Want a Thriving Med Spa? You’re Probably Overlooking This with AmSpa’s Kirstie Jackson
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What really sets top med spas apart? Kirstie Jackson, Director of Education at AmSpa, has spent over 20 years in the aesthetics industry, starting in the UK before making her mark in the US, and she’s here to break it all down.
Kirstie explains what med spas must do to stay compliant and how patient education leads to better results, happier clients, and long-term success.
Get insider tips and industry insights, and find out why compliance and credentialing aren’t just red tape—they’re your competitive edge.
Plus, Kirstie shares the real differences between the UK and US aesthetics industries. Some might surprise you!
About Kirstie Jackson
Kirstie Jackson is the director of education at the American Med Spa Association (AmSpa). She has worked internationally with exceptional aesthetic, dermatology and plastic surgery practices since 2005. Her multifaceted expertise spans business development, leadership, marketing, patient engagement, software transitions, compliance, training and clinical research.
Learn more about the American Med Spa Association
Follow AmSpa on Instagram @amspa_americanmedspa
Follow Kirstie on Instagram @kirstie.aesthetics
Connect with Kirstie on LinkedIn
Guest
Kirstie Jackson, Director of Education
AmSpa
Host
Tyler Terry, Director of Sales, MedSpa
Nextech
Transcript
Announcer (00:06):
You are listening to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech.
Tyler Terry (00:11):
Hey guys, welcome back to the Aesthetically Speaking podcast presented by Nextech. I'm your host, Tyler Terry, and we are coming to you live from beautiful Orlando, Florida, from the Coronado Springs Resort at EDGE, which is our incredible users conference. Today I have a very special guest. Her name is Kirstie Jackson. Kirstie, welcome to the podcast.
Kirstie Jackson (00:39):
Thank you for having me. I'm a long-term Nextech user and fan of the conference, so thanks for having me.
Tyler Terry (00:46):
Thank you so much for being here and thank you for being a part of our panel earlier today. It was really fun listening to your insights and expertise. Now, Kirstie, she is the director of education at the American Med Spa Association, also known as AmSpa. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of AmSpa. So super, super grateful to have you here with us on the show. And my first question is just tell me a little bit about you.
Kirstie Jackson (01:11):
As you may tell, I am not an American. I was born in England and that is where I started my medical aesthetics journey. What started as a way to pay my way through college. I was doing journalism at the time and I needed a way to make money to pay the bills. So I started working for a plastic surgeon, fell into it, helped him grow his practice and eventually the decision was like, well, do you want to go into, I was originally going to do fashion journalism, or stay in the role that I was in, and I was like, you know what? I really love this. I love helping patients feel like the best versions of themselves, being a part of, there's this ever learning process to medical aesthetics that you've never done. And I really enjoyed that and I really enjoyed help supporting patient care.
(02:01):
And so I just stayed and for the last 20 years I've been working in aesthetic medicine, so plastic surgery, dermatology, medical aesthetics in mostly a manager, leader, operator role, running businesses. And you get to a point where there's a lot to do in practice and I really do empathize with anyone who adopts that role because you have to wear so many hats, and it's very intense and you are beholden to the patient experience and the providers that you support and the staff that you nurture and grow. It's a very incredibly hard role and I was getting to the point where I was like there has to where I can focus, a little bit more focus on the parts that I really enjoy, which are the education and business growth and development piece and to some extent the leadership area as well. And the position became available with AmSpa and fun fact, I am their first hire from industry. There are lots of incredibly smart people that work there, but none of them have really come from practice background. So I was their first hire from industry and here we are.
Tyler Terry (03:13):
I interviewed Alex last year and he talked a lot about the growth and how they encourage growth within the company and it seems like they really emphasize culture and developing from within. Is that something that you see?
Kirstie Jackson (03:25):
Yeah, I think what's been really nice to see is that they, like many medical practices have gone through this period of growth, it's caused the AmSpa to also stop and pause and say we need to just reestablish our foundation here. And that is something that you would advise to any medical practice that had experienced a growth explosion or is upskilling upscaling and they've just done the same thing and they've really kind of like, what is our mission, vision and values? Let's make some strategic hires. I know that prior to me they hired a director of operations and the team has a very varied diverse background from kind of journalism, print media and sales and plastic surgery. And they're just a really amazing team. But we are doing the same that many medical aesthetic practices are doing by reestablishing our own foundation.
