Hire an AI Employee for MedSpas: A 24/7 Front Desk that Never Misses a Lead

What's really costing med spas their leads?

Jennifer Orechwa: Hey there, Shakers, welcome back to another episode of Worth Your Salt, the podcast that's here to supercharge your marketing in the health and wellness space. I'm Jennifer Orechwa, StoryBrand Certified Coach and author of Get Found, Get Booked. And over the past two decades, my team and I have tested, iterated, and figured out what it takes to market and grow so you don't have to. Now, I'm here to help you apply the marketing systems that truly work. At Salt Marketing, we're all about helping wellness practitioners like you build trust, authority, and a nonstop flow of clients. So if you're ready to take your practice to the next level, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Jennifer: Here's a scenario I want you to think about. A potential patient finds your med spa online at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. They have questions. Maybe they want to book a consultation, but your front desk is closed, your inbox is full, and by morning, they've already booked somewhere else. Sound familiar?

Jennifer: For so many of the med spa owners I work with, the problem isn't that they're not doing enough marketing. The problem is that the systems behind the scenes aren't set up to capture the patients that marketing is sending their way. So today I'm sitting down with someone who is on the front lines of solving this exact problem. Shannon Blake is the Director of Aesthetics Partnerships at Podium, the AI operating system that is completely modernizing the way modern med spas attract, communicate with, and convert their ideal patients. Shannon has spent her career building strategic partnerships that help businesses grow. From eBay to Podium, and now she's focused exclusively on helping aesthetics practices stop losing leads and start building real, lasting patient relationships.

Jennifer: So if you've ever wondered whether AI could actually work in a med spa setting, or if you already know it could and you just need to know how to get started, this episode is for you. Shannon, welcome to Worth Your Salt.

Shannon Blake: Thank you so much for having me, Jennifer. I'm thrilled to be here.

How does Shannon describe what Podium is and who it's built for?

Jennifer: So, before we dive in, for listeners who haven't come across Podium yet — I'm sure that group is small — how do you describe what it is and who it's built for?

Shannon: Oh, man. We are hyper-focused on the aesthetics industry, so that's inclusive of medical spas, plastic surgeons, wellness centers. How do I put this simply? Over the last two years, we have been the go-to solution for consolidating client communication and lead consolidation. I'm talking about bringing your Google ads, your Facebook ads, your website leads, everything into a single platform and turning them into text conversations, as well as managing all of the texting and the phone conversations.

Shannon: And over the last two years, we've also recognized that we absolutely needed an integration with some of the commonly used EMRs in the space in order for our AI employee to have the superpower we needed her to have, and access to the data. But we couldn't get the integrations we needed. And all the while, we were also hearing feedback that nobody loved their EMR, that it was a necessary evil. And we thought, why don't we just go build the whole thing ourselves? So we were really excited in January to come out with the first AI operating system in aesthetics. That's inclusive of your EMR, your CRM, your text marketing, your email marketing, all in a single modern platform. It's all centered around AI employees, so I'm just excited to dive into what that means.

What drew Shannon from eBay to the aesthetics industry?

Jennifer: Now, you came from the world of e-commerce and major consumer brands like eBay before landing in aesthetics. What drew you to this space? What made you want to focus specifically on med spas and aesthetic practices?

Shannon: It's interesting. At eBay, I was there for nine years, and I got to be involved in an initiative we were running called Retail Revival. The idea was e-commerce was obviously taking off, and these local brick-and-mortar stores were struggling. So we put together a program to help these local companies bring their products online and make them available to buyers across the world, which was really neat. It got me excited about supporting local businesses, because they are the heartbeat of all of our communities.

