you can’t deliver. Because with this age of, cell phones and apps and filters and all of the things, it’s like, especially with these Gen Zs.

[00:13:57.40] – Samantha

Yeah, they’re Gen Zs. They come in and it’s like, I want to look like this, and they show me an app, and I’m like, But that’s not real. That’s not real. You cannot look like that unless you become a cartoon. Here, let me draw. But what I can do is have these different services work with us for six months to a year, and then we can make a plan. The biggest thing is listening to them, developing a plan that is a solution to their needs, and keeping them a part of the journey. A big, big thing for us is before and after pictures. Anyone who comes into the clinic who’s looking, let’s say, for skin or body treatments, we show them before and after every treatment what their skin looks like and what their expected outcome will be.

[00:14:43.16] – Mickey 

Cool. That’s cool. I’m going to take a little bit of a flip to the sales and the operations side. I mean, you’ve seen both sides of the coin through your experience for however many years. What are some of the biggest challenges working in this industry industry in particular, from both perspectives, the sales and the operations?

[00:15:04.10] – Samantha

Yeah. So first, let’s talk about sales because this industry is heavily, heavily, heavily all about sales. If you’re not making sales, you’re not making your quota. The biggest thing, I think I touched on just very briefly, is that are ethical part of what we’re doing, kosher, and making sure that what we’re selling is right, because the competitive nature of what’s out there, it’s a very heavily saturated market. So This industry is an industry that is oversaturated. The biggest, biggest challenge from sales is that, although we want to make a sale, we want to make it not just a sale at the end of the day. We want to make it a solution. Our pricing strategy has a big thing to do with that. Oh, my gosh, I just drew a blank. The industry of, what are those coupons called? The coupons, what are they called again? Shit. We’re going to edit this out. Oh, my God. Not like, Jake. What the heck? What were they? Do you know where you get these coupons online and you buy them? Anyways.

[00:16:11.07] – Mickey 

What are they called? Group-ons? Group-on.

[00:16:13.26] – Samantha

That’s it. I think they’re group-ons. We’re not in the industry of group-on or doing these group deals or discounted pricing. For a long time, the market was that. A lot of these clinics and spas jumped on the bandwagon of $20 facials. You’re not getting repeat sales from that. Our price point is at a higher level. We only do two events for our clients per year as a customer appreciation event, where we put them a lot of our services on promotion, and they get deals two times a year. But we’re not in the discount, the bargaining, none of that. You’re coming to us for a great service. From a sales perspective, we deliver on what we’re going to promise to you, and we don’t promise things that we can’t deliver on. I mean, it’s just we wouldn’t be in business for this long or be successful with any other way of doing business. From an operational standpoint, again, the landscape in this industry outside of COVID has shifted dramatically. It started in COVID. The landscape of this field has shifted dramatically, where you now have these massive companies coming in, and I don’t want to name the names because I think they’re big bullies.

[00:17:33.50] – Samantha

But smart from a business standpoint, I get what they’re trying to do, but they’re coming and buying all of these med spas and doctor-owned businesses. They are creating this a standardized approach where they can be big purchasers of equipment, get the best deals, and get the lowest price on consumables. From a business standpoint, it’s great. From an operational standpoint, it’s very challenging because now we’re facing higher prices for our consumables, so our price point has to be higher. It allows them to lower their price point to keep their margins. From an operational standpoint, we’re being this independent, privately owned small business. Again, against this great big corporation that’s buying hundreds of clinics across the country and in the US now and monopolizing the industry. A small guy in the big ocean sometimes has a little bit harder time keeping with those margins. It rolls into the operational and the sales piece of it. That strategy is something we think a lot about because we don’t want to hit the end user, the people who come to see us for these services with these outrageous numbers or prices that they have to pay. The other thing I would say, too, from an operational standpoint is the human resources aspect of it.