Tyler Terry (04:23):
You are my first guest from the United Kingdom. Super excited. I love your accent of course. I wish I had that accent. One of my questions is what are some of the differences between aesthetics in the United Kingdom versus aesthetics in the United States? Are there some things that you think are done better in the United Kingdom that we should adopt here or maybe vice versa?
Kirstie Jackson (04:46):
I do. It's not the same. So they have spoken about America being the wild west of medical spas and I don't think that's entirely true because the administration of fillers in the UK like dermal, hyaluronic acid based fillers is also is incredibly unregulated. You can go, I could go and take a two day course somewhere and get certified to inject and I am not even a licensed aesthetician, no disrespect to anyone that does have those credentials, but I do not and I could be certified to do that there. So that is a problem and is not something that should be mirrored or adopted. However, there are certain practices, and someone spoke to this earlier today about Australia and the UK very closely aligns with Australia in some of those compliance piece. And it begins with the fact that big pharma are not allowed to advertise anywhere.
(05:41):
You don't see television advertisements for drugs. And that is because the industry in the UK sees that as leading or guiding patient's decision as to what drugs they choose for themselves. And that is considered to be a physician or a provider only decision. So it's just not allowed, it just can't happen. And how you see that show up in aesthetic practices is that, I'll use an easy example of neuromodulator. If on your website you say the brand name, so Botox, Dysport, whatever that is, you would be dinged for that because you are deemed to be guiding the choice of your patient rather than allowing the provider to make medical diagnosis that is right for them. So you'll be dinged, you'll be asked to, it happened to me one time, someone says you have to take the word Botox off of the website and it has to be a treatment of active facial lines with neuromodulator you. So I think to a certain extent putting the decision and the onus back on provider decision making is a positive one, but there are many practices, unregulated practices in the UK that are not positive.
Tyler Terry (06:59):
When you look at the United States, are there some things that you've enjoyed, maybe some freedoms that we have or anything in the United States that feels like a benefit over what you saw in the United Kingdom?
Kirstie Jackson (07:10):
I think it's just more accepted as part of self-care. I think patients are a little better educated in the United States and I think more time and effort is spent on the customer experience or the patient experience piece is really prioritized. And I think that's because you guys know, Americans know the healthcare market is commercialized, so it's commoditized and you have to compete for business. Being ahead of the curve in that thought process means that you are thinking about patient experience more. So I just think it's executed a little better in the states and I think that they lean more into tools that support those efficiencies like Nextech, like practice management, like EMR, like CRM, like revenue cycle software.
Tyler Terry (08:07):
Just shifting gears a little bit, give us an overview of how AmSpa is working to support med spa professionals through education.
Kirstie Jackson (08:14):
Oh, so many ways it's the backbone of what the organization was built on. So Alex likes to tell, he probably even told you this, that he's a recovering lawyer. So the heart of AmSpa is built on compliance and helping these practices execute things safely the right way, the best way, and it just continues to build on that message and closely related is the membership piece of things, which is very much linked to community. It would be remiss of me in talking about education to not mention the education that the providers get from just talking to one another. We are a lot of things we try to legally provide guidance and support. We try to fill the gaps of, there's a lot that happens in aesthetic practice where the small med spas, they maybe it's just owned by provider and the time might come for them to hire someone to do administration or management in their business and they may not have the time or the skills at their disposal because they just don't have to scale where access to those things is as easy.
(09:28):
So working or working with a membership organization and having access to all of the arsenal of tools that we have in our repertoire and it's kind of like if we can't help you, we probably know someone who can or we can connect you with an organization that will best support you and you can make friends and find your community and feel accepted. And sometimes there's a lot of stigma around, I think particularly it's the more mid-level providers where it's harder for them to always ask questions in a safe environment. And I haven't been at AmSpa a very long time, but I really see how important that is to everyone and how open and willing to share all our membership and the vendors that we work with are.
Tyler Terry (10:21):
Yeah, so I love, you're talking a lot about community and comradery here, so let's peel that back a little bit. So if I become an AmSpa member, where do I get that community? Is it online and I have a social board to ask questions or where does that come from?
