Medspa Growth: Building Brand, Trust, and Team

[0:01]

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(LEXIE) You can hire the best aesthetician, but if she doesn't truly believe your values and what you're doing as a company and align with the brand, that's not gonna be a great fit. Will she bring revenue in? Yeah, I'm sure. But is that something you really wanna constantly be fighting? I guess this is just kind of something I've learned over the years with Summer, is, we may end up hiring someone who's not the most qualified, but because I know that they believe in what we do and they believe in our mission and they're trainable, they might end up being the best employee that we have.

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(JADE) Today, I'm thrilled to welcome two amazing women who are truly revolutionizing the beauty industry: Summer Layton and Lexi Engle. Summer is the founder of Habit Med Spa and Facial Bar in Richmond, Virginia, and the kind of leader who built her business by thinking like a client first. She introduced Richmond's first open-concept beauty bar and has grown Habit into one of the top skincare clinics in Central Virginia.

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She's also getting ready to launch The Aesthetic CEO. A new platform for beauty professionals that's all about real education, no gatekeeping, and practical tools that actually help you grow. 

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Lexie is the Marketing and Operations Director at Habit, and the person who makes sure the brand feels as good as it looks. She's behind the scenes, shaping everything from client experience to social content, and also co-founded The Aesthetic CEO alongside Summer. She's got a real passion for helping beauty businesses grow through thoughtful strategy and community. These two bring so much heart, hard work, and honesty to everything they do, and we are so excited to talk with them today.

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Welcome, Summer and Lexi. 

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[1:37]

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(JADE) Let's start at the beginning. How did Habit come to life? What inspired you to open a medspa with a fresh take on the industry? 

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(SUMMER) Funny story. We didn't start out as Habit. We started out as a company called Sugar and Hive Beauty Bar, so there have been lots of pivots over the years. When I opened back in 2017, open concepts, facial bars, beauty bars were not a thing. There was probably just one or two in the United States. One was in Colorado, and I loved the concept. I knew Richmond would welcome it, and they did. And then I realized that I didn't really align with the brands, and so a couple years later I brought Lexi on and then we did a whole rebrand back in, what year was it?

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Like 2000? 28. 22? Yeah. We worked on it for about a year before we released the rebrand, so we became Habit in 2022, officially. 

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[2:59]

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(SKYA) You guys complement each other so well, and I feel like I've gotten to know your guys' personalities just over the course of seeing you guys with Boulevard. And you joined us for the customer panel at AmSpa this year. How did you find that,collaboration or find that mesh? Was it just natural? When you met Lexi, it was just a good fit. 

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(SUMMER) Well, I liked Lexi immediately when I interviewed her. I appreciated how honest that she was. She was pregnant at the time and she said, I just have to tell you I'm pregnant.

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I really loved that she was honest and, her and I, I think our first interview was like two hours long. And then we did a second two-hour interview. I was very nervous about hiring a marketing person. It was kind of instantaneous in my eyes. But we definitely have grown together over the past couple years, and I always tell people we're the same person in two bodies, and she kind of reads my mind before I even say it, and I don't have to - she just understands and she gets it. And she helped create the brand and she's very much a part of the fabric of what Habit is and who we are today, and what the brand looks like and how it's perceived. And for me it's been easy. I don't know. 

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(LEXIE) Yeah, no, I think it has for sure. But I think at the same time, you know, Summer's not a provider in the business, so she is constantly looking at it from a business standpoint. Prior to that, she's always worked with people who are providers and then they would, you know, work up into a management role and then they would come off the floor.

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And so I think it made a difference where she had somebody she could collaborate with, even though it started at the marketing level and now it's grown into a position that I don't think initially she probably would've put on Indeed, you know, job description board to hire somebody for what I do. But marketing goes hand in hand with sales.

