Reading AmSpa’s State of the Industry report, line by line

Every year the American Med Spa Association publishes its State of the Industry report, and every year a lot of owners skim the headlines and move on. That’s a missed opportunity. Used well, an industry report is one of the cheapest ways to step back from the day-to-day and see your business from the outside.

The trick is reading it the right way. Here’s how we approach it.

Start with who is in the data

Before you look at any number, look at who it describes. Industry figures blend together very different businesses: brand-new spas and twenty-year veterans, solo injectors and multi-site groups, rural practices and big-city flagships.

One of the most useful facts in AmSpa’s reporting is simply how the industry is made up. Roughly 80% of med spas are single-location businesses, about 16.5% run two to ten locations, and around 3.5% are backed by private equity, across an estimated 11,000+ medical spas in the U.S.

That tells you two things. First, most owners are running one location, often without anyone to compare notes with. Second, any “average” in the report is mostly describing single-location spas. If you run three locations, the averages aren’t really about you.

Treat averages as a range, not a target

When a report shares an average, it’s tempting to treat it as the finish line. If you’re above it, great; if you’re below it, worry. But an average blends the struggling and the thriving into one number.

Instead, use it to ask a question. If your figure is far from the industry number, why? Sometimes there’s a good reason: you’re in an expensive market, you focus on premium services, or you’re still ramping up. Sometimes it points to something worth fixing.

Look for the definitions

This is the step most people skip, and it matters most. How did the report define revenue, retention or a provider? Does “revenue” include retail product? Does “retention” mean a client returned within six months or twelve?

If you compare your own number to an industry figure that was calculated differently, you can draw the wrong conclusion. Read the footnotes and methodology. When in doubt, compare trends rather than exact values.

Watch the direction, not just the number

A single year of data is a snapshot. The more useful story is what is moving. Are more spas reporting growth than last year, or fewer? Are certain services becoming a bigger share of revenue? Are staffing challenges getting easier or harder?

If you’ve older reports, put them side by side. The direction of travel often matters more for your planning than any single figure.

Turn it into three questions about your business

Here’s the exercise we suggest. After you read the report, write down three questions it raises about your own spa. For example:

1. Our mix of services looks different from the industry’s. Is that a strength or a risk?
2. Owners report staffing as a big challenge. How long do our providers stay, and why do they leave?
3. Most spas are single-location. If we want a second location, what will we need that we don’t have today?

Then go find your own numbers for each one. The report is only useful if it changes something you look at or do.

Know the limits

Industry reports are built from surveys, and surveys depend on who answers and how carefully. They are a great guide to the big picture, but they can’t tell you how a spa your size, in a market like yours, is actually performing this quarter.

That’s the gap peer benchmarking fills. In a Med Spa 9 group, owners at a similar size and stage share the same metrics, defined the same way, every quarter. The industry report shows you the landscape. Your group shows you exactly where you stand in it.

Make it a yearly ritual

Block an hour when the new report comes out. Read it with a pen. Note what surprised you, what confirmed what you suspected, and the three questions it raised. Share it with your managers and ask what they see.

A report you read once and forget is trivia. A report you use to ask better questions every year is a strategy tool, and it costs you nothing but an hour.

One last tip: don’t read it alone. Bring the report to your next leadership meeting, or to a conversation with owners you trust. Different people notice different things. Your front desk lead might spot something about client behavior that you missed, and another owner might read the same page and see an opportunity you hadn’t considered. The value is in the conversation the numbers start.

Written by Tarma Taylor.

Written by Tarma Taylor.