The Missing Revenue Hiding in Your Practice's Data

Ben Wolber (00:00):
The pain point that we initially set out to solve was the multi-system consolidation, but then the pain point that we've uncovered by working in this industry is the injectors don't have an easy way to get their numbers.

Bill Walker (00:22):
Hi, welcome back to the Aesthetic Appeal Podcast, the official podcast for Aesthetic Brokers. We're here live at the aesthetic show at the beautiful Winn Resort in Las Vegas. And with me, Ben Wolber of Illume. It's great to have a fellow Ohioan on the show. Ben, welcome.

Ben Wolber (00:40):
Yeah. Thank you for having me. Excited to chat.

Bill Walker (00:43):
So Ben's CEO, and when you think about data analytics, Ben, if you were going to describe Illume in your own words, what does Illume do so well that nobody else really has figured out that this is the problem to solve?

Ben Wolber (00:58):
So really the whole idea of Illume is to allow the end user to plug in all of their data sources in their day-to-day. And then we have prebuilt dashboard templates, but everything is customizable. So really giving the power of your current tech stack back to the practice owner or whoever's our end user, that's probably what we do the best.

Bill Walker (01:22):
When you think about Illume and the time it saves practice owners of trying to dig in maybe across multiple systems that they use, what does that look like and feel like for a med spot owner?

Ben Wolber (01:34):
On average, we save about eight hours of manual work per week in terms of pulling together these different systems. And that number can obviously skyrocket depending the time of the month. It's end of the month, there's other stuff that you have to pull together. But really on average, we're saving about eight hours.

Bill Walker (01:52):
I mean, that's a full day. I can golf 36 holes in eight hours. Exactly. Sign me up. There you go. That's a great show, guys. No, I mean, it's phenomenal. What was some of your experiences that made you think about building Illume? Why did you choose this?

Ben Wolber (02:14):
So my background prior to Illume was healthcare consulting, but I mostly worked on the hospital side where I was essentially just building Power BI reports for large health systems. And then in early 2025, I started picking up fractional data projects through fractional CFOs, weirdly worked with a couple med spa groups and then a wellness practice and then other service-based businesses as well. And then my fiance is also a nurse injector and she works for a solo location in Cincinnati. And I started doing management consulting for them. And again, I kept coming back to, I would build a Power BI report and deliver it. And again, it looked pretty, but it wasn't telling them what to do to a degree. So that's when my light bulb kind of went off in a sense and I had that aha moment where I was like, hey, maybe there's an opportunity in the aesthetic space to bring all these data sources together in easily digestible format.

(03:13):
So our whole thesis is to keep it as simple as possible. And then again, obviously we can scale it up and down. And that ties back to also the prebuilt reports where we've pre-calculated KPIs specific to this industry. 99% of our clients are aesthetics brands or have a tie to a med spa.

Bill Walker (03:31):
I think it's a powerful statement that you get somebody to marry you that you're so good at what you do with the Illume. They're like, I want to marry that guy.

Ben Wolber (03:39):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Bill Walker (03:42):
Let's talk about the data. What data do you see the most that owners are sitting on that they don't even realize the value of it?

Ben Wolber (03:49):
It's patient reactivation. And what that means simply is, "Hey, I am Ben. I haven't been to your location in seven months. I averaged three plus visits. I've spent a thousand dollars over my lifetime. Someone should probably call me again." So practices are sitting on mounts, loads of that data where there's revenue on the table where they can essentially pick up the phone and I could come back in the practice the next week. So that's where we've seen kind of a shift truthfully in that sense where getting the providers more engaged with their current client base has been fun to see because it ties into what we were talking about earlier with the role-based reporting where if you own a practice and I'm your injector, let's say, you can assign me KPIs, you can give me specific role-based access to Illume.

Bill Walker (04:45):
Why is that valuable to assign specific KPIs and role-based values for injectors?

Ben Wolber (04:50):
Because the pain point that we initially set out to solve was the multi-system consolidation, but then the pain point that we've uncovered by working in this industry is the injectors don't have an easy way to get their numbers. And most of their numbers are tied to their compensation plan, which is obviously tied to the overall revenue of the company. So giving them a simple way to look at their total sales, retail and service-based revenue, and then also add in your goals. It's like, "Hey, if I have a $30,000 a month sales target this month, I'm at $28,000 the last week of the month, you don't think I'm going to be more motivated to upsell this week?" That's kind of the idea that we've been chasing and that's been extremely powerful. And then that's also how we uncovered that client reactivation.

Bill Walker (05:37):
So does it become a way in which you're setting the number of packages? Are they having to translate themselves like, okay, how much does $2,000 equal? How do you make that so easy on the provider to understand seamlessly?

