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EP625: Dr. Dia Burger - How To Show Your Prospects That Not Working With YOU Is A Really, Really Bad Idea!
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“Putting the client in the chair and injecting them is only part of the skillset. The question is, how do you get that person in your chair in the first place? And how do you get them to come back?”
Dr. Dia Burger shares her 20+ years of experience turning med spas into multi-million-dollar success stories. She explains how optimized systems can raise hourly earnings from $200 to thousands. She also reveals the key to getting clients in your chair, delivering natural results, and ensuring they return.
From small-town boutique spas to large-scale operations, she breaks down what works, what doesn't, and how to maximize every opportunity in the beauty industry. She discusses why 90% of med spas or medical people fail in their first year and how to avoid common pitfalls. You will discover the power of efficient systems, mindset shifts, and proven strategies to enhance your business. Whether you're a new injector or an experienced med spa owner, this episode will redefine how you think about opportunity costs and success in your field.
Expert action steps:
- Evaluate your business systems. Are you leaving revenue on the table due to inefficiencies?
- Have the tough conversations. Show clients the tangible costs of inaction—broken down into meaningful, measurable data.
- Book a call with Dr. Dia Berger. If you own a med spa, you cannot afford to miss her insights.
Dia is the founder of the International Med Spa Academy. Learn more at https://www.medspamethodacademy.com.
You can also find Dr. Dia Burger on Linked In.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdiaburger/?originalSubdomain=ca
Visit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
Recommended
Transcript
Beyond Injecting: Attracting and Retaining Clients
00:00:03
Speaker
Putting the client in the chair and injecting them is only part of the skill set. It's not about are you good at where you place a needle, how many units of Botox, how much fuller. The question is, how do you get that person in your chair in the first place? To do decent amounts of injectables, have them look exactly like themselves, minus 10 or 15 years, and then have them come back. So there's a whole system behind creating a client, maintaining a client and having a client come back, which is...
Introduction to the Podcast with Nikki Ballou
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice.
Meet Dr. Dia Berger: Opportunity Cost Expert
00:00:54
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Maloo. And boy, we have an exciting guest lined up for you today. Today's guest is a repeat guest. She is a dear friend and client of mine, and she is about to illuminate a very powerful concept that's going to be extremely valuable to you as a business owner and a
Medspa Challenges and Opportunity Costs
00:01:32
Speaker
thought leader. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the one,
00:01:35
Speaker
The only, the legendary Dr. Dia Berger. Welcome to the show, Dia. Hi, Nikki. Thank you. You always make a person feel so welcome. Thank you for coming on the show. It's great to have you here. So Dia, you know, um let's talk a little bit about opportunity cost.
00:02:04
Speaker
the whole concept of an opportunity cost. What is it from your point of view? Why does it matter? And why does it matter in particular to the types of clients you work with in your area of expertise?
00:02:21
Speaker
So Nikki, I deal with clients in, I would say that two big groups would be either owners of medspas, either people who start up new or who have an existing med spa and it's not performing like it should. And the other group that I deal with are physicians and nurses, people becoming injectors. And to a large extent, it's the same kind of scope. The one is just a bigger platform more people involved, but the the principles are the same. And with opportunity cost, it is multifactorial,
Maximizing Medspa Efficiency and Revenue
00:02:57
Speaker
as you know. I mean, it is how do they start? How do they operate? What do they do to make it meh or super successful? And
00:03:09
Speaker
I've come across a way through trial and error and a lot of pain that makes these businesses run multiple millions a year. and I find that 90% of medspas still run in a method that doesn't work. and What it comes down to the owner is every day that goes by, they're losing money and not a little bit.
00:03:33
Speaker
How much, let's talk about that. Because that's a powerful, powerful thing that, yeah you know, you could focus the mind, as it were, for somebody. Yes. So if you look at a med spa, so the spas that I build is a boutique spa. So I go for a small staff. It's about six staff. And they multitask. There's no sitting around. When I work at the spa, I don't sit. I literally show up. And by the time I go home,
00:04:04
Speaker
I haven't sat down, which is not, the client doesn't feel the rush, but it's a busy place. And I can generate as an injector, um, four and a half to six and a half thousand dollars an hour consistently, right? Which means if you take the day and what's booked and you look at the total at the end of the day injected divided by the hours, that's what I can generate. When I deal with injectors who come to me, um,
00:04:33
Speaker
The stats look as follows, brand new injectors. um I dealt with someone in Toronto earlier this year. It's a nurse. She's been injecting for a year and does $200 an hour right after a year of doing it. um And which means she's stuck at that by a year. So that doesn't mean she's a bad injector. The whole system that she's working in isn't optimal. And the if I look at more senior people, the first time I started in
00:05:07
Speaker
teaching injectors or optimize injectors in their methods. I actually in one go had three at the same time. I had someone who was brand spanking you. He'd never injected before. I had a another physician who had been injecting for about three years and he was doing about five, six hundred dollars an hour.