Kirstie Jackson (10:37):
Both it begins online and I have to admit that I'm not a member of the membership team. There are members of that team that are very well known on our socials
Tyler Terry (10:47):
And if they listen to this they're like, say it like this.
Kirstie Jackson (10:49):
I know we love your membership. So when you purchase that membership, it's tiered. So it gives you access to different levels of information, but it also gives you access to the gives community platform. And there are some initiatives like state chapters that we are implementing that is continuing to grow, meaning that if you are local to the Florida area, you can join your state chapter and be connected with individuals both online and the future is in real life, be able to meet up. So it's happening virtually, it's happening in person. And then we do events as the medical spa show is very much coming up and on the horizon. And aside from the medical spa show, we do women in aesthetics leadership, we do bootcamps, we do cadaver training classes. So there are lots of areas of opportunity where people can kind of meet their peers and meet vendors and just their own networks as well. It's just about really highlighting the people who share so much in the space, whether it's their skill and expertise as a provider or maybe they have run a very successful practice and just about elevating those voices and giving them an opportunity to connect with others in a safe space, feeling that they can ask questions, get things answered. When you see that happen in person in real life, it is very empowering and proud to be a part of that.
Tyler Terry (12:27):
Okay. Let's go ahead shift gears a little bit and talk about the uniqueness of patient education for medical spas. What makes it unique for a medical spa to focus on patient education?
Kirstie Jackson (12:39):
So this is something that I'm often asked to speak to at conferences and I am actually adding a class into bootcamp called Patient Experiences Everything. And it kind of touches on why I'm so passionate about this. To me it's not about selling. You don't achieve the goal by selling to patients. You achieve the goal by educating them and you also get best outcomes, best clinical outcomes by educating them. So from the moment that you make contact with your prospective patient through their journey, you have to take every opportunity to use all the tools at your disposal to educate and continue that message. And with pre and post education, say like someone's coming in for a laser resurfacing procedure and we are trying to target their pigmentation, we're not just going to say this one treatment is what we can do for you. You can, but it might be that, hey, we want you to start four weeks beforehand with these pigment corrective skincare products and we want to ensure that we're preparing your skin and by doing so it's going to give you the best outcome, best clinical outcome, and it's going to give you the smoothest recovery.
(13:55):
So you're going to be happier with us as a practice and as with your provider because the journey has been the best clinical experience for you and it has been most comfortable for you, your recovery has been more comfortable. And all of these things are achieved through education. So it should be kind of at the epicenter of what all medical aesthetic practices are trying to achieve.
Tyler Terry (14:23):
Just talking about the importance of patient education, I love that it's your focus. It's something that I've always been passionate about because of TouchMD and just the fact that that's kind of the heart and soul of the technology is educating patients at the point of care. And for a long time we talked about, oh, increase your conversion rates, increase your conversion rates, and people would ask, well what's the recipe to increase their conversion rates? And I could never really figure it out. And recently I thought, oh my gosh, it's really kind of breaking it down and having a better educated patient, but it's not a secret sauce. It's if we have a better educated patient that patient's going to be armed with better questions and when they have better questions for the provider, the provider is going to have better answers back for the patient. And that time is going to be more valuable if the patient had educated prior to coming in or if there's three to seven minutes prior to the consultation, you're going to have a better consultation.
Kirstie Jackson (15:15):
The patient is also more compliant. I said this earlier too, and we were in that session, but I think the statistic is that 82% of patients will go to Sephora or Walgreens and buy something of their own free will. They will go and buy something if you don't recommend skincare for them to use. So with that in mind, it tells you that the patient is probably already thinking about like, oh, I'm having this treatment and what can I use afterwards? And you don't really want your patient going rogue because there's a lot of selections that they could make in the drugstore or over the counter that are not great for their skin. So as part of that process, practices just need to be mindful that patients want this, they want to be told what to use to make their skin feel more comfortable. They want to be told what products they can use to reduce the risk of bruising.
(16:12):
They want to be told what sunscreen they need to use if they are more actively prone or if they have dry sensitive skin, they are actively seeking this information. We don't really want, it's called the arm armchair expert patients, the patients that will go home and start looking for advice on social media, which very much happens. I remember an employee at my last practice bought a chemical peel from career or something because that's what Instagram, that was the latest buzz on Instagram and they ended up kind of burning their face and hyper pigmenting themselves. And so even us and we know we are doing this. So all that brings us back to the patient experience. They are actively seeking this information from practices. We must do our due diligence to provide them with that to give them the best possible experience, the most compliant experience, and the best outcomes.