Shannon: When I caught wind of Podium being a local tech company in my area — we're in Utah, near Salt Lake City — I thought, I really love this local business side of things. So I applied to manage the partnerships, and was actually just managing traditional healthcare partnerships — think more like your traditional medical clinics, dental, chiropractor. And all the while, I started noticing a big increase in a fast-growing industry, which was the aesthetics industry. And I thought, you know what, we have a really good product that could solve the speed-to-lead issue in this industry. So I pitched it to our executives, and we decided to reorganize the entire company. Podium's a big company — we have just over 1,000 employees, we work with 100,000 local businesses — but I wanted to be able to have a third of our company go all in on aesthetics. I'm talking a sales team that only sells into aesthetics, an onboarding team that only onboards aesthetic practices, engineers that build products just for aesthetics. And I got my way. So we're two and a half years into it and have the pleasure of working with over 2,500 practices across the US.

What's the biggest frustration med spa owners share about lead management?

Jennifer: Amazing. And you kind of alluded to this a minute ago, but when you talk to med spa owners for the first time, what's the first frustration you hear over and over again when it comes to managing leads and patient communication?

Shannon: It's fragmentation. Up to this point, I always thought it was interesting, because the aesthetics industry is considered a very modern industry — it hasn't been around that long — yet the technology and software that supported this industry was very old and antiquated. Nobody did a great job from a software perspective of bringing everything into one solution.

Shannon: This will probably resonate with a lot of aesthetic practices: you've got usually three to five different systems where your leads are going into various places. You might have some going into your CRM, if you even have one. You've got some leads going into an email inbox somewhere that you have to sift through to find among a bunch of other emails. There's just a lot of fragmentation. So it was really exciting to come out this year with one all-in-one solution for these practices, so the fragmentation goes away and there's no longer a need for integrations.

Jennifer: Yeah, beautiful. I love that simplicity. All right, let's start talking about Avery — that's Podium's AI employee. For someone who's never heard of an AI employee, what does Avery actually do on a day-to-day basis for a med spa?

What does Avery actually do for a med spa day to day?

Shannon: We took Avery to market about two years ago — the initial version of Avery — and she was possible because of OpenAI. Everyone plays around with ChatGPT; some of you have probably moved on to Anthropic's Claude, for example. That AI being released three or four years ago allowed us to start building the first AI employee for aesthetics.

Shannon: Her initial purpose: we know this industry is saturated, and we know that leads are coming in all day — 40% of leads come in after hours, when these aesthetic practices are closed. So we thought it would be really cool to have an AI employee trained by the practice, who understands everything about that practice — their membership, if they offer it, what comes with each level, what the cancellation rate is, what services they offer, how they talk about those services, what the pain level is for each service, what the downtime is, literally everything — so that this AI employee could respond within two minutes to every single lead coming in, even the ones after hours. That was her initial problem to solve: speed to lead, even after hours, 24/7, 365 days a year, and just answer questions and keep those leads warm.

Can patients tell the difference between Avery and a human?

Jennifer: So one thing I hear all the time from practice owners is they say things like, "I don't want AI talking to my patients, it feels impersonal." How do you respond to that concern? What does the actual patient experience look like when Avery's part of the team?

Shannon: I think people who have that feeling, it makes complete sense, because the aesthetics industry is built on relationships. I personally feel like that's why it's disrupting, and will continue to disrupt, the health care space — the ambiance, the vibe, the energy, and the relationships you have with the people you see at your aesthetic practice are different. It's different in every way than a traditional medical family practice, for example.

Shannon: So I think the first thing was recognizing that was a very real concern for aesthetic practices. And then we thought, we just need to get out there and show what AI employees are capable of today, because it's different. Once OpenAI came out — and now there's a bunch of different large language models, or LLMs, such as OpenAI and Anthropic — it made these AI employees light-years ahead of what you're probably used to when you hear "AI." Back in the day, those bots were very clearly not a real human. But AI has come a long way, and it keeps getting better every day, so that your AI employee should feel like a human. It should sound like a human. The person on the other end shouldn't be able to tell the difference between an AI employee and somebody working your front desk. In fact, your AI employee should be more human — it should feel more connected, more emotional, more professional, more accurate than even your typical front desk rep.

How does Avery actually talk to patients, and will she ever call them?

Jennifer: So tell me how Avery is actually interacting with patients. Is it sending texts? Is it sending emails? Does it have a voice? How does this actually work?