00:05:28
Speaker
And then I had a nurse who had done two injection courses over the previous six months but couldn't execute. And this isn't someone with a poor self-esteem. She's absolutely drop-date gorgeous, beautiful personality, but whatever they taught her doesn't give her the self-confidence to actually pull the trigger. Because putting the the client in the chair and injecting them is only part of the skill set.
Optimizing Injector Output
00:05:57
Speaker
Right? It's not about, are you good at where you place a needle? How many units of Botox? How much fuller? The question is, how do you get that person in your chair in the first place? And then how do you get them in your chair to do decent amounts of injectables, have them look like they should, which is exactly like themselves minus 10 or 15 years, meaning not look like a freak, and then have them come back. right So there's a whole system behind creating a client, maintaining a client, and having a client come back, which is right marketing retention, all of that. um but So with this, yes. Hold on. The key point is this. What you're saying is that
00:06:46
Speaker
somebody doing this right should be making between $4,500 and $6,000 an hour in revenue. And the question that you are asking people is, are you doing that? And if correct you're saying there's examples of people doing $200 an hour, $500 an hour, $600 an hour. So $200 is 1 30th of $6,000.
00:07:11
Speaker
So you're saying that every day that these folks don't do this right, the opportunity cost is, in the case of this person, $5,800 an hour times six. $5,800 an hour times six hours a day. So we're being conservative is? $40,000. Yeah. That's the right. A day. That's a day. A day. A day. Right.
00:07:39
Speaker
Correct. And I mean, I do my math on how I inject it because i I got to a point where I wanted to not work myself to death anymore. So I literally worked two and a half days a week, right, and in a very, very small town. So people who are in Toronto where they have off the top of my head, roughly 5 million people. Calgary, you've got 1.6 million people. Vancouver is one. right They've got an unlimited market. I did this in a town with 65,000 people. right and They would drive long distances to come see me because of the the outcomes.
00:08:18
Speaker
But the point being is if you, when you inject properly, right, that spa makes, conservatively, 25 to 35,000 a day when the injector is there. If the injector is working part-time, that is 70, 80,000 a week times four, right, that's 300,000 a month.
00:08:41
Speaker
right That becomes many, many millions from one injector doing it properly. So the the they the lost opportunity, the money thrown away is literally millions. And that's on one injector. So for one person, it's 3.6 million a year. Correct. That you're missing out on if you got 10 injectors, that's 36 million a year.
Strategies for Business Success in Medspas
00:09:07
Speaker
that's a good that's ah That's a powerful message. So the opportunity cost, what what you're what you're saying to people is do you realize that you're you're basically giving up 3.6 million per year, per person,
00:09:26
Speaker
who is part of your injecting team? oh Correct. And that is a halftime injector, right? So if you have two of them, because if we stick to, I find the small staffed spas work better. If you you lose control of your staff when it starts going past 10, and when you lose control, it's like everything explodes. um So if you have a full-time injector, which could be two half-timers,
00:09:54
Speaker
right? That is six million a year for a spa. And then those injectors are each taking three months vacation a year. So their quality of life is very, very, very good. Their income is amazing. And I mean, the way I paid myself and how we did it through a group of SPARS that I advised on, as we would do minus cost and a split, right which means that injector is taking home one to one and a half million. And that is the SPARS net profit on that as well.
00:10:33
Speaker
right And the same for the pharmaceutical company. it's It's insane amounts of money that goes to the pharmaceutical company, which is great. right this is They provide a good product, but for the business. And and I mean, Nikki, I've dealt with these, and I i still do. I dealt with a spa in Toronto early this year. And it is a true med spa. There's a physician in charge, which makes it a medi-spa.
00:10:59
Speaker
um He is the guys involved enough to know what's going on. And they're stuck at 600,000 per year. And that seems to be the number. And he had been in business five, eight years, so it's not a baby spa. So the the first thing is most of these spas don't make it past year one. um I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years. And the man who was my mentor, I remember he said to me,
00:11:28
Speaker
75% to 80% of these guys don't make it past year one. They close their doors. So the whole foundation of what owners think a med spa should look like is wrong. but it It just doesn't work. um And then the 20%, 25% who do make it past a year get stuck at this five, 600,000.
Achieving Client Satisfaction and Profitability
00:11:51
Speaker
I pulled my own numb quantity sales reports a few days ago and I broke 600,000 in 2009, right? In a town with 60,000 people, right? And I didn't even have systems this optimized at that point.