[00:18:58.23] – Samantha

The hiring, the training, the retention, this industry is ever-evolving. From an operational standpoint, the biggest thing is we’re a group of 11 women who work together long hours of the day. Well, beyond your resume and beyond your skill set, we teach you everything you need to know about this business. But also what are your passions? Operationally, we want to keep our team happy and evolving in a way that they’re passionate about. When somebody comes in, you’re not just seeing somebody who’s doing the day-to-day redundant in-and-out treatments, okay, blah, blah, blah. No, they’re passionate about you. You come in, you feel the energy. You’re like, I know I’m being taken care of here. So operationally, that’s important, too.

[00:19:47.11] – Mickey 

Yeah, that’s awesome. I feel like it comes from the top down. If you have a lot of people who are very passionate about what they do, when someone walks in through the doors, you feel that energy. You know you’ve come to the right place. That’s cool. To touch base on the corporate world coming in and buying out everything, it’s happening across so many industries. It’s scary because what comes down to it, in my opinion, is what’s the level or the quality of services.  What does it do to Right? Yeah.

[00:20:16.16] – Samantha

No, exactly. You’re going in, you’re getting cookie-cutter treatment. They’re standardizing across the board, so it’s great. You know you’re getting a safe treatment, which is good. In a way, with this industry as well, there are so many negative notions that come about from nurses or people working out of their basement doing Botox that are unregulated. How do they get their hands on this stuff? It’s a big corporation like that coming in and monopolizing. You know, at least they’re in a way standardizing the industry to make it safer and hoping to push those people out of the business. We will be fine because of like I said, I guess the uniqueness of our offering can’t be streamlined. It just can’t be so unique. But so, yes, to a point, it’s such an annoyance, I would say, for people like us who want to stay independent. But at the same time, it’s good because it can push others out of the market that shouldn’t even be there in the first place.

[00:21:20.27] – Mickey 

I assume that there is a lot of misinformation surrounding the aesthetics world. What are some of the biggest myths that you’ve encountered How do you educate your patients when they come in and they say, Hey, I want to look like this, but you’ll buy it, right? 

[00:21:41.47] – Samantha

If I do Botox, will my face stay like that? Or what people think Botox is as an example, it’s a neurotoxin. So it impairs the muscle from contracting. And fillers, they’re the ones that people get this big lip block and big cheeks and all those things. So there are myths about that. If I do it, am I going to age more? Am I going to look way uglier if I stop doing it? And no, those are complete myths, and you’re not going to look older. There are a lot of treatments out there. It’s more about getting into the right provider’s hands and making sure you’re going to a reputable company that understands lasers, who understands these treatments. On-site Doctors are important. There are a lot of really good nurse injectors, let’s say, for Botox and filler, but no problem going to see them or I have no problem recommending them. But at the same time, it’s always better to have a clinic that has a doctor on staff. In a worst-case scenario. I mean, have you heard anything yourselves about like, miss that maybe I could help to clarify or debunk?

[00:22:53.00] – Mickey 

I’m just trying to think. My partner, for example, does laser hair removal and stuff like that. They tell her that at certain times of the year, it’s better not to do versus to do. I have no idea. She just comes in, she’s like, feel my legs.

[00:23:07.20] – Samantha

Yeah.

[00:23:08.05] – Mickey 

But nothing that I can think of off the top of my head, no.

[00:23:11.13] – Samantha

Yeah, well, it’s true. That’s why I say the first thing that comes to mind is the laser hair rule as well because it’s very true. If you ever go to a clinic and they say, Oh, yeah, we can do this all summer long on tan skin, please don’t go. The risk of burning your skin and having a negative outcome is high. More than just the mist because Google is amazing. It has so much information on there. A lot of it nowadays is fairly accurate, but some things are like, if you look up laser burns, for example, on Google, you’ll see some horrific, horrific photos. The majority of those pictures are, if you look at where they’re taken, they’re taken in the US or a state like Texas. From somebody who has tanned skin. They should never have been a candidate in the first place because their skin is too tanned. Medication. So patient selection is a really big thing when it comes to the scary things that are out there in the esthetic field. The TV show, Banch, does a really good job of highlighting the horrible things that can happen in a plastic surgery setting, but more so taking it down a notch to the med spa setting.