Shannon: Today, Avery is primarily messaging. So when I say that, she's replying via text — any texts coming in, she's texting back. Or if they're coming in through a social media channel, DMing you, for example, she's DMing them right back. All things messaging. She's going to have a voice in the coming months — we've already put out a voice product in some other industries we're in. But with aesthetics, it's a very nuanced, complex industry with a lot of different services and treatments that are constantly changing and evolving. So that makes voice a little more difficult, because when you're texting someone, a 30-second delay isn't a big deal, but on a phone conversation you have to be quick, otherwise it's awkward. We're trying to perfect the voice side of things, and we're getting pretty close. So Avery will have a voice in the coming months, but today she's primarily texting and messaging through social media.

How does Podium replace a med spa's patchwork of systems?

Jennifer: So med spas are often running on a patchwork of different systems — their EMR, their CRM, their booking platform, their phone system — and none of them really talk to each other. How does Podium fit into that existing ecosystem?

Shannon: We replace them all. If you have Podium, you no longer need your EMR. If you have Podium, you no longer need your GoHighLevel or whatever CRM you're using today. It also replaces any phone system you're using, any texting platform, any text marketing or email marketing platform. You can cancel all of those and go all in on Podium.

Shannon: Here's the thing everyone needs to realize: for Podium, we know the growth is happening with AI, and we know there's a lot of ungratifying, task-based work that has to be done by these aesthetic practices. That's not why people got into this industry. They got into it because they like to help patients and get the best possible patient outcomes. But all of the software stuff, all the task stuff, like scheduling, isn't everyone's favorite thing to do, and it's very time-consuming.

Shannon: So what we wanted was for this AI employee — now that Podium is the EMR, where the scheduling, the charting, the forms, and the payments live — to have access to everything about your practice. She knows everything about each of your clients. She knows if they're on a treatment plan and whether they're on track to completing it. She knows what products they purchased, so she knows purchasing behavior. She knows if somebody canceled an appointment and hasn't rescheduled. Think about how powerful that is. Now that Podium is the full AI operating system and the scheduler, Avery isn't just keeping leads warm after hours — she's scheduling appointments. You no longer need your front desk team to manage scheduling, rescheduling, and cancellations; you can completely offload that to your AI employee. And then things get really exciting when you can ask her things like, "Give me a schedule analysis for next week — where do we have schedule gaps, and give me recommendations on who you'll text to try to get those folks on our books to fill those gaps." Because she has access to all of that information now, in one platform, things start to get really exciting. We're getting ready to launch another product — we're still landing on a name, right now it's Operator, might be Avery for Business, we don't know — but having that internal AI assistant that can access and give you information on any part of your business from a simple message is going to be pretty cool. It's going to change the game.

What's the real cost of not adopting AI?

Jennifer: Yeah, brilliant, I love that. So, from your perspective, what's the real cost — in dollars or lost patients — of not moving in this direction, of not adopting these kinds of systems?

Shannon: There's a lot of lost time — the amount of time your teams spend sifting through and working out of different platforms, checking leads coming in from DMs, going into emails to find those leads, duplicating work in your CRM and your EMR, making sure the patient information is in your CRM as well, or manually managing the status of every lead. It's extremely time-consuming, and it's almost impossible for a human to manage all of that well.

Shannon: So there's the time piece, but if you think about the lost revenue from not replying to a lead within consumer expectations — which in this industry is two minutes or less, because we all have very short attention spans — and you put numbers behind what your conversion rate is when you do talk to a lead, and how many you could potentially be missing. Not to mention missed calls — all of you have missed calls, some during business hours, but some after hours. If you knew you could have somebody engaging with every single lead in under two minutes, think about what that could do for your conversion rate. It obviously varies by practice and volume, but it's a very meaningful amount of revenue. And the practices that don't jump on board and leverage AI won't be able to compete, because there are only so many hours in the day, and your employees aren't working 24/7 — you don't want them to, that's called burnout. So you really have an advantage when you take advantage of an AI employee in this competitive industry.