00:12:12
Speaker
So,
00:12:16
Speaker
To pull this out at a macro level for someone who's listening to this, when you're having a conversation with a client or a potential client, the conversation shouldn't just be about how much money you're making now, how much money you know do you want to be making, and hey, you you know you can make this much more. The conversation should be, if you keep your business the way it is right now,
00:12:42
Speaker
What is the opportunity cost to you of doing that? Well, if you keep it that way for another year in your case, and not not in your case, but in the case of these clients you're talking about, it's $6 million dollars per position, right? So if they have four positions,
00:13:02
Speaker
That's $24 million. dollars like that That to me should focus the mind beautifully in your industry. But if someone's listening to this and you're having a conversation with a prospective client, this is the conversation you need to have. You should be asking them,
00:13:20
Speaker
What will happen if your business stays where it is? And you should be ready with data and facts to show them, hey, you're making this much. Really, you ought to be making this much. In six months, the delta between those two is this much. In 12 months, it's this much. In 36 months, it's this much. In your case, it's it's in the millions. So that's pretty powerful. and Well immediately focus the mind, but I I like the opportunity cost conversation which we had in our in our private coaching session with with the group the reason I like it is because A it helps someone like you be able to sit in front of somebody and go. Hey, do you know you're you're like You're using throw away six million a day a year. Did you know that like, right? Listen
00:14:07
Speaker
in three months, you threw away, sorry, in two months, you threw away a million. In three months, you threw away a million and a half. Did you know that? How's that feel? What could you have done with that million and a half? And I gotta tell you, if it was me, I'd be really uncomfortable that moment going, damn, damn, damn, I don't wanna throw away a million and a half.
00:14:27
Speaker
Correct. I mean, that's that's half a million a month. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. money And it's it's not about being crazy because the next thing that happens when this conversation comes up is they look at you and they go, so if you're injecting that much, how do your clients look? And my answer to them is you'd walk past my clients on the street and not know they're being injected.
00:14:54
Speaker
which is the purpose, right? we're not It's not about injecting massive volumes per human and making them look like a freak show. It is about a whole system of efficiency, right, number one. And I tier them, I have them as tier one, two, three, four spas. And a tier one spa injector will do 500 an hour.
00:15:19
Speaker
right At tier two, will go to they seem to sit at 1200 an hour. like And the moment I start implementing some methods, literally what I'm doing is I am making the team more efficient. And I get them to climb out of their heads because medical people I'm one of them. Most of them suck at business. right They're horrible at it. They they have a ah mindset and a character that is taking care of people, which is great. But if you pay your utilities and your taxes, the city doesn't care about your humanitarian
00:15:57
Speaker
proclivities, so i am i right? I totally run it like a business. So I don't talk about clinics because nobody's sick, right? And I don't talk about patients because nobody's sick. To me, it is a med spa and clients. So I do a whole mindset change there to get, because I find the injectors are their own worst enemy.
00:16:22
Speaker
right So there's this disbelief where they're like, you you can't possibly do that and have great outcomes. And the answer is you absolutely can. um I can show you a picture. I'll find your way of talking. um But it's about being efficient and putting systems and things in place.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I mean, I sit here and I talk to you about this and I'm like, I need to open my own spa again, right? Because of the amount of of money that's in there. But I mean, I'm taking this to a ah different system.
00:16:58
Speaker
I'm going to show this lady whose permission I have to show you. Wow. That's wild. Right.
00:17:09
Speaker
so And she's 10 years apart in age. Not that it took me 10 years to get her there, right? But that is, you wouldn't think that's 10 years older. No, you think that's 15 years younger. Right. And if you saw this girl on the street, you wouldn't think she is a Votox Fuller client. No. Right. Which is the idea. So it it's about, I am,
00:17:38
Speaker
I have very strong opinions about not injecting people that they look like freaks, right? So you can do a really, really good job. But like you say, opportunity cost is in the end, you run a business. And we want to make people feel better. And that was the big surprise to me when I started doing this. I felt like I was betraying my career when I first got into cosmetics because it seems frivolous.
00:18:08
Speaker
until I realized, you know, what you do for people's self-esteem and they would come back and suddenly their hair's done and they're wearing makeup and she's dressed up and she's gotten in a promotion, right? And relationships improve. So quality of life is great. yeah And the work situation for staff is fantastic.
Episode Wrap-Up and Contact Information
00:18:30
Speaker
the The places where I teach people to work are happy places because if the injector is making a lot of money, so is the business and so is the rest of the team. write I structure it that way. so To me, it is everyone wins. and How else do you get a team to work together? right You have to open your arms and spread it.
