The Med Spa Metrics You’re Not Tracking (But Should Be)

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 Las Vegas, Nevada at the Medical Spa Show put on by AmSpa. Today, I have somebody on the show who's been a long time friend of mine, somebody that I'm super proud of, and honestly I've looked up to for quite some time. He is the CEO of Alpha Aesthetics, John Wheeler. John, welcome to the podcast.

John Wheeler (00:40):
Thank you for having me.

Tyler Terry (00:41):
Yeah, man, we go back, huh?

John Wheeler (00:43):
Yeah, we used

Tyler Terry (00:44):
To be neighbors, man, ditch me. I know, I know. I miss it. I miss NorCal.

John Wheeler (00:48):
You should.

Tyler Terry (00:49):
I know. It's a magical place.

John Wheeler (00:51):
Yeah, it's God's country.

Tyler Terry (00:52):
It is God's country. One of the most beautiful places in the world. So I lived in Folsom for about six years, and that's how John and I met when I visited the practice that he ran in beautiful El Dorado Hills, which is right next to Folsom and man, one of the best places in California to live, in my opinion.

John Wheeler (01:09):
For sure.

Tyler Terry (01:10):
Yeah,

John Wheeler (01:10):
It's the western slope of the Sierra.

Tyler Terry (01:13):
Yeah. Hence the look today. I gave you a compliment on the belt buckle and the boots.

John Wheeler (01:18):
You know what, man? I was born on a horse ranch. My dad was an Arabian horse breeder.

Tyler Terry (01:23):
Are you serious?

John Wheeler (01:24):
Yeah. I'm just leaning into my roots, dude.

Tyler Terry (01:26):
Oh, I love it. I love it. John, how's the show been so far?

John Wheeler (01:29):
It's been fun. At Alpha, we've really been able to build up our company within different functions, and so I think what's been fun for me is just I've been able to focus on having really good conversations with people in the investment space. So I've just been meeting after meeting with private equity firms and investment bankers and all of that. We've also, our new partnerships team has had amazing conversations with potential partners, recruiting potential providers with our HR team. I mean, it's been fun to see every function of our business just fire on all cylinders with the reason that they're here. We have our marketing team here capturing amazing content, our providers speaking about Alpha and about being a provider. It's been incredible.

Tyler Terry (02:17):
Yeah. Yeah. You guys have all hands on deck. I remember coming to the show last year and seeing you guys put the podcast booth or the podcast studio in your booth, and I was inspired, inspired to say, we need to do that. That's next level. Something shout out to you. I feel like you're always on the cutting edge and something I've noticed just from the outside looking in, and I would say this, whether you were a good friend or not, but I can tell that culture is at the center of the heart and soul of Alpha. So I want you to talk a little bit about culture and why it is at the forefront of what you do.

John Wheeler (02:51):
Yeah, it's a great question. When I first started at Aesthetic Center, it was me as the manager and then my father-in-law, and then we had basically one full-time provider injector, one full-time ee. So there was just really the four of us plus an ma, Tammy, who's incredible, but our two full-time providers were as toxic as it gets. It just made life absolutely miserable, and man, it instilled in me the sense of like, okay, what's it going to take for us to turn this culture around and just to focus on health? And that sent me down this rabbit hole that changed my life forever. Just reading book after book after book about culture and core values and building a healthy team. And honestly, man, being a healthy person, it's something I believe that an unhealthy person cannot build a healthy organization, but a healthy person might be able to build a healthy organization. Just because you're healthy yourself doesn't mean that you're going to build a healthy team.

Tyler Terry (04:02):
But you have a better chance.

John Wheeler (04:03):
You have a better chance. So yeah, man, I mean, we just put in a lot of systems, a lot of core values that actually drove away those two providers. It was the best thing, but also the scariest thing that ever happened to us, and just the way we were able to rebuild Aesthetic Center with culture first, health first with these principles. A lot of times I think that companies are really quick to identify their core values. We were actually pretty slow to do that, and then we did that again with Alpha, where it's like we actually let a year pass before we identified our core values because it really, for us, or maybe I'm just slow, for me, it took time to identify, okay, what's going well? What's not going well? What do we wish people are focused on that they're not? What do we wish our team was embodying that they're not? And then how can we kind of codify that so that we actually can live out these values in a way that maybe we haven't been?

Tyler Terry (05:01):
Yeah. Well, can you tell us one of the core values?

John Wheeler (05:05):
Yeah. Well, so at Aesthetic Center, the core values were and are to this day, humble, hungry, and honor. At Alpha, we have a little bit different core values. Honor is still one of our core values, but the other two are partner obsession. We are absolutely obsessed with our partners and our partner experience as well as best in class, everything. So you can be confident if we make something at Alpha, if we do something, whether it's collateral or a website or a program or just anything that we do, it's going to be best in class. Everything. One thing that we say about that is everybody else's ceiling, all of our competitors ceiling is our floor. So the best that they do is actually the worst that we would do. Everything's best in class. And then a culture of honor for us at Aesthetic Center and at Alpha is a big part of that is this idea of brave communication, transparency with positive intent. So I'm going to talk to you, not about you. We give our team scripts about how to practice brave communication, which a lot of that comes out of this idea of nonviolent communication. There's a book and a philosophy around that, but really expressing my need that I, first of all, actually expressing what happened. So objectively what happened? No hyperbole. It's just, Hey, Tyler, you said this. This is how I felt about it. This is actually the need that I have. And so in the future, if you could do X instead, that would mean a lot to me. And so giving our team even scripts around that.

Tyler Terry (06:40):
Those tools.

John Wheeler (06:41):
Yeah, those tools.

Tyler Terry (06:42):
I love it. I love it. Before I rewind a little bit, I want to touch on best in class. So one of my favorite things that I've seen at Alpha, actually, I have a lot of favorite things. I've been following you guys since day one, and something that I think is so cool are the hype videos that you guys create when you launch a new partner. And then not only that, when I watch some of the videos where you talk about understanding their vibe and their culture, their aura of the practice, the persona of the leader of the practice, and then the music. You guys are actually looking at creating literal music for the song. It's not like you just go and license the song, which I think would be cool if that's all you did, but not only that, to me, again, that's the ceiling of your competitors is the floor of alpha. It actually makes me think of this where again, the detail and the amount of effort you put into the note that you're choosing of the song for the partner drop, and then the video that you create is amazing.

John Wheeler (07:51):
So that's something that we look at building a business, building a brand, everything that we do. We mentioned best in class, everything is art, and when we think about art, there's three levels to the creation of art. The lowest level is I create for you, I'm creating for others. Some of the most kitschy art ever created. I think about Thomas Kincade. Thomas Kincade is considered kitschy art.

Tyler Terry (08:24):
Yes.

John Wheeler (08:25):
Thomas Kincade is kind of considered like gift shop art. And the way that he approached his art is similar to how Kenny G would approach his music, who is also considered kitsch, which is, I'm creating for you. I'm not creating for anything other than what's going to sell on a commercial level. That would be kind of the baseline lowest level of art creation. The second level of art creation would be more like a Van Gogh or a Picasso of I don't give a damn what's going to sell. Doesn't matter to me. I don't care even what you think about my art. I'm creating this art for myself, as an expression of what's inside my head, my heart, my soul. I have to create to get this out onto this canvas or onto this track so that I like it. And I think a lot of us, when we're creating something for social media, this is conversations that we have a lot with our team internally even.

(09:28):
It's like we can get so lost and okay, what's going to get clicks? What's going to get likes? What's going to get re-shares? Sometimes we lose that sense of artistry, which is, Hey, I'm actually not creating this for you. I'm creating this partially for me. What I like , what moves me. The third level though of art creation is I'm not creating for you. I'm not even creating for me, I am creating as an act of devotion to God, that I'm building something that is so inspiring to me that is so excellent. Not to get overly biblical for a minute, but I think about Solomon's Temple in the Old Testament when he had the Queen of Sheba come and visit, she was moved to tears by how beautiful his palace was. That actually him building that level of craftsmanship that went into every little detail of his palace of his home was an act of worship, and it moved this queen to tears.

(10:32):
That is the highest level of art creation, where it's not about the consumer, it's not about me, even as the artist. It's about this divine thing that I'm building. So we think about Alpha, that's actually the lens that we think about it through is that how can everything that we build, every little tiny detail be so excellent that it's the same ethos as Solomon's Palace, that somebody has just moved to tears of like, man, God must be real because your business is so amazing. It's so well thought out, that instead of just licensing a song from Audio Jungle, like you said, you thoughtfully craft every note, every word of your social media post is thought out. Even this PDF that nobody's ever going to see, it looks gorgeous. You don't forget about any detail. That's kind of how we think about Alpha.

Tyler Terry (11:24):
I do want to rewind just a little bit, and we kind of jumped in fast and got into great conversation, but I would like you to tell our audience a little bit about yourself. How did you become the CEO of Alpha Aesthetic Partners?

John Wheeler (11:41):
Yeah. I mean, man, this isn't necessarily what I set out to be doing. When we started our med spa, to be honest with you meant I had never heard of private equity when we started it even a few years ago. Really, the vision was we want to build something that's large, that's nationwide, that's inspiring, but I always thought that we were going to sell or transact with a European wax center or like a Massage Envy or some sort of day spa company that wanted to get into Med Spa and have this really cool, youthful, awesome brand to be their foray into medical aesthetics. And then three years ago, from 2018 to 2022, we had grown our med spa from zero to 15 million in revenue. Had 20 or 30 providers, had really demonstrated this playbook that we were able to execute on. But I was also traveling around the country and speaking and seeing really what was happening in our space, just with the investment community starting to take notice, but then also all of these big box med spa brands starting to move into our towns and our cities and poach a lot of the local injectors. It's like, man, what would it take to be Luke Skywalker handing out Lightsabers to fight Darth Vader?

Tyler Terry (13:02):
Wow.

John Wheeler (13:03):
And so that's really why we created Alpha three years ago. We provide support, resources, incentives, I mean, equity for providers. I mean, there's a lot of things that we're able to do for our teams around the country that if you own a local med spa, you probably can't do, almost certainly can't do. But because of our economies of scale, the resources that we have, the capital behind us, we can when we all band together. So yeah, I mean, I started this thing, didn't even think I'd be the CEO, but this was the vision. And then right before we created Alpha, our private equity sponsor was like, John, we want you to run it. We want you to be the CEO. I thought we would go get this lifetime CEO suit kind of guy to run it. But they were like, no, we want you to do it. We think that you can do it. We're going to help you do it.

Tyler Terry (13:52):
Wow.

John Wheeler (13:52):
And so here I am now. Now we have 27 locations as of this recording growing every month. I've learned a ton over the last two years since we created Alpha. Learned a lot about financially running a business, operating businesses through great KPIs, marketing m and a. I mean, it's just, man, it's been trial by fire, full immersion, but it's been a beautifully wonderful journey.

Tyler Terry (14:17):
Let's talk about some of the key strategies behind your rapid growth. I mean, 27 locations. What were you doing? What is the vision? I mean, how many locations are you trying to get to? What are the strategies to get to the next level?

John Wheeler (14:32):
Sure. Well, our vision is to be the largest network of medical spas in the world. We think that we're going to do that. We believe we're going to do that. And when you think about growing a business, really there's three ways to grow a large nationwide business. The first would be de novo, right? This is like Starbucks, right? Every Starbucks looks the same, feels the same, and there's a handful of de novo chains in medical aesthetics. That'd be the first way to grow a nationwide business. The second would be through franchising, right? Where that's each location is owned and operated by the local owner, not by the HQ Central company, but every month they give a percentage of the revenue to the franchisor. That would be the second way to grow a nationwide company. The third way is what we're doing, which is mergers and acquisition.

(15:24):
So you can kind of think about it like it's faster to buy a house than to build a house. So M and A typically is the fastest way to go about growth, but that is where you are buying. You're transacting with established businesses that already have a profitable business that are already well run, that already have a great team and an operator in place, and you're just transacting with those businesses, giving them more resources, but also just saying, Hey, you've also demonstrated that you can grow. You can do this thing effectively. We're just going to help you do more of it with more capital. So that's our model. It's an M and A model, and we believe in it. We're also sprinkling in some de novo growth. Alongside of that, we want to grow regional empires with our partners. So it's like, Hey, you've demonstrated that you have the playbook. Now we're going to build even more locations for you under your brand.

Tyler Terry (16:15):
Alright, so let's talk about what are some of the top financial metrics that every med spa owner should track?

John Wheeler (16:22):
Well, I mean, yeah, there's a few. So I can do some financial metrics. I would also start, I'll sprinkle in some operational metrics as well. So I mean, every week we meet with our executive team, we go through a scoreboard of metrics. I think about it like this. I would invite the listeners to think about it like this. If you were on a desert island 10,000 miles away from your practice and all that you could get on a weekly basis was just a flashcard or a piece of paper with a handful of numbers on it, and that would tell you, again, you're on a desert island, you can't operate the business. All you can do is get this piece of paper. But this piece of paper would tell you, is the business doing well or not. Last week, how'd the business do? What would you want to know? Well, for me, that would be revenue. That would be a financial metric, obviously. But then that would also be some operational metrics. What was our revenue per hour as a business? What was our missed call rate as a business? What was our rebooking rate? When I say rebooking, I mean patients who booked within 20 minutes of their payment immediately rebooking. What was our rebooking rate last week? That's a really important number to us.

(17:44):
Then you can go into, I'm trying to think about some things that maybe would be more applicable at the clinical level. Actually, if it's okay with you, I'll just open up the actual scoreboard. That might be even more helpful.

Tyler Terry (17:57):
Let's do it.

John Wheeler (17:57):
Okay. So the scorecard, I would want to know again, again, this was just the list that I made. If I was on a desert island, what would I want to know? I would want to know everything that I just said. I would also want to know retail as a percentage of sales. I would want to know our revenue per visit, so not just our revenue per hour, but also our revenue per visit. And then here's some other things that I would really want to know at the clinical level. Total visits, I would want to know first visits, how many first time patients did we have?

(18:29):
How many first visits do we have? And then I would also want to know, this is kind of a weird one. Some EMRs make this more difficult than others. Obviously, we're here talking with Nextech. So future scheduled patients over the next 90 days. That's something I really want to know as well, because that tells me, another word for that is backlog. How full or empty are we? And then what I want to do is I want to set a goal for all of these metrics on a weekly basis. So I'll go backwards here, and that might help you as well. So we're not just talking about what are the metrics, but what are our goals. So this is a scoreboard that I made for Aesthetic Center, which keep in mind is three clinics. So these numbers are not universal. These are not one size fits all.

(19:21):
They might be way bigger. For some of our listeners, they might be way smaller, but these are ours, 2,400 patients in our backlog over the next 90 days. I want to see 2,400 patients on our books. I want to have 99 first visits. And again, this on a weekly basis. So last week when we're looking at our scoreboard, I need to see more than 99 first time visits on the books. I want to see more than 505 total visits last week. I want a revenue per visit of more than equal to or greater than $649. I want our retail over total sales to be 7.5%. I want our rebooking rate to be 50%. I want our revenue per hour, ideally to be over $2,000. And then the revenue, that one's going to be a little bit more bespoke for everybody, but it's really just what's your monthly target divided by four? So that's kind of how I think about those different metrics if I was on a desert island.

Tyler Terry (20:31):
Wow. That was amazing. So what are some things when you're not hitting those metrics, what are you doing?

John Wheeler (20:37):
Yeah, so we have a level 10. Our business runs on the EOS. There's a book called Traction the Entrepreneur Operating System. So every week have a level 10. What we do, what that looks like. I didn't invent this. I'm not that smart. I'm just good at taking what smart people do and executing on it. So we start with some good news and then we go into our scoreboard. So that's actually the second thing that we do. And then if we're not hitting a metric, maybe two or three weeks in a row, so we have the metric, we have the goal, and then we have 13 weeks of historicals.

Tyler Terry (21:15):
Okay.

John Wheeler (21:16):
So it's metric goal most recent week and then 13 weeks, or I guess 12 weeks into the past. And then that way we can see on a trailing basis around a trending basis, have we not been hitting this recently? If the answer is, Hey, we've actually been hitting this metric, but last week we didn't. But consistently we have been. We're fine with that. We're not going to hit every single goal every single week. If we are, we should probably raise the goal.

(21:45):
But if we have a track record after the last six weeks, three or four of those weeks, we're not hitting our goal. And we also can look at ourselves in the eye and say, this goal is where it should be. Then we drop it down to our IDS, identify, discuss, and solve section. We leave 60 minutes toward the back half of that meeting to talk about, okay, our re-booking, we're not hitting our re-booking, right? Why is that? We'll try to solve that problem. We'll make a game plan with our team to solve the problem. So that level 10 meeting, we do our good news, everybody goes around 45 seconds, good news, personal, professional. Then we do our scoreboard, and then we go through our rocks. Our rocks, we all commit to three to seven goals for that quarter. And I need to know, Tyler, are your goals, your rocks, are they on track or off track? I don't need to hear about why. I just need to know are they on track or off track? If they're not, we're going to IDS it. We're going to drop it down toward the end of the meeting. In that IDS section we're going to talk about, well, actually, what I'm going to ask you actually in that meeting would be, okay, Tyler, you're off track here. Do you know what you need to do? So that next week you're on track?

Tyler Terry (22:51):
Yes.

John Wheeler (22:52):
If it's yes, cool, great. Next week I expect to see it on track. If the answer's no, move it down, move it down. Then we're going to IDS it. After that, we're going to go through what were all the to-do's that we all committed to doing last week? Are they done? If they're not, we're going to IDs it. And then we get to our IDS section. And at that point in time, oh, sorry, actually before that we get to our headline section. So the headline section is, I don't need anything from anybody, but I want you to know that this is happening within my rocks or within the scoreboard items that I'm accountable to. Again, I don't need anything. I just need you to know so that we're communicating. That takes about five to 10 minutes. Then we get to our to-dos where everybody reports on their to-dos, and then we get to our IDS and that section.

(23:38):
We all add things that we want to IDS with our executive team or with our function. Then we all get three votes. We use a software called rei. We all get three votes to vote on the three most important issues that we want to IDS this week at this meeting. And we all feel like, man, if we could get through three to four, really like the most pressing problems that our business is facing, if we can identify, discuss, and solve those three to four items, this will be a wildly valuable meeting. So the way that I tee all those up, everybody votes. Our software organizes what got the most votes, and let's say that the first item was something that you had brought to the group. I would say, Hey, Tyler, really briefly, I want you to discuss what's the problem that, and then I want you to share what does solved look like?

(24:33):
So coming out of this meeting, what would feel like, Hey, this thing got solved. I got what I needed out of this part of the conversation. And so then you would say, Hey, yep, this is the problem, and this is what solve would look like. This is what I want to have happen coming out of this meeting. Maybe it's a decision, maybe it's an action plan, a to-do item, whatever it is. And then we discuss it, and then we mark it complete, and then we go into any to-dos that came out of that. And then we actually rate the meeting. So everybody rates the meeting. Sometimes the ratings are great, sometimes they're not. But we go through person, Hey, Tyler, one to 10, rate the meeting. Five. I felt like we could have been more productive. John, rate the meeting. I thought is was a 9. I actually really enjoyed it. And then we kind of go through and make sure it was a good use of our time.

Tyler Terry (25:24):
You get that blended average, like, huh this is about an eight for everybody,

John Wheeler (25:27):
Yeah. And if it wasn't a productive meeting, we want to know so that we can make it better in the future. If I have all of my executive team on a 90 minute meeting, that needs to be the most impactful, meaningful 90 minutes of our week. Otherwise, I can't justify having that meeting.

Tyler Terry (25:44):
You know how much that meeting's costing you.

John Wheeler (25:46):
Yes. Yeah.

Tyler Terry (25:47):
So let's talk a little bit about software. So what role does software play in tracking these metrics and metrics? Are there specific tools or platforms you recommend for med spa owners?

John Wheeler (26:00):
Yeah, I mean, obviously we're big fans of Nextech. We are, and we've been migrating all of our partners to Nextech. But I think it really depends on the scale, the size of the business. Just to be fully transparent with you, when we had our local practices, the data and everything that Nextech was able to do from running reports, things like that was more than adequate for us, a hundred plus million business. We do need some more tools that are incorporated into it. So it's going to be the EMR porting into a data visibility tool that's like an enterprise grade tool like Power BI or Tableau, but I know you guys also have some now really potent tools like that that's baked in.