Jennifer: And Shannon, I love how you're putting words to something so many of our listeners feel but can't quite name — that gap between great marketing and the systems that actually have to catch those leads when they come in. Right now I have to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to get into the real-world results — what actually happens when a med spa turns this on, what changes, and how the outcomes owners are seeing go exponential. Back in a minute.

What changes once a practice turns Avery on?

Jennifer: All right, we're back with Shannon Blake from Podium. Before the break, we were talking about what Podium is and why so many med spas are dealing with the same painful pattern — great marketing, but leads slipping through the cracks because the back-end systems can't keep up. Now I want to get into what actually happens when you fix that. Let's talk about outcomes. When a med spa implements Podium, particularly the AI employee Avery, what are some of the real changes they start to see, and how quickly do they see those changes?

Shannon: The changes are immediate, because as soon as you onboard onto Podium, you've got your leads flowing into a single inbox — every single lead, I'm talking your Google ads, your Facebook ads, your Instagram ads, your website leads, your texts. And Avery, your AI employee, is immediately taking those over. So what we see on average from our clients is an immediate 40% increase in conversion rate. That looks different for all of you — you have to consider your average price points, since some of you have higher-ticket items than others — but if you can increase your conversion rate by 40% just by implementing an AI employee, what does that do for your revenue?

What does a real Podium success story look like?

Jennifer: Can you share a success story — not naming names if you need to — about a practice that might have been struggling with lead follow-up or patient follow-through, and what that experience looked like after they got Podium in place?

Shannon: We had a practice right here in Murray, Utah, that was struggling due to staff limitations on getting back to leads. They were really big in hair restoration, which was one of their higher-ticket items. By implementing a text feature on their website that collects name, question, and cell phone number, and moving it to an AI employee, they brought in a million dollars in additional revenue just from being fast and engaging with those leads while they were interested, and getting them on the schedule immediately. So it's highly meaningful — and obviously that's a very high-priced ticket item — but again, it goes back to: if you can have a 40% lift in your conversion numbers from incoming leads, what does that do for your revenue based on your services and average price?

Jennifer: Yeah, and if you can convert those high-ticket items, imagine what it can do for the everyday things that keep the place alive. So on the opposite side of that, reviews are such a huge part of how patients choose a med spa. How does Podium help practices actually build and manage their online reputation, not just help patients leave a review?

How does Podium help practices build their online reputation?

Shannon: This is fun to talk about — we don't talk about this enough at Podium. Funny enough, Jennifer, when Podium got started back in 2014, all we got really good at was helping local businesses collect Google reviews. That was back when businesses were starting to become textable — before that, it was all email and phone. We would come into a local business, take their business number, make it textable, and then make it really easy for them to send a link out to a customer who had just checked out, saying, "Thank you so much for trusting us with this service. It would mean the world to us if you'd leave us a review — click the link and it'll take you right to where you leave a review." That simple piece of simplifying the process — it wasn't requesting Google reviews through email anymore, or doing nothing. Some businesses were just hoping people would leave reviews out of the kindness of their heart, which is not a strategy. That was our initial flagship product, and it took off like wildfire. It's still very much a feature we offer. Now that we're the full operating system, upon checkout, when someone leaves the practice, that client gets a text before they even get into their car asking them to leave a Google review. It makes the process really simple — they click the link in the text, leave their star rating and comment, hit post, and that immediately goes up onto Google, playing into Google's algorithm for where that local business ranks when someone's searching for a practice like theirs.

Jennifer: Perfect, yep, I love that, that's so good. So text marketing is something a lot of med spas are curious about but nervous to try. How does Podium's approach to text-based communication differ from what people might think of as spammy mass texting?

How is Podium's text marketing different from spammy mass texts?

Shannon: I'm going to answer this in two parts. Before we started building what we're not sure we're going to call — maybe Podium Avery for Business, or Operator — I want to talk about how we thought about text marketing, and then how that's going to change when we launch this new feature.