00:18:52
Speaker
right But in the end as a business, the the amount of money, this is an unlimited industry. yeah And I find the mindset very often is that it's a scarcity mindset and they they get grabby. And it's not about that. It's about being the best with what you're doing, doing a good job. But if you put the business models and things in place, it is And I'm going to tell you the energy vibe inside a spa like that. if When I have days where we're doing five five and a half thousand dollars an hour consistently, it's like there's crack cocaine in the air.
00:19:36
Speaker
My goodness, ti that's ah that's a hell of an analogy. That's a hell of an analogy. So to wrap up and land the plane on this conversation,
00:19:51
Speaker
The most important thing you as a business owner can do when meeting with prospective clients is to really help them see the opportunity cost of taking no action. Because taking no action is what a lot of people do, right? they They go into a space where fear stops them. Oh, I don't know. I need to think about it. It's too much money. I got to talk to my my wife. I got to whatever. Talk to my partner.
00:20:21
Speaker
um I need to think about it Give me some time blah blah blah all of those are fear-based objections and If a person's really a no then they're really a no, but if they're just coming from fear best thing you can do for them is to with all love and but all directness, help them see the cost of inaction, the cost of doing nothing, the opportunity cost of doing nothing. And and you've done it so beautifully inside your business that I think if someone's in your business and they run a mad spa and they don't talk to you, they're a fool. They're fools, they're like throwing money away. It is throwing money away. It is. And the reason I want um wanted you to do this episode was because
00:21:14
Speaker
Yes, i'd I'd like people to know who you are and I'd like some people to go, okay, great. And I'd like i'd like you to be able to get some some business from this. But as importantly, I'd like other people to see how simple it can be to have this opportunity cost conversation. It doesn't need to be some big complicated, multi-faceted thing. It's just you're here, you should be here. And if you stay here in a month, it'll cost this much. In six months, it'll cost this much. In 12 months, it'll cost this much. And in three years, it'll cost this much. Do you want to keep paying that price?
00:21:52
Speaker
and that is That is wonderfully focusing. It is. And the other thing, Nikki, is um Because what what you've done there right to demonstrate it to people is literally breaking it down into visible pieces for them. Because when it's vague and it's like you're losing money, that's one thing. If it is a case of you're losing a half a million a month, right that that's really smacking you upside the face. And the other thing that has been really beneficial to me, right
00:22:29
Speaker
were during the training things is to show someone also their return on investment, right? So you ask someone this much and their return on investment with an X amount of time, they've made back that. And then from then on for forever, right? They keep making that back and it usually grows. So the return on investment combined with opportunity costs and opportunity lost is very, very powerful to demonstrate to someone who's not taking action what it's costing them. I agree. I agree. Really beautifully done, Dia. Thank you so much for coming here and sharing this. So, listener, if
00:23:20
Speaker
You're a med spa owner or you know someone who is. You share this episode with them right away. They got to see it. And if you're just a business owner period who's looking for a way to be more effective when having sales conversations and in particular with overcoming fear-based objections, um not overcoming, you know, a no.
00:23:41
Speaker
Because I'm one of those people who believes if a a sincere no should be respected, a sincere no should be respected. But if it's a fear-based no, then you owe it to them and to yourself to take a strong stand and point out the opportunity cost and point out the return on investment because that can help them get past their fear.
00:24:11
Speaker
And you got to speak to their heart, not to their head. You know, you got to speak to their heart. Like the number of five million or six million a year, that that that's that that that number is going to your head. But what that represents and and the loss of that, that's right here. And that's what will move someone out of fear and into action. I believe that. So do I. Yeah, tia how do people,
00:24:42
Speaker
Get a hold of you.
00:24:46
Speaker
They can email me. Um, I'm on LinkedIn, uh, Dr. Dia Berger. And, um, my direct email address is dr.dr.diaburger at imaformula.com, which is international meds.va Academy formula. We're going to make sure we put that in the show notes.
00:25:12
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you so much for coming today. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Nikki. It's a joy, as always. Great to talk to you. I agree. You're fabulous. And that wraps up another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution, to find out more about today's incredible guest, the one and only Dr. Dia Berger, the absolute master of pointing out opportunity cost of inaction and the benefit of a powerful return on investment of taking action, go to the show notes, find your email address, get in touch with her, and
00:25:55
Speaker
Make sure you share the episode with someone who needs to hear it and give us a like, give us a rating, give us a review, because that helps us with the algorithm. And the algorithm likes it when people give us likes, ratings, and reviews. Make sure that this gets in front of more people who need it. Until next time, goodbye.
00:26:14
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.