Tyler Terry (17:10):
Great point, Kirstie. Alright, so moving on to our next question. Where do you see the biggest opportunity in med spas or practices to level up the patient experience?
Kirstie Jackson (17:19):
I think it comes down to compliance and credentials and doing things the right way from the beginning and creating that excellent foundation for yourself. The industry is rapidly changing. We see on the news all the time of legal issues escalating or credentialed practitioners doing treatments in their house that should never have been happening in the first place. And while the news will always catastrophize those issues and they're not representative of true medical practice, I think if practices are not more mindful about really trying to establish those good foundations for themselves and investing in having a good medical record software, having the right training doing, if you are injecting products at going and doing a cadaver training class, never stop learning, like having a budget for yourself to attend conferences and continue learning and education. I think if we're not more mindful of these things, what's going to happen is industry is going to get to the point where they start enforcing some rules and regulations and that could negatively impact a lot of aesthetic businesses, especially the smaller ones in a bid to make things safer, more compliant practices could get lost in the wash.
(18:49):
I think that's the biggest area of opportunity, honestly. Credentialing yourself, your practice, your providers and trying to be the safest, most compliant business you can possibly running your, I say the word med is in med spa for a reason, medical, so running your business as a medical business is probably the biggest area of opportunity I think we're going to see.
Tyler Terry (19:14):
Wow, if you do it right the first time, you can prevent the consequences that come with not doing it, especially as an industry because you might end up just being forced to do it and spending more money doing it that way, Right?
Kirstie Jackson (19:26):
Absolutely correct. I think we don't want to see a situation where the hand is forced,. The hand is forced, the environment changes, and a lot of potentially people in our membership organization are left catching up and reeling and now I have to fix and change and make big business decisions that are going to be hard for me. I think that's what we're potentially looking at.
Tyler Terry (19:50):
So when we think of the future of AmSpa, what's on the horizon for future educational opportunities?
Kirstie Jackson (19:57):
Right now what I'm doing is cataloging all of the material that we do have and trying to organize it and see where the areas of opportunity are. I've also, as I would tell any medical practice to data mine and look at their data. I've been doing that too.
Tyler Terry (20:15):
Practice like you preach.
Kirstie Jackson (20:16):
Right. Seeing areas of engagement with what sort of material. I see a lot of engagement actually with the business, the leadership, the compliance material, which tells me that our membership, our organization probably they seek that out from us. The clinical is still incredibly important. It's kind of like a phased approach. You can't just kind of roll out the gate with a finished product. It's always going to be a work in progress. But we're looking at our foundations, we're looking at what we have, we're looking at what material our membership is liking to engage with. We are still working on refining our educational events and trying to update and add things, classes in there that people are interested in. So I think there's going to be some big things ahead from us, hopefully, but I can't say too much.
Tyler Terry (21:07):
Oh, come on. Give us something. Give us something. Just kidding. Okay. So you have a lot of experience with technology. Where do you see it most improving the patient experience and where might it backfire?
Kirstie Jackson (21:19):
I mean, you are asking a career operator here. So for me, the biggest area where I see being most successful for businesses are in practice management and EMR softwares. You have the vision and you have the goal and in the middle of that is the process. And that is where all the hard work gets done. And somehow as business owners, operators, we have to use the invisible thread and stitch the vision to the goals together in this area of process. And that is where practice management and EMR softwares come in because it helps you control and manage the patient experience process in a data environment. And if you do that right from the get go, it gives you such valuable information back and it helps streamline patient experience. Like your point of sale might be in your EMR or you might be able to push out appointment reminders from your practice management system and all these things help you.