Shannon: A couple of important things with text marketing the practice needs to understand: you want it coming from your business line. The thing you want to avoid is a text marketing promotion going out from a five-digit number — you get these all the time from other companies. There's just something about it coming from the practice, where your clients have your number saved in their phone and it's from them. You also want to make sure that whatever texting platform you're using is all two-way texting, because if you're sending out a promotion and that lead or client has a small point of clarification, or just has a question, you want them to be able to easily reply back and ask before they pull the trigger on scheduling. And you want to make sure it's personable — you want that text promotion to not be generic, so you want to start that text conversation by addressing them by their first name, for example, and making sure there's always a call to action — what's the next step if they want to take advantage of the promo. And of course, with text marketing, you want to make sure you aren't sending a promo to every single client and just hoping something sticks — you want to be targeted and strategic. With Podium, you can give a single lead or client as many tags as you want. So maybe you want to segment your VIP membership folks from the individuals who are coming in consistently for Botox, from your highest spenders, and give them different tags, almost like personas, so that when you go to send out a text marketing campaign, you can send it to certain buckets of your clients and be more targeted.

Shannon: Those are all important things to have in your text marketing solution, but I'd say the future of text marketing is what I was talking about earlier. For example, you'll be able to ask your Avery for Business, "I'd love to send out a promotion to anyone who has ever called in" — because remember, Podium hears your phones too; every conversation's recorded and transcribed, and Avery has access to all of those conversations. Anyone we've spoken to on the phone, anyone who's texted in, anyone who's taken advantage of a promotion or responded to an ad we did on Google about a certain service — you'll be able to say, "I want you to go out and send a promotion to those folks about whatever that promotion is." You'll no longer have to worry about tags, because you'll just be able to ask your AI assistant, Avery, to message that promo to anyone who's shown interest in a certain service, give her guidance, and she'll go out and spread the word and start texting those individuals directly.

Jennifer: Brilliant. We talk a lot about that at Salt Marketing — we talk constantly about the patient journey, from the moment somebody first hears about your practice to the moment they become a loyal, raving fan. And that segmentation is part of that. So where does Podium live in that journey? How does it support each stage?

Where does Podium live across the patient journey?

Shannon: Now that we're the full operating system, Jennifer, there's not really a stage we don't touch. Let me back up — there are folks like you and other agencies who do the actual ads and drive the leads; that's top of funnel, and Podium doesn't play in that world. I'd say the smallest piece we play in is that we put more reviews on Google for local businesses than any other company, so we do help generate leads through your reputation and where you're placed on Google. But beyond that, we're not doing digital marketing strategy for you. Once you get the lead, that's where Podium steps in. Our AI employee engages with that lead and gets them on the calendar, because we're the scheduler, so Avery can fully book. And then, from the moment they're booked — even the consent forms — Avery takes care of all of those. She can create your forms for you, and she sends them out right when the appointment is booked, and if they haven't filled them out, she sends reminders to make sure those forms get filled out beforehand, so you're not wasting time with patients filling out forms once they're in your practice.

Shannon: Then, when they check in, you've got your AI charting, so you can just press play, the conversation's recorded, and Avery's putting all the relevant information into the chart, so a human doesn't have to do that. Avery's very much part of the actual procedure, the conversation that's happening, and the details of what procedure's being done. And then checkout — Podium's the payment processor too, so making sure that checkout is smooth. She's everywhere in between, including memberships. It's going to get really fun to be able to ask your AI assistant if there's anyone who has money in the bank they're not spending, proactively reach out to them when they reach a certain dollar amount, let them know how much they have pending, and inquire about what treatments they might be interested in to bring them back in. So it's literally from the moment the lead comes in, to retention, to recurring appointments, and everything in between. The only thing we're not doing is building websites and driving leads.

Jennifer: Yeah, so good. All right, Shannon, it's time for another quick break. We'll be right back after this.

Jennifer: You're listening to Worth Your Salt, where we help wellness entrepreneurs attract, connect with, and nurture their ideal audience so they can grow with confidence. My guest today is Shannon Blake, Director of Aesthetics Partnerships at Podium. Shannon is helping med spas and aesthetics practices use AI-powered communication tools to stop losing leads, build stronger patient relationships, and create the kind of consistent, responsive experience that turns first-time visitors into loyal, long-term clients.