Ben Wolber (05:51):
It kind of ties into Ava, which is our AI analyst.

Bill Walker (05:54):
What is Ava? Who is she?

Ben Wolber (05:57):
She lives on our platform.

Bill Walker (05:59):
Does she speak with a British accent?

Ben Wolber (06:00):
She could. She can. No, but she allows really the end user to simply start chatting with your data. So again, throughout our platform, we have loads of definitions, what that number means, how it's important to you as the end user. But then again, if you have questions, that's where Ava comes in. You're like, "Hey, I need to understand my revenue breakdown for 2026. I just need help understanding that." And then Ava essentially walks you through the steps of a data analysis where it's like, "Okay, here's a breakdown at a high level. Do you want to drill into this area or this area?" You can be like, "No, can you create a view for me so I can-"

Bill Walker (06:40):
So can I talk with her back and forth fluidly?

Ben Wolber (06:42):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (06:43):
So to me, I think about that as the value for me is if I'm the owner of a med spa, I'm probably great at injecting, but maybe I don't have a master's degree in COO or a CPA degree that pre-qualified me to go on the CFO flight path. I'm the CEO because I got to be the boss, but I can talk about all these function areas smartly.

Ben Wolber (07:06):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (07:06):
That's amazing.

Ben Wolber (07:07):
Yeah. And to your point, really our ICP is practices -

Bill Walker (07:12):
What's an ICP?

Ben Wolber (07:13):
Customer profile, our ideal customer profile.

Bill Walker (07:15):
Ideal customer profile.

Ben Wolber (07:16):
And again, ours is practices with less than five locations.

Bill Walker (07:20):
Why?

Ben Wolber (07:21):
Because we feel they have, again, our sweet spot is truthful like two to four locations where they have enough revenue, let's say, and then they also have enough of a team, but they might not have someone in-house to build something like this or someone managing something like this.

Bill Walker (07:37):
Because they can't afford a whole C-suite overlap.

Ben Wolber (07:40):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (07:40):
So they're going to leverage Illume and Ava. Is that what I'm picking up, right? So that makes sense to me. It's like I need a COO, I need a CFO, I need a CMO perhaps. I need HR and I might be able to afford two of those seven players. And so I've got to compound myself and I don't want to work seven days a week. Yeah. I want to work four days a week because Ben's going to take a day off of my place so I can go play 36 holes of golf.

Ben Wolber (08:08):
Exactly.

Bill Walker (08:09):
When you think about practices, what's the difference between a practice that acts on data and one that just collects it?

Ben Wolber (08:17):
Definitely a loaded question, but in terms of really acting on your data, it goes into how they're operating even daily in a sense. So it's a simple example is if, "Hey, I want to buy a new laser." You should probably make a data driven decision with that. There's data available for that, maybe not in your current system, but there's data publicly available. So I think it can touch every aspect of a business, but even simply put, it's like, hey, from a coaching perspective as an owner, great example is like, "Hey, I have five injectors. I see these top two are at X percent utilization, X revenue per hour, and the other three are underperforming compared to them." That's now a coaching opportunity for an owner to go back and be like, "Hey, Ben, what are you doing that Bill's not?" And then it opens that conversation where I might say something, then you as the owner like, "Hey, that makes a ton of sense. Let's implement that with all of our injectors." And then again, using data, you can track the success of that.

Bill Walker (09:18):
So you guys will build KPI, you'll build custom KPI dashboards.

Ben Wolber (09:24):
Oh yeah. It's fully custom. And again, we have industry specific pre-built dashboard templates, but the end user -

Bill Walker (09:32):
So if I don't know what I want to track, you're like, "These are the things you probably should be tracking."

Ben Wolber (09:36):
Yeah. We have off the shelf definitions, off the shelf dashboards, but again, you as the end user can customize those pre-built ones if you like, or you can create your own completely custom view if you want.

Bill Walker (09:49):
Talking about key performance indicators, what's one metric that surprises a lot of owners once you get involved in helping?

Ben Wolber (09:57):
It's that breakdown of your total revenue. So the service versus retail. I feel like the healthy, I guess, benchmark is anywhere from 10 to 15%. That's something that seems really easy to get to, but it takes a lot of time for owners to get to that level of granularity. So quickly surfacing that, it's kind of like a low hanging fruit most of time where it's like, Hey, you're at 5%. There's multiple opportunities to improve that. And you can also break it down by provider, by role. Again, ties back to some of that coaching aspect where you as the owner, you see that, you're like, okay, hey, Ben's at 15% of his total revenue is retail. What's he doing? What's his sales approach? And then you take that learning and apply it to your other employees.

Bill Walker (10:41):
Yeah, