Position Your Medspa for a Glowing New Year: Part I of Our Year-End Checklist
The end of the year presents a unique challenge for all of us in the medical aesthetics field, particularly for practice owners and managers. How do you balance the increased demand for holiday treatments while preparing the business for a successful new year? The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a golden opportunity to assess your operations and position your practice for growth in the coming months.
A well-prepared year-end plan ensures your medspa enters the new year glowing, organized, and ready to thrive. Here’s Part I of our ultimate checklist to help you finish the year strong and set your practice up for success.
1. Audit Your Inventory: Out with the Old, In with the New
An accurate inventory audit is the backbone of year-end preparation. Outdated products take up valuable space and impact your bottom line.
According to HashMicro, optimizing inventory can reduce costs by up to 15% and improve demand forecasting by as much as 25% which means the right products are on the shelf at exactly the right time.
What To Do:
- Conduct a full physical inventory count and reconcile it against your EMR records. Investigate and resolve any discrepancies.
- Organize shelves to ensure that products with the shortest expiration dates are easily accessible so you go through those first before moving on to future-dated products.
- Identify slow-moving items, expiring stock, or products that no longer align with your service mix. Develop strategies to move these items, such as discounts or bundles, and ensure your staff understands the urgency to move these products!
Why It Matters:
Clearing out old stock creates room for more profitable inventory that aligns with your 2025 goals.
Pro Tip:
Offer year-end or New Year promotions to clear slow-moving inventory and excite your clients about new offerings. Use this excess as a way to say thank you to loyal clients with “Members Only” or VIP events that can also encourage clients to join your membership program to score a great deal.
2. Review Financial Performance: Know Your Numbers
Understanding your financial health is essential for setting direction and driving growth. According to Liguori Accounting, practices with solid financial tracking generate 4.5 times more revenue than those without. More revenue and tighter control of expenses means more profit for your aesthetic practice! But, without a clear understanding of your financial health, setting goals for the new year is like navigating without a map.
What to do:
- Analyze your profit and loss statements, track expenses, and identify your most and least profitable services.
- Build a dashboard of key performance indicators (KPIs), Some of our favorites include:
- Revenue per Hour for Providers: Compare this to their total compensation to assess their profitability for the business.
- Profit per Appointment: Identify whether there are opportunities to upsell, cross-sell or adjust pricing based on how profitable each encounter is for the Practice.
- Average Profit per Service: Determine which services to expand or discontinue based on how much profit each one generates. A high revenue service doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for your bottom line.
- Schedule Utilization / Booking %: Use this metric to guide staffing decisions and determine whether you need to hire additional providers or optimize your scheduling process.
- Cost per Acquisition: Pinpoint your most profitable marketing channel throughout the year and get a clear picture as to whether it’s better to invest more in converting new leads or to further engage your existing clientele.
Why it matters:
Financial insights enable you to cut costs, optimize productivity, and focus on the services that drive the most profit so you can double down on those.
Pro Tip:
Download your EMR’s business insights reports and analyze them in Excel, Sheets or a data visualization tool or for a more detailed review.
3. Assess Staff Performance: Build a Winning Team
Your team is the heartbeat of your Medspa. Year-end evaluations help ensure your staff is aligned with your vision for the upcoming year. Engaged employees can boost profitability by 23%, according to Gallup.If you’ve been tracking staff metrics all year and communicating those numbers frequently, these end of year conversations shouldn’t be a surprise. But if not, let this performance review be a jump start to clear and transparent tracking and frequent touch points regarding performance and goal attainment
What to do:
- Conduct performance reviews to highlight achievements and identify areas for improvement or opportunities for growth in your organization.
- Develop a talent roadmap, offering a clear path to the next level to keep talent engaged in their own professional growth.
- If applicable, consider end-of-year bonuses or incentives tied to performance metrics for those who have truly displayed excellence all year long. It sends a clear message that high performers get noticed and get rewarded.
Why it matters:
A motivated, well-trained team enhances client experiences and drives repeat business. Replacing staff can cost up to three times their annual salary, so retaining top talent is critical for your own sanity as well as the operating rhythm of the practice.
Pro Tip:
Offer meaningful recognition alongside financial incentives. Titles like “Senior Provider” or “Lead Aesthetician” acknowledge contributions and inspire long-term commitment. Stay in sync with employees all year via one-on-ones so these end of year discussions are more like an annual checkup.
What’s Next in Part II?
In the next installment, we’ll dive into:
- Reviewing your service mix to align offerings with your 2025 strategy.
- Auditing your CRM and automated workflows for accuracy and personalization.
- Revisiting your 2024 marketing efforts to maximize results in the year ahead.
To learn more about Aesthetic Record or LeadAR, we encourage you to schedule a live demo with one of our system experts! You can get started by visiting AestheticRecord.com or MyLeadAR.com and clicking Schedule a Demo.