Jennifer: We're back, Shannon — before the break, you walked us through what Podium actually does and shared some of the outcomes practices are seeing, from capturing more leads to building a stronger online reputation. Now I want to make sure this is really actionable for our listeners, because I know there are people driving to work right now thinking, "Okay, I need this, but where do I even start?" So let's walk them through it. If a med spa owner is listening and they're nodding along — maybe they know they're losing leads after hours, their front desk is drowning in calls — what's the very first thing they should do this week?

What's the first step a med spa owner should take this week?

Shannon: I'd say go to podium.com/aesthetics. We just revamped the website to have our latest features — you'll see how other practices are using it, actual visuals of the platform, and you'll be able to look at each feature broken down into exactly what capabilities it has. You'll see a lot about Avery. So I'd say, to better understand the full platform, stop by our website — again, that's podium.com/aesthetics. But I also love it when practices call me or text me, and we can talk through what issues they're having, what their biggest pain points are, and how Podium can specifically solve those. So I'm also going to give out my cell number — I know that's crazy to do, but I love it. It's [phone number removed]. And it's Shannon Blake.

Jennifer: Beautiful. Yeah, absolutely, and we'll put that in the show notes, so if you're driving, please don't try to write that down right now.

How does onboarding work, and will the team buy in?

Jennifer: But let's talk about the team side of this. A lot of owners worry that introducing AI will create confusion for their staff, or that their team might even resist it. What does that onboarding experience look like? How do you help practices get their team on board?

Shannon: One thing I do want to say about this — you're right, I think we're even getting to the point where people are starting to worry about their jobs a bit. And I'd say, to put owners' minds at ease, the way you position this to your team is: your front desk specifically is doing a lot. They're answering phones, checking people out, checking people in, talking about retail products on the shelf, rescheduling people — there's a lot going on for them. So positioning this as, "you have an assistant," a lot of the busy work will be off their plates, and it's going to be more critical than ever that you're leveraging your front desk to have those human connections and be 100% present when your clients are in your practice. It allows them to really nail that check-in and check-out experience and build those relationships. I just wanted to call that out.

Shannon: But for any aesthetic practices coming onto Podium, for 60 days they have a dedicated onboarding manager right here at our headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, whose job is to get all the systematic stuff connected — your Facebook, your Instagram, your Google Business Profile — get all your information from your website and additional information about your practice into the back end of Avery. We call it AI Studio — that's Avery's brain. So we hand-hold you through that whole process. After the 60 days, you get transitioned to your client success manager, who's also local at our headquarters in Utah, and that's your partner for the rest of the time you're with Podium. You have the ability to schedule trainings with them — their job is to make sure you're optimizing the full platform and know how to use it, because we do so much that it can feel overwhelming. They're really there to make sure your team is trained on whatever they need, because your front desk needs to be trained on different things than your practitioners and physicians, who need detail around the charting experience, while your front desk needs a lot of training on check-in, check-out, and payment.

Shannon: So where we try to be different, Jennifer, is that for these other EMR companies, we've heard a lot of feedback that it's very difficult to get issues resolved quickly or even talk to a human. Right inside Podium, on the homepage, we have a picture of your client success manager and a way to schedule a meeting with them, call them, chat with them, text them — whatever your preferred form of communication is. We don't want to hide who's available to support you; we want to make it really easy. I feel like we absolutely excel in that customer service and accessibility when someone has a question about a product, wants more training, or just has a question.

Jennifer: That's so important, especially with busy practitioners — you need an answer in that moment, not 24 hours later, because you're busy seeing patients and also trying to solve tech problems. And I love what you said about telling your team that you've hired an AI employee as their assistant — that's a really good way to put it. So once Podium is up and running, obviously revenue is going to be our golden standard metric, but what are two or three metrics a practice owner should be paying attention to? How do they know it's working?

What metrics should a practice owner track once Podium is live?

