We see this same scenario play out in clinics across the country: you have a new hire who starts Monday, and you want to get them proficient and part of the team as quickly as possible. You have your best injector train her for a week, during which she shadows consultations and observes treatments. By the following Monday, she’s on the schedule with a full client load. 

This type of training is the norm for most medspa owners because there are no invoices or travel complications to worry about. Often, in-house training makes perfect sense because the knowledge about how your medspa works is already readily available in your building, and passing it along costs almost nothing on paper.

Convenience factor aside, there are significant, preventable downsides when in-house training is the only tool you use to get new employees up to speed. In many situations, it is more beneficial to choose outside training instead. 

Why In-House Training Is the Default

With outside training, medspa owners have to find the right program, clear schedules, cover the cost of training and travel, and pull providers off the floor for a day or more. In-house training is attractive because it conveniently skips the above steps while still feeling like a raw, sink-or-swim experience as the trainee is thrown into the clinical setting and begins learning from senior providers.

And to be sure, if you already have a documented protocol that works well and leads to satisfied patients and good results, in-house training can still work. In-house reinforcement may be all that you need to continue providing the same quality of services even as you expand the practice. However, when this is the only type of training you make available to your employees, a hidden cost quietly erodes outcomes and satisfaction on both sides of the provider-client relationship.

The Cost of In-House Training Done Alone

In-house training can only replicate what your team already does well. If there are internal weaknesses or protocols that have never been fully standardized, these small cracks can grow into larger fissures as they are passed down to new employees. 

The Standard Hasn’t Been Set Yet

Any time your practice is adding new devices or treatments, there is no internal benchmark to teach from yet, even if senior providers have years of experience in other areas. The goal of any practice should be to teach validated best practices rather than leaving it up to a particular provider’s interpretation, which can lead to small errors that compound as they pass from one person to the next. 

Knowledge Drift

Sometimes skills degrade when there are no consistent reference points to reset against. Techniques that were best practice several years ago may also need updating based on the most recent information. While it never happens intentionally, each time there are small personal adjustments without an outside standard to measure against, technique can begin to drift.  

Four Situations That Call for Outside Training

Outside training may not be something you need every month. It’s typically best viewed as a tool reserved for specific moments and milestones in your growth as a practice. Consider it for:

  • A New Device or Treatment: Outside training can be very fruitful when you are establishing a clinical foundation for a new device or service offering. Your whole team should start with the same unified practices and techniques.
  • A New Provider: Onboarding through an external framework gives new hires a standard that isn’t filtered entirely through one senior colleague’s habits, good or bad. It also frees up providers from having to carry the full burden of teaching by themselves.
  • A New Location: If you are expanding to a second or third site, the protocols of each should match your original location. Outside training gives every site the same reference point. 
  • Inconsistent Results or Patient Complaints: If you find that your outcomes are not consistent, internal retraining tends to reinforce anything that is not running smoothly. An outside audit and reset will give you an objective look at what you can do better. 

What In-House Training Is Built For

In-house training still has an important place in your practice. Once a standard is set and validated from outside, in-house reinforcement is the right tool to maintain it, and arguably the only tool that can.

Outside training is an event, but in-house training is the day-to-day work that keeps your practice a fixture in the community. 

In-house training is the right tool for refreshers on protocol, consultation shadowing, internal performance check-ins and training on well-established devices that are already a foundational part of your offerings. They keep every member of your team operating at the same high standards in between external training opportunities. 30-day check-ins can be paired with 90-day evaluations to allow your practice a natural rhythm that protects against natural drift.

The Model That Works

Outside training sets the standard. In-house training maintains it. Neither one is optional, and the mistake most owners make is only choosing one and never breaking out of the pattern. When you bring on a new device, a new hire or a new location, start outside to establish the benchmark and be sure to document the training process and results.

From there, consistent in-house training will keep your team up to date with the documented standard during daily operations. If, at any point, results begin to slip or your menu expands to new territory, return to outside retraining and reset. 

About Us

MINT Aesthetics is a training and business-consulting company with services for medical aesthetics professionals. Our sister company is AesthetiCare Medspa in Kansas City, meaning all of our protocols and techniques come directly from a working practice.

Our training adapts to your unique situation, helping you bring in new devices and treatments, and includes hands-on training at our Kansas City facility, with live demonstrations and supervised practice.

Online e-courses are also available, with more than 40 clinical and business courses and live monthly trainings. They are ideal for onboarding new hires and refreshing current staff to keep protocols solid. Virtual training calls also connect your staff with MINT trainers over Zoom for clinical Q&A and supervised treatment.   

Find the Right Starting Point

If you sense that something in your training approach isn’t quite working, the problem might be that there isn’t enough external support. MINT Aesthetics builds adaptable outside training to give your practice a solid foundation.

You can explore our online e-course catalog or book a hands-on training session in just a few minutes from our website or by calling 816-326-7252.