(26:49):
But we use Power BI. We have a CRM. I know you guys have an in-house CRM as well. We've just been using, okay. Oh yeah. Actually, the CRM that we use, you guys are incorporating now, which is go high level, which is our favorite CRM. You're white labeling that product. So we're really excited about that. I mean, we use Coupa for a procurement. I mean, there's a lot of different things that are in our tech stack. I do believe that the best tech stack is a small and a simple tech stack. So the less tools we have to integrate, the better. But as you grow, you do need some more specialized tools where everybody can play in the sandbox together.

Tyler Terry (27:28):
What excites you the most when you're looking at a med spa? What excites you the most? Even if they've only been in business for two years or five years, when you're looking at something, what gets you excited to say, I want to bring you on and make you part of Alpha?

John Wheeler (27:41):
I mean, the first thing is just, do I enjoy spending time with you? Do we have good chemistry as partners? This in a lot of ways is like a professional marriage. So do we enjoy each other? Is there synergy? How engaged is your team? How much revenue do you have? What are your margins? What's your retention? What's your service mix? Right? A lot of it has to be a fundamentally sound business. We're buying great businesses that they have great organic growth. They're going to continue to grow. The team's fired up. They also have a great operator in place. They have great systems in place, or an inventory, good data visibility. They're not charting on paper. These are all things that we look for.

Tyler Terry (28:25):
What's next for Alpha?

John Wheeler (28:27):
I mean, we're going to continue on our mission to be the biggest and the best network of med spas in the world. Again, we're super picky. We looked at 440 businesses last year that wanted to partner with us. We made 12 offers. So we are very, very selective. But within that selectivity, we're going to continue to grow, continue to expand. We'll probably add another eight to 12 partners this year. Again, partners that we feel like, man, these are the best of the best. And man, the sky's the limit for us because of that discipline.

(28:58):
You've seen the companies that are trying to do what we're doing over a long period of time, and maybe they even have more locations than us, but they come out with a bang, and then all of a sudden they can't buy anymore because they treated this thing like a land grab when in all reality, I mean, this is, you're buying great businesses. We're making great acquisitions, we're integrating them well into our framework. We're getting them on Nextech. We're getting them into Power BI. We have great visibility around their business. We're taking over all the functionality of their business so they can focus on their people and on their culture and on their clinical, be great providers. We get to do everything else and support them. They sleep better at night. That's really what we do.

Tyler Terry (29:39):
Yeah, I love you mentioned, just the first thing is, do you get along with that person? Do you vibe with them? Are they a cultural fit?

John Wheeler (29:48):
Sure. Well, I mean a great partner in whatever sense, whether it's what we do or any partnership, a great partnership, there will be very, very difficult times in any business. Ours is no different. A great partner can make really difficult situations bearable. A terrible partner or a bad partner can make really great situations unbearable. So that's where, I mean, the people, man, the fit, the culture, the chemistry, it's everything. Because I just want to enjoy the journey. I want to enjoy the ride. I want our partners to enjoy the ride. But when there's a bad apple or there's somebody that's just really difficult, you're just never going to enjoy the journey, even in the best of times.

Tyler Terry (30:31):
Yeah. So everybody's talking about AI, but I'm interested to hear what you are most excited about, whether it's in this room or maybe something that people aren't thinking about from your viewpoint. What are you most excited about as it relates to AI?

John Wheeler (30:50):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm excited for our providers, and I know this is on your work path, or at least I believe it is AI scribing. I think that's going to be a game changer for a lot of our injectors, a lot of our providers. So I'm excited for that. I also just think the force multiplier, that AI is at a practice management level as a collateral creation level. There's so much that we're doing that used to take us forever, and now it takes seconds. So, man, I use these tools every day for financial analysis. One of my favorite tools.

Tyler Terry (31:30):
I was going to ask you, what's your favorite?

John Wheeler (31:31):
Yeah, I've been using Google's notebook, LM a lot.

Tyler Terry (31:36):
I just heard about that the other day on YouTube.

John Wheeler (31:38):
Okay.