[00:24:27.26] – Samantha

I mean, things can go wrong, and I’ve seen things with chemical peels being used in the wrong way and people coming in and going, Can you fix this? It’s like, Oh, my gosh, you don’t want to touch them. But at the same time, you feel for them. It’s like they lose trust in the place that they were at. It could have been a one-off. You never know. But it’s just bad timing, wrong time, wrong place. We do see a lot of things that we have to fix or correct. I think.

[00:24:59.52] – Mickey 

This leads to a perfect segue to the next question, which is trust is paramount in any industry, but especially in the esthetics industry. Can you share some strategies that Pearl and use to build trust and report with their patients?

[00:25:13.54] – Samantha

Yeah. One of the biggest things I say to the team is if you take a call or somebody comes into the clinic and they say, I want this, or they’ve read on Google, they’ve researched and they know something that they want, we never, ever go based on what they say alone. We’ll understand, Okay, yes. Okay, how did you… There’s a process of what we do to make sure that it’s the right treatment. It comes down to the right consultation, and that is paramount. Having a consultation in place with the right people doing the consultation is not just about building trust, but it’s building the etations as well. We are, earlier I had said, we’re not going to recommend something if I know we can’t deliver on that. If somebody comes in and has a realistic expectation or they’re asking for something, we’re going to ask the right questions. We offer over 60 different services at Pearl M. D. We offer that because of the breadth of needs that are out there for women and men as well. But mostly women come in. It’s one of those things where it comes down to budget and lifestyle.

[00:26:31.08] – Samantha

Lifestyle being, are you able to have downtime? Are you looking for something with no downtime? When we talk about the differences in treatments, it’s the more downtime in healing and recovery time you have, typically the better the outcome. We have treatments that are maintenance. If you want to maintain what you have, they’re easy-peasy treatments. That’s where we get into this younger demographic. Let’s maintain your skin. Let’s keep the integrity of what you have going. We have a lot of that. But building trust comes from not just taking somebody in bait because of what they want. It’s okay, it might not be the device that you want, but tell me what you’re looking for. I always say this, and I use this when I’m teaching the sales team to take thto e to to mirror and ask them if they had a magic wand, what would they like to see? If you had a magic wand to fix whatever that is, they’re going to point everything out that you want. That’s where you can start to formulate the best treatment plan for them. It isn’t just a device, it’s not just one thing. It’s a complete entire process, and it’s not going to take one treatment.

[00:27:36.57] – Samantha

Most often it isn’t, but most often it’s going to take 3-6 months to achieve a result. Just being forthcoming Building trust, yeah. Being open and honest and delivering on that. The consultation builds that rapport and builds trust in the full training session we do about the art of the consultation. That’s awesome.

[00:27:59.05] – Mickey 

Looking When you look back on your career, what would you tell your younger self about pursuing a career in the esthetics industry?

[00:28:07.02] – Samantha

Go for it. Do it. I love this field. This is an industry that will perpetuate and truly grow. Even though COVID, we faced a lot of challenges, and we were able to implement a strategy and all of the barriers and all of the safety measures around creating a healthy safety environment while still providing treatment. We continue to grow 20% year over year throughout the pandemic. That’s because we leveraged at that point, technology, virtual consultations instead of coming in person for a consultation and me having really like, breathe in through this mask and wear these goggles and the shield and the cover and everything like that. It was so crazy that we’re doing this in COVID and doing the virtual consults and having the technology backing us to continue to grow. So the in-person visits were more challenging, but we still were able to do that because we were under the class of medical clinic. So we were able to do that. The industry as a whole is going to be, I think the next, is forecast to be over $100 billion industry. Right now in the US, I think it’s sitting at around $80 billion US in the esthetics field.

[00:29:35.10] – Samantha

And if we can leverage even some of that, we’re still good to go for the next 10, or 12 years. We currently have one of our flagship locations in Toronto, but we’ve branched out to have a seasonal location in Miskoka, and that we did. And how we were able to grow through COVID was through that move. A lot of our locations were up in Muskoka. We’re like, What services can we offer? We found a location. I did a pop-up up there, and it took off. And this is now our sixth summer, fifth, sixth, I’m not going to count. But anyway, up in Mascoka. It’s just moving with the trends and seeing where the industry is going and knowing that keeping an eye on the global market for this is key and how we keep on trends.