Shannon: Thankfully — I couldn't wait for the day we'd be the payment processor as well as the scheduler, because your reporting can only be as good as the information inside a single system. Now we have all the information we need around lead conversion — what your conversion rates are, how much revenue is being generated by each appointment, how much revenue per room, what the utilization rates are by provider. That's the other really cool stuff we'll be able to do with Operator — you can just ask, "Who's my highest-performing physician when it comes to revenue per hour," or "who's got the highest percentage of rebooking," things like that. There's just so much delicious data we can finally surface to our clients, because we manage the payments and the scheduling and have all the data in between.

Jennifer: Fantastic for that practitioner who's making decisions based on data, with access to that depth of information. But for a solo practitioner or a smaller med spa who might wonder if Podium is too big for where they are right now, what would you say to them about when it makes sense to invest in this kind of infrastructure?

Is Podium a fit for practices of every size?

Shannon: You know, it's interesting — this is going to sound like somebody who works at Podium, but it's really a good fit for every size of practice, and I'll tell you why. We have a lot of single-provider owner-operators who don't have any staff at all, and that's almost one of the most critical places you need Podium, because you need to be able to be with your clients all day and have somebody responding to leads while you're with patients. That's the perfect time to have an AI employee manage the leads and book the appointments so you can just be present with your patients. On the total other side, any high-volume practice with a high influx of leads, that has no way of managing them all as quickly as consumer expectations demand, also really benefits from Podium. So it's one extreme to the other, and we do have different pricing for single owner-operators that's more affordable than for high-volume practices.

Jennifer: Okay, fantastic. And of course, if anybody listening wants to explore Podium for their own practice, we'll link everything in the show notes at saltmarketing.co. Shannon, right now it's time for our lightning round questions — just a few quick questions I like to ask every guest. Are you ready?

Shannon: I'm ready.

Lightning round: what's inspiring Shannon right now?

Jennifer: All right, first question: what's something about you that often surprises people?

Shannon: I have a mom that enlisted in England.

Jennifer: I actually do want to know more about that, but we're not going to broadcast it — I'll ask you afterward how that happened.

Shannon: I promise I'm not a dangerous person.

Jennifer: That's so funny. All right, next question: what's your favorite thing about the work that you do?

Shannon: Oh my gosh, it's helping practices become more profitable. I'm so excited for what's to come — this industry has not been well served from a software perspective, and with AI, we've been able to build incredible features that will actually make practices money and let them do it on the go. I'm just excited for these practice owners — they're so burned out. I meet them all the time, and they're like, "I can't take a vacation, I'm so tired, I feel alone." And what's coming with Operator is going to allow them to finally take the time off they deserve. I'm so excited.

Jennifer: I love the way you light up talking about this. All right, next question: what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Shannon: Never say no to any adventure. I spent 29 years of my life not really living, and I made a commitment to myself at 30, when I had my midlife crisis, that I was just going to say yes and try everything. Now I have a ton of hobbies that I absolutely love that enhance my life.

Jennifer: I have to wonder if that's connected to the answer to the first question, but that's a topic for another day. All right, last question: who's inspiring you right now? What podcast are you listening to, or what's the best book you've read recently?

Shannon: Terri Ross, from In Touch with Terri Ross. I get so fired up when I talk to her — she's so passionate about helping practices grow smartly, be really strategic with their numbers, and drive revenue. I'm always inspired by her.

Jennifer: Very nice, Shannon. Thank you so much for joining me today on Worth Your Salt.

Shannon: Thanks, Jennifer, for having me.

Jennifer: I also want to thank you, Salt Nation. If today's conversation has you thinking, "I'm ready to take my marketing to the next level," that's exactly what we're here for at Salt Marketing. Our Salted Edge system is designed to help wellness practitioners like you attract new clients, convert them into loyal fans, and finally get marketing that works without the guesswork. If you have a great success story, I'd love to talk with you on Worth Your Salt — tell us why you're worth your salt by emailing us at grow@saltmarketing.co. And be sure to subscribe to Worth Your Salt so you never miss an episode. Finally, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for this episode of Worth Your Salt. Be sure to join me again next time. In the meantime, let's get out there and shake things up.