Tyler Terry (31:38):
Yeah,

John Wheeler (31:39):
I use it a lot. So my role as you grow in your role as a CEO, what you learn about your job, a lot of your job is knowledge and judgment. So my job is to be as fully informed about our industry, about our country, about our world, on a geopolitical level, on a financial level, economic level, but then also the industry of aesthetics, the industry of M and A as humanly possible. And then my job is to be so regulated in my nervous system that I'm able to exercise great judgment, not be reactionary, not be overly emotional, but just to see things plainly and clearly and make good decisions within every function of our business. So Google's notebook, LM what I love about that tool is I can take all of these disparate sources. Like for instance, one of my favorite searches I did at the beginning of this year is the beginning of the year, every investment bank releases, this is what we think is going to happen in healthcare mergers and acquisition this year.

(32:44):
Maybe not every investment bank, but a lot of the big ones. So what I do is I'll take 12 to 20 of those reports from some of the smartest people in the world, what they think is going to happen in our sector of healthcare m and a this year. I'll load all of those into Google's notebook, LM as a source. So then I'll have 15 to 20 different sources in this Notebook, LM. And then what this Notebook LM can do is it creates an AI podcast. Which man, I'll be fully honest with you, man, I am not like Mr. just print out a fatty report and highlight it and read it. I really like to listen to content. That's the best way I can absorb it. If I can hear something, I'll usually remember it for a long time. So I'll have all of these sources, Google's Notebook, LM takes maybe two to three minutes to create this 20, 30 minute long podcast using AI on all of these sources, combines all of them, and I can just listen to a podcast over 20 minutes of what smartest people in the world think are going to happen in my sector this year. I can do that in a lot of different aspects, but that's one of my favorites that I've done this year.

Tyler Terry (33:56):
Okay. So common question, I'm sure you've answered this many times, but I like to get a pulse. What is your pulse right now on the aesthetic industry?

John Wheeler (34:07):
That's a great question. So I mean, obviously we are all in the right place at the right time. You look at even this exhibit hole today versus two years ago, three years ago. This industry is being professionalized. It is being consolidated by companies like Alpha and others. But I also think from a B to C level, like our med spas to our consumer level, we're at a very interesting, in my opinion, crossroads of this whole era of novelty around, I'm just going to do all this stuff because I can, and I'm going to get overfilled. I'm going to look like an alien. Maybe a lot of people, there's a lot of great work out there, don't get me wrong. A lot of great work you don't notice. But there's also, to be super frank, a lot of bad work that you do notice. And I think that a lot of people are sick of these overdone lips looking funky, looking like an alien.

(35:07):
And we're at this crossroads where we're going to see more and more biostimulators, even this new product or this new category of regenerative fillers like Allergans coming to market with one in the next few years, that those two categories, I wouldn't be surprised if they almost even replace pure fillers or becomes this vehicle of instant gratification, but that fades away so that these Biot stems and these regenerative fillers can do what they do and make you look just more youthful, more natural, without looking weird or like an alien. And so I think that our industry right now is flat lining in a way that maybe a lot of people didn't expect or even declining a little bit in some of these key sectors. But we're going to see a leg up. This next leg up is going to be around just looking super, super youthful and natural without looking crazy.

Tyler Terry (36:06):
Any final thoughts?

John Wheeler (36:09):
I think we're at a really fun stage of the industry, man. I mean, you're seeing everything come together for us in a way that's exciting. You're seeing the technology of not just software, but the technology of what we're delivering to our patients grow at a rapid rate, whether it's devices or injectables. I think 10 years from now, you're going to continue to see even AI and devices continue to impact how we administer the services and the treatments and all these technologies, even on the injectable standpoint, just a super fun time to be here. From my standpoint, the industry is one to 3% consolidated. There's a ton of room to do what we get to do and partner with amazing people. And you guys are doing some cool stuff too on the tech front, the software side. And

Tyler Terry (36:55):
Thank you.

John Wheeler (36:56):
It's all systems. Go here, man.

Tyler Terry (36:57):
Yeah, yeah. Well, again, I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership. I've appreciated our friendship over the last, now it's been seven or eight years, and I can't wait to see what you do with Alpha and love what you're doing, love your core values, your companies and your practices, core values. And I would love to have you come on the show again in the future. And for those of you that are listening, be sure to check out the show notes to follow John, to follow Alpha, and to reference any of the things that we've talked about in the show. And until next time, John, thank you for your time.

John Wheeler (37:32):
Thanks for having me.

Announcer (37:34):
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.