[00:30:28.40] – Mickey 

Was the whole idea for the Mascoka side of things because people would go out there for the summers to their cottages and spend time out there in the summer, so come to them?

[00:30:37.46] – Samantha

Exactly. And especially with all the lockdowns, people retreated to their cottages. And we were like, What are the services that we can offer? And people gravitated. They were up there the whole summer. They’re like, Get me out of the cottage. Where can I go? What can I do? We were doing Botox out of a marina in Mascoka. That’s so cool. But it worked. It’s so unorthodox to think that In a pandemic, oh, my God, everybody shut down. But when you think outside of the box and you can get creative and keep business going no matter what, that’s part of the resiliency that you build of being in business and creative and not being afraid and just plowing through. That’s it.

[00:31:17.29] – Mickey 

That’s cool. Good for you. Awesome. What are three pieces of advice that you would give to someone who’s looking to grow their own business in the esthetic industry?

[00:31:27.55] – Samantha

Starting, like I did, do asas due diligence. Find, nowadays, I would say, if you’re starting a new business, find a niche. Don’t be everything to everyone because you will get lost. It’s very expensive to operate. The equipment, the warranties on the equipment, and things like that are, really, really high. Unless you’re established, you can only then grow. Start with a niche market. Whatever that passion is for you, go with that. If you have a passion for something, it will take you far. I know some people say, Oh, passion alone isn’t going to do it. Trust me, it will motivate you and it will drive you. And market, market, market, market. That is the biggest thing now because the field is so competitive and the industry, is so saturated, marketing to a very specific demographic is what you need to do. Do your research, understand what the treatments are, and go with it. Pick a niche and do it. Cool.

[00:32:31.38] – Mickey 

Do you have a favorite client story or maybe multiple or anything that you want to share?

[00:32:38.22] – Samantha

Yeah, I do. Oh, my gosh. I tell you this one, and going back to this idea that this industry is so superficial and it’s so vain and this and that, well, it is. But at the same time, there are a lot of treatments that we do for people who have disfigurements in their skin. People who have severe acne, who have grown up, who are full adults, who maybe never had acne as a child, but in their adulthood have developed this systemic acne all over, and they are mortified. They don’t know how to face the public or if they’ve had acne, there are terrible scars that can be left behind on the skin. One of my favorite stories is this woman who came in and you could see her. She was just down and depressed. It has such a deep effect on anyone. I didn’t even know if we could do anything because her situation was so severe. She had welts all over her face. It was on her eyelids. It was everywhere. I was struggling. We, at the time, had this one treatment that was developed for treating melanoma on the skin. We were using it for mild to moderate acne cases, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to help.

[00:33:59.01] – Samantha

I said, I can’t promise, but let’s do this because this is going to be the most intense for you. It’s a lot to go through, but let’s work on your skin for the next year. I was blown away at her result as she was going through one month of check-in, the three-month treatment, and the six-month check-in. Every time she came in, you could see her more and more happy and see her transforming back into the woman she should be and not have this disfigured acne. At the end of it, her skin was so clear. She had abolished all of this cystic acne, and she was a brand new woman. She was crying. I was crying. Her husband came in. He hugged me and thanked me. I think she was to the point of not wanting to continue in life. That’s how serious it was. So this, to me, I was like, not that I saved her life, but at the end of the day, let her get back to herself and see her life again in the right way. So I think of All of my years in this field, that was probably my most impactful story.

[00:35:07.42] – Samantha

Wow. And had nothing to do with, oh, yeah, somebody’s beautiful. No, it’s so much more than that. I mean, those are the nice things to have, but when you can affect someone’s life that way, it’s amazing.

[00:35:21.03] – Mickey 

That is amazing. Thank you for sharing with us.