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So everything that I was doing, I would have to, you know, discuss that with her and we would bounce things off of each other. And now it's just where we both are very similar in our strengths, but we both handle things differently and we look at things differently. And so when we have a discussion about something, she has an input and then I have an input, and then we are easily able to come up with a solution. So it does work really well, and she's able to see the business as a whole and step back and not be in the day-to-day stuff, where I can kind of oversee everything and whatever really needs her attention. Like, there's a lot of things I just fix on my own. But if it is something that needs her attention, then we can take it there and it's not, you know, an issue. So it works out well. 

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[5:24]

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(SUMMER) Yeah. When I hired Lexi, I really just wanted someone to help me with social media. Yeah, I mean, social media is a huge job and I did it for several years. And, what I didn't realize going into it, and it's one of those things as a business owner, you kind of learn as you go.

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And it's kind of a naive approach, but I'd rather learn that way than have someone tell me what to do. Marketing is really integrated into everything that we do, like in our brand, and the essence of who we are and how we do things and the consumer experience and what it looks like on our grid on Instagram. And, everything that we do is just so connected on a higher level and most people don't realize that. Getting into it, hiring her just for social media, I just, I went into it so naively and I'm so glad that we are where we are, but It's a really beautiful thing, watching the growth and, yeah, everything that we've built. 'cause she's built it along with me, this new brand. And it's been, it's been pretty amazing. 

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(LEXI) Like marketing was my passion, but building businesses has always been a huge thing for me. I don't sit still. And so I think I just kind of have this thing where, even though it's not a marketing thing, I'll be like, ‘Oh, but we could do this this way,’ or - so that's kind of like what led me into like the operation side of things. Because I was seeing how things were operating or when we did transition to Boulevard, then seeing how things [like] reporting on the backend and how we need to set things up differently. And I do have a voice and I use it and so I'm not afraid to bring that up if it's something - and we have a small team, so it was very easy to communicate those things. 

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(JADE) It sounds like the perfect person to have as your right hand. It is very complimentary. 

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(SUMMER) Yeah, definitely. I hope that we always get to work together. I can't imagine a life where I don't get to work with her. 

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[7:08]

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(JADE) Yeah, that's a great thing. When you talk about brand, obviously very big for you guys, your brand is clean, consistent, approachable. How did you develop that identity, and what were those non-negotiables for you? 

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(SUMMER) So for me, I wanted something that was elevated and clean and honest and approachable and warm and welcome and very neutral. And, how I started at Sugar and Hive, I went into it and it was very prim and proper and Southern and pinks and blues and… 

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(LEXI) …which that's not Summer. If you know Summer, like you'll never catch her…

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(SKYA) It's not on brand for her. 

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(LEXI) No, it's not. It really isn't. 

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(SUMMER) I love Southern food. I love the South. I'll always live in this South. It's where I'm comfortable. It's my home, but I'm also very neutral. I'm very, I'm not so prim and proper. So I was living a brand for several years, and I just, it wasn't who I was. So when we created Habit, we really wanted to create an elevated experience. We wanted everyone who walked through our doors to really make us part of their journey and become more of a lifestyle as opposed to just coming in for a quick service. And so I think we've achieved it on a whole other level than I ever thought we would, and it's been really amazing to watch the brand grow. 

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[8:25]

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(SKYA) That's beautiful. Yeah. And that's where the name Habit was - we want our clientele to create this habit of good skin, healthy skin…

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(SUMMER) Definitely more of a lifestyle. We've achieved that. Yeah. It's been fun to watch. 

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(SKYA) Yeah. And it speaks to your client experience of it's more than just a, hey, drop in for a quick facial. 

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(LEXI) Yeah. That's not it at all. 

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(SKYA) This is gonna be an ongoing. Clients are returning. They feel like they're part of almost like a community. And have a whole team of like, they're helping me achieve my skin goals at Habit. 

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(LEXI) And I think the other part that kind of sets us apart is we put our clients and our people over profit, right? So, if somebody comes in, we're gonna put together a treatment plan that is specifically for them, recommend products, whether we carry it on our shelf or not.

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Our clients even can get recommendations if they're like, ‘Hey, let's be honest. I'm just gonna go buy products at Target, what do you recommend?’ And we will write it up. We'll be like, this is exactly what you should do because it should be realistic. You shouldn't have to buy a $300 moisturizer to get results.