(22:21):
They help do more with less. That is, for me, the biggest efficiency and in terms of what I think could be potentially problematic is I've seen a lot of softwares come out where, and we spoke about this earlier too, where you can take a photo of yourself and you can modify your own face on an app and add fillers and do a laser resurfacing. And what would my lips look like if I had one versus two syringes of fillers? I think if that's done in an environment without the guidance of a provider to manage patient expectations, it could lead us to very kind of a dysmorphic, very unrealistic outcomes. And that is not in alignment where I see the industry is going. Providers tend to be more on the side of being respectful of facial iniquities and facial balancing rather than, like we want you to look like the best version of you, not as someone else. And I think while the facial modification softwares aren't inherently bad, I think if the patient is just left to their own devices, I joked about this because I took a photo of my face and probably not a surprise, I am not a naive patient. I've had treatments and services, I am judicious, but I did this app and it told me that I needed four syringes of filler or a CO2 laser resurfacing procedure and two syringes of more filler in my lips. And I was just like, absolutely not. And so I think in
Tyler Terry (24:02):
And could you imagine if your friends had done it and they don't have your background and experience and what they're thinking.
Kirstie Jackson (24:06):
Right. It makes me pause for concern because transparency is very important in our industry and you really only get that level of management of experience, transparency, understanding of your goals when you're one-on-one with a provider. So that's probably my area of caution.
Tyler Terry (24:25):
I love that, especially when you talked about the guided experience and that level of expertise that a provider has who can ask you those detailed questions to get to know you, understand your goals, and set realistic expectations. It's interesting in the panel that we were both a part of earlier today, how important it is to just have organic, raw, real, genuine photos. Going back to the basics of can we just get a real photo and can we show a realistic expectation to the patient? Because if you don't showing them something that's been edited, you're setting your practice up to set unrealistic expectations with the patient.
Kirstie Jackson (25:05):
It's very simple. It's just trust, and that's why you on a very more downscaled example, that's why when we find a hairdresser, do we tend to deviate and go somewhere else? I know I personally don't. A lot of people find their person, they like their person, they continue to see them for years. It's very much the same with medical aesthetics. And that is because we are establishing trust and that is what a modified photo does not do because patients are savvy, they look at the photo, they're like, I can see a filter on this, or there is an angle difference, and then you break the trust. So there's something about being sincere and genuine. It helps drive that trust component, which is incredibly important in the relationship building.
Tyler Terry (25:53):
Kind of just rounding out this episode, and this has been amazing by the way. I've loved having you on, you've shared so many valuable pearls. I wish we had more time, so we'll have to have you back on. But a couple of quick questions. One, will you be teaching at the Medical Spa show again this year?
Kirstie Jackson (26:07):
Yes, I will. Yes. Kathy has me doing a few things, so I'll be around probably the pre-conference bootcamp. I'm doing a leadership talk. It's actually quite a fun one for me because it's kind of like a, you know how we talk about the things we all do, right?
Tyler Terry (26:23):
Yeah.
Kirstie Jackson (26:25):
It's kind of like the things that I did wrong and how I can share those pearls and we not do them again.
Tyler Terry (26:32):
Yeah, let's avoid those.
Kirstie Jackson (26:33):
And then we have a front desk fundamentals track on Sunday as well with some excellent speakers.
Tyler Terry (26:39):
Okay, I love it. Where can we follow you online or sign up for more learnings?
Kirstie Jackson (26:43):
AmSpa's website. AmSpa's Instagram. I have my own personal Instagram kirstie.aesthetics. I'm not very Instagram savvy, don't expect great things from me. But yeah, I would guide everyone, AmSpa is the place that I would say follow them on Instagram, sign up for at least the newsletter. If you're not a member, maybe consider that membership and that's the best place to get information from.
Tyler Terry (27:08):
Perfect. Well thank you so much Kirstie. I just want to thank you again for taking time out of your day. I've loved having you here live with us in beautiful Orlando at our Nextech EDGE users conference and we can't wait to support AmSpa coming up here in April in Las Vegas. I believe it's at the Wynn, right?
Kirstie Jackson (27:24):
It is at the Wynn.
Tyler Terry (27:25):
At the Wynn. And for those of you listening, please go to the show notes and we will list Kirstie's social link for you to follow her and of course to follow AmSpa. And until next time, we will see you again.
Kirstie Jackson (27:38):
Thanks for having me.
Tyler Terry (27:39):
Thank you.
Announcer (27:42):
Thanks for listening to Aesthetically Speaking, the podcast where beauty meets business, presented by Nextech. Follow and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. Links to the resources mentioned on this podcast or available in your show notes. For more information about Nextech visit nextech.com or to learn more about TouchMD, go to touchmd.com. Aesthetically Speaking is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.