[00:35:22.55] – Samantha

That’s awesome. Thank you. Thanks for asking.

[00:35:25.01] – Mickey 

What exciting trends or innovations do you see shaping the future of esthetics? I’m sure by the time this conversation is done, Pearl will change five more times. Right.

[00:35:33.02] – Samantha

Just like the new iPhone 15 Pro Max edition, right? Oh, my God. I just got this one. I’m like, What? There’s a new phone already? Yeah. So interestingly enough, where the field was, even 10 years ago was, for example, for skin, full-on resurfacing. If you want perfect skin, you have to resurface your skin. You have a month of downtime. There are these ablative treatments that peel off all the layers, and you have to rebuild your whole skin to get this flawless glowing skin. The trends now are in the field of regenerative, regeneration. How do we use our own body to regenerate itself? So the biggest trends are things like, and I don’t know if you have heard about exosomes. They are these cool little vesicles that are part of your platelets, which are part of your immune system and your recovery system. So these are these little vesicles that communicate to your other skin cells how behave. We’re just waiting for this Health Canada approval. They have been approved for topical use, but the real magic in these little vesicles is in topical skin regeneration, where we create these little injury points in the skin.

[00:36:47.51] – Samantha

These exosomes go onto the skin and tell your skin how to behave. Well, where these exosomes are derived is crazy, but it’s from their age zero, which means they’re from humans who are the new ones. These are the Xazones. These are the Xazones. They’re just born. They’re umbilical cords, and they’re taken and manufactured into this serum that you apply onto the skin. Have you heard of cord blood or stem cell harvesting? Any of those terms could play like a bell. Anyway, in our industry, these exosomes are now the newest. They’re up-and-coming because of what will happen, and I’ve been using them on my skin for a while, we got them and we launched them, but it’s a topical serum that will tell your skin to start behaving as it was age zero, and it will take time to get there. I’m the guinea pig for myself in saying, Okay, how much younger can my skin look? Yeah, I’m excited to see that, and that translates into a market because topical products, as an example, are flooding the market, and half of them are garbage, absolute garbage. They’re just really cleverly marketed.

[00:37:59.18] – Samantha

But the real power is in the science behind a product and the innovations and things like that. Where is the industry going? I think with very natural, regenerative treatments, non-invasive treatments, whereas historically they were very invasive, very little to no downtime, and more maintenance treatment. So more and more women are coming in earlier and earlier to help their skin slow down the aging process. I always say age gracefully. I say to women, aging is going to happen. We can do it very gracefully and non-invasive. It just comes to the point where when you wait to have a little bit of intervention, then you start getting into the heavy-duty things that need to be corrected. But trends now are going towards very natural, very minimal downtime, low risk. So, yeah, it’s really exciting. And both for men and women, men are starting to keep up with this thing, too. So that’s nice to see because women, we put all this time and effort into looking and being a certain way. Men get away with just putting some soap on your face and some gel in your hair and away you go.

[00:39:10.56] – Mickey 

For the longest time, my face routine was shampooed. I’m driven walking down with my hair onto my face. Now I have my four-step skincare routine, and my girlfriend’s like, Okay, can you wait? That’s it. I’m for the year, I’m like, Am I getting excited? What are we doing next?

[00:39:24.46] – Samantha

As men age, I mean, specifically talk about women, but men, too, including my hubby. It’s this is perfect. I’m like, You are perfect, honey. Guys just have a different outlook on things. But you do as you age, you start to notice the little things like the little crows happening, and That stuff or the gray hair is starting to happen. But all part of the aesthetic of being human, right? I’m good.

[00:39:54.58] – Mickey 

Awesome. Well, I’m all out of questions. Thank you so much for your time today. To our listeners, Sam’s information is going to be linked below. If you have any other questions, please reach out to either one of us. I’m sure she’s happy to help her and answer any questions that anybody has. Sam, hang out on the call after this, after I end in. I got a couple of just-closing things for you. But thank you so much again, and I appreciate your time.

[00:40:18.31] – Samantha

Thanks. And thanks for having me.