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And the other thing, too, is we know when to refer them out. We know, not we, the providers know when to refer them out. They know when to say no, that they can't do something. They're not in it to sell our clients all these packages that they may not even be a good candidate for. It's truly about their skin and how to show results with their skin. And that comes into play. And we have a Medical Director now that's an NP. If we need to prescribe medication for acne or rosacea or something of that nature, we have the ability to do so. And you know, I have people ask me all the time, like we do complimentary consults.

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It's very abnormal for a medspa, but education is free in our spa no matter what. Somebody can come in and have a consult with one of our providers, talk about skincare, talk about at-home, ask any questions you want. And I did, I had someone the other day that DM me photos and I was like, well, let me get with our provider, got with our Director of Aesthetics, set up the consultation. She knows it's absolutely free, and you're building that relationship. She's already told two people just from our -  she hasn't even come in yet and we've already booked consultations with them. So it's like, you're really, the brand in itself isn't just your colors, your logo, your fonts. It's the experience that you're delivering and it feeds into our client experience.

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[10:46]

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(JADE) Absolutely. I feel like what you just said so much ties into the approachable aspect. And also meeting clients where they are. I feel like that's something that a lot of people fail to do where it's like, ‘Hey, we have this $300 moisturizer on the shelf. This is what I have to sell, and there's nothing else I'm giving you.’

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So the fact that you guys are going above and beyond and saying, ‘Listen, be real with me. Where are you gonna be buying these products from? And I'm more than happy to educate you on what those recommendations are,’ speaks volumes. 

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(SUMMER) I mean, at the end of the day, we want to always do what's right for the patient. We wanna meet someone where they are. Our philosophy is results-driven skincare. That's all we do. That's our entire focus is skincare. And so for us, when people come to us, it's gratifying for the whole team, me, Lexi, everyone, because they're coming to us with a skin issue 99% of the time, and we can see their trajectory to good skin, and it's amazing to watch.

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So I always feel like if you do the right thing, good things come. 

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(LEXI) And the transformations that you see are incredible. We have a client, actually I went and got my nails done randomly at the spa, and this girl was really struggling with acne and we were sitting there talking about it and she was like, yeah, one of the girls here went to aesthetics school and she told me to put cucumber on my face, and I was like, what? And I was like, no, come do a consultation. She's like, I don't have a ton of money to spend, that's why I haven't been to the dermatologist. And I was like, you don't have to spend a ton of money. We have a whole product line specifically for acne. I don't think there's one product over $60.

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And she's come and now she's a member. She comes every single month. It's affordable for her and her skin results are insane. And then when I see her, she brightens up. And the confidence that you see, like people who don't struggle with acne, like I did a Accutane and so I struggled with it. I get it. And when you get relief from that self-consciousness. That's why I got really good at makeup because I had horrible acne. When you can relieve somebody of that, I mean that is like the most beautiful thing and I think it's so rewarding to see people - just like their whole spirit changes.

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[12:49]

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(JADE) That's life-changing for somebody who has acne or has struggled with acne. You know how defeating it can feel to not even feel comfortable in your own skin to go out and about?  

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(SUMMER) We've had clients that come to us and they go to bed with a full face and makeup 'cause they don't want their husband to see their skin and I just can't, like, that breaks my heart, and so we keep those people at the forefront of everything we do. 

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(LEXI) They might need a new husband, though. 

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(SUMMER) I think it was her lack of confidence. 

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(SKYA) It's hard if you don't feel comfortable in your own skin and acne's something that if you've worked with patients that have it, it's uncomfortable and painful for them to have on the outside. But it's also uncomfortable. It hurts. It's very hard to treat on your own. You need a lot of guidance, so it's very important that you guys have that as the cornerstone of what you're doing.

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[13:47]

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(SKYA) When you're building teams and developing your providers and even front desk, how are you guys really ingraining those values and what are some tips for keeping those values at the forefront of everybody's mind?

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(SUMMER)  It's funny because when I first opened, you know, you're so hungry for employees and kind of hire everyone that comes your way. Now that we are established, we're eight years into it, we have providers that know who we are. They've followed us for years. They want to work on our team. They come to us with a lot of experience, and they're coming to us because they share our mission and our vision.

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Now we're so fortunate because we're in a place where we can hire people that are coming to us with that shared philosophy on how to approach skincare. And it wasn't always like that. I mean, we, it's ingrained in everything we do from our marketing to the experience to how our treatments are put together. And so now we attract people that have that vision and that mission, and it's not something that we have to work really hard at on the back end. They just are coming to us with that. And because of that, we have providers that've been with us for years now. And so we have very low turnover and I'm excited because we have worked so hard to get to this space where we are now the place to work. And we've worked really hard to get there. 

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[15:33]

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(LEXI) And on the flip side of that, we can hire for experience. We get these amazing resumes, but then when you look at, you know, the admin and the upper management side of things. We started hiring with people who aligned with those missions, who aligned with how we see the company going and yeah, you can hire the best aesthetician, but if she doesn't truly believe your values and what you're doing as a company and align with the brand, that's not gonna be a great fit. Will she bring revenue in? Yeah, I'm sure. But is that something you really wanna constantly be fighting? 

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I guess this is just kind of something I've learned over the years with Summer, is we may end up hiring someone who's not the most qualified, but because I know that they believe in what we do and they believe in our mission and they're trainable, they might end up being the best employee that we have. 

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(SKYA) Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest keys for success when building a team, especially with medspas, because it usually is, you know, like a small business. It's not a corporate setting. It is everyone having that same mission always makes it feel like we're moving all in the same direction versus kind of someone just looking out for themselves, just here for the nine to five, get my treatments in, and then leave and not be emotionally vested. So I think that's something where when you build something that is desired, not only by the consumer but also the providers, they will come and they will come being bought into the mission.

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(LEXI) And sometimes you have to remind people of that because it's not every company's culture. And Summer and I have told you before, like we are human, too. We care very much about our providers and everything. And it's not just like five o'clock we shut the computer, we're done. We are, I mean, both of us, we're very family-oriented. We're very there for our providers. If anybody were to ever need anything, we're there. Say the word. So I think it's kind of like some people need to adjust to the culture to let that guard down, but it is a huge thing within Habit, so it's really beautiful. 

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(JADE) Which I love because I feel like that's not the industry standard. The norm is that you come in at nine, you leave at five, and there's no relationship. There's no care, empathy whatsoever. So I think that alone speaks to why you have people seeking you out and why you have low turnover, which is amazing in itself. The people that have that tendency to work in places like that, or that sort of work ethic don't last long.

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[17:57]

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(SKYA) I've never been good at that. If you're on my team, you're my family and I'm gonna get to know you. I'm gonna ask how your life is outside of work. We're gonna be close. I wanna know if you're doing good. I'm there for you. I want you to be there for me if I need help type of vibe.

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(SUMMER) We spend the majority of our time at work. We wanna celebrate successes, whether they're professional successes or personal successes or, you know, be there for everyone. And so not everyone is used to that, like Lexi said, and so, they're just not our people.

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(JADE) The aesthetic space seems to be more crowded than ever at this point, right? It's a growing industry, forever changing industry. What makes Habit truly different from other businesses and facial bars, and how are you conveying that to your guests?

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(LEXI)  Usually people say the moment they walk in the door, but it starts before that. It starts with the client experience that somebody told them about by word of mouth. It starts with the emails that they signed up for to get $20 off their first facial. It starts with our Google reviews. It starts with how people find you. So whether that's through somebody else or it's through the website, through Google, people walking by.

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So everything from how our business looks to the font we use to, I mean the brand voice, how our front desk answers the phone, how we train the staff to handle certain things. Everything is with that same brand voice and then with a results-driven model, so to speak. It is a different model than other medspas in the area.

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We also focus on skin, so we don't offer injectables, so that's a huge difference in terms of how we're different in specifically our area. But ultimately, I think it just comes down to building a brand, being consistent. And, for us, it was, we want to deliver results. We want people to come in and after three months, they can see a huge difference in their skin.

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And it's not just these fluffy, there's nothing wrong with those spa-like facials, you're going to relax and get a facial. But that's honestly one of our biggest complaints, is people are like, well, I didn't get to fully relax for like 90 minutes and do this and do that. And I'm like, we're not really that kind of spa, so to speak.

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[20:10]

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(SUMMER) I mean, our biggest differentiator is definitely the fact that we take the holistic approach to spa services and we combine it with the clinical approach. Like we have dermatology and PM staff. Our training is very clinical in nature, our products that we use are backed by science. Everything we do is just so different than how everyone else does it. While there's like 500 other businesses offering facials, they're not our facials. It's just not the same. 

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I've been all over the US, all over the world getting facials and there's no comparison because we do things just so differently in our own way. And, people try to duplicate that, but they cannot duplicate it because we do so many other things to get to that point when we're delivering the service. So I would say that's our biggest differentiator and also our culture. We're very, very different than other spas in the sense that we live and breathe our mission and our values and it's ingrained in everything that we do.

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(LEXI) I mean even down to the environment and how the spa's designed. We had a fire a year or so ago and Summer designs the spa. She does research and really finds what aesthetically she wants to get across. And we've had people come in and they're like, who's your designer? And we're like, oh, well, our owner actually handles it.

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And when you walk into other spas, it's almost like a very medical, sterile kind of feel. This isn't. This is really like you walk in and you just can relax. It's very clean, it's neutral. You don't feel overwhelmed. And that's really awesome, too. So like even if you were to take us and have a facial at our spa, and then we take the same exact facial at another spa, you still have your client experience, you still have the environment. You're putting them in. You still have your staff and how they interact with them. So it really does make a difference. I mean, when you're looking at it from that perspective, you can deliver a completely different facial and experience, even though you got the exact same facial. So, the environmental factors. 

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(SKYA) Looking ahead, what's new or what's on the horizon for Habit? Is there any growth or new changes? Anything exciting coming up for you guys? 

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(SUMMER) The past couple years, we had a fire in 2023 and also we had the pandemic a couple years before that, and so I kind of went into this place where I just did nothing.

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Like I was, I didn't wanna expand, I didn't wanna make any changes. I just wanted to just sit for a while, and now I'm definitely in this expansion mode. I'm looking at different locations and looking at different markets and figuring out where we're gonna go next. So we will expand.

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We are stepping into the education world, and we're also stepping into more mentorship and learning from a different angle. I have a vested interest to help other spas be successful. I know how to do it. I know exactly the formula that works and how to bring people from point A to point B and partnering with Lexi on the education piece is something that we're really excited about.

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[23:16]

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(JADE) So on that note, talking about education, something that's huge in the industry and something that you guys touched on earlier, can you tell us a little bit more about what's to come with the education component? 

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(SUMMER) We're starting a platform. It's called The Aesthetic, CEO, and so basically we have this vision. We're in a lot of medspa owner groups, and there's a difference between being a provider and coming into a business and truly being a business owner. And, I don't wanna say supplying the providers, but hiring the providers. A lot of the times these providers come in and they have no clue what to do on the business side.

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There's very rare that you find somebody who is medically very smart as well as business smart. They’re unicorns. So you get people in these Facebook groups that are asking, like, in our world, the most basic questions, like the answers are just so bizarre. And I'm like, there's no way that you're gonna make revenue with that answer.

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And they're asking, they think it's good advice because it's all these other business owners, right? One of the main ones we saw a lot was membership. And so we're working on creating a membership course that really breaks down [that] it's not just have a membership because the spot down the street has a membership. It's have a membership that's gonna build revenue and why have a membership and what does that mean for your spa? And do your numbers backwards, like figure out like what are your consumable costs with this membership? What are your labor costs? How much does it really bring into the spa? So being able to offer things like that.

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And it's an online platform, so they can go through the course as easily and as fast and as slow as they want to go back, refer to it. [We] provide essentially calculators and Excel documents where they can plug their numbers in and it totally gives them exactly what they need. There's not a master's in owning a med spa,  and we don't wanna do this like one master's course because there's so much that goes into it beyond that.

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But we see we're making a list of all these topics that we constantly see and to be able to then go and say: hey, we actually have a course about it. If you wanna talk to us, send us a DM. we can chat about this further, but here's what we have to offer. 

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I really like the coaching side. Summer really likes the other side of the online portion. So hopefully in the future we get to work with other medspas and I would love to do some coaching one-on-one with them. That's kind of like where we're at. 

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And then to partner that with a podcast potentially where we can maybe not just bring in medical aesthetics and plastic surgeons and stuff, but we can reach out to multiple branches of business because business owners all deal with a lot of the same problems. So that's kind of our current projects we have on the table. It's really exciting, and also while still managing everything Habit.

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So it hasn't fully gotten there yet, but that's where we're headed. I'm really excited. So hopefully by the time this comes out, we have it on the table soon. So we've been kind of hush hush about it, but, it's cool. It's cool to put it out there in the universe. 

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[25:52]

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(SUMMER) I've been approached in the past to do mentorship and consulting, and I just haven't been in a place to do that. So it'll be fun to do it on my own terms, in the way that I wanna see it rolled out versus just trying to say, okay, well let's get going and go mentor another business. And so it'll be a little bit more thoughtful, organized, and giving people tools. 

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(LEXI) I mean, some people don't even know how to open up an LLC and it's like you see these things online and you're like, ‘Oh God.’ And then on the flip side I'm like, well, ChatGPT could tell you that. Let's be real. 

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(JADE) Let's get some AI in here. That's very exciting. And I think it's a great issue. Like you mentioned, one thing that we talk about all the time with providers when they're thinking about branching out is that they don't learn any business acumen in school whatsoever, and they get out and then they're like, ‘What do I do? Where do I go?’ So the fact that you guys have the blueprint for success, you've seen what's worked and you have that ability to share that knowledge, that wealth of knowledge is gonna be amazing. 

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(LEXI) And that is something that we would love for all of our providers. If they got so successful that they were able to go out on their own, we would love to have that. And we offer different compensation agreements, kind of if they wanted to do that, to see what it would look like. But, a lot of them don't know the business side and they end up coming back because they get so overwhelmed because they don't know everything that goes on in the backend.

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And so that essentially is a really great resource that we would be providing to be like, no, this is how you start from point A to point B. So it may not be a course on how do I build revenue? It may be a course on how do you just start. There's so much gatekeeping in the industry. There's no one that you can just essentially call and be like, ‘Hey, how do I do this?’ And then if there is, they want thousands and thousands of dollars. And so there's no big sister to be like, ‘What'd you do? How'd you do it?’ And everybody wants to profit off that. I mean, obviously yes, we wanna make money off our courses and consulting, but just to have it where it doesn't feel like someone's withholding something from you because they always have one up on you. 

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(JADE) Yeah, a sense of community. 

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(LEXI) Absolutely, which really lacks in the medspa space. 

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(SUMMER) There's lots of gatekeeping. 

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[28:05]

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(SKYA) Amazing. So, if our listeners want to look at your guys' beautiful website or learn more from you guys, where can they find you?

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(LEXI) So our website is goodskinhabit.com. You can find us on Instagram at Good Skin Habit. You can find me at Lex L-E-X dot Engle. 

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(SUMMER) Well, I have two. I have a personal account. I'm trying to think which one do I give. Um, probably @ the Summer Leighton or my personal account. And then we have our Aesthetic CEO platform.

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(LEXI) @ The Aesthetic CEO, yeah, Instagram's launched. We're getting the website up and going. So there's a little email thing. You can put your email in if you wanna learn more.

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(SKYA) Stay up to date on all the exciting stuff. 

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(LEXI) Yes, lots of handles. 

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(JADE) Coming soon. 

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(SKYA) Well, thank you so much ladies for joining us. It has been amazing as always, and thanks so much for sharing all your knowledge.

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(SUMMER & LEXI) Thank you for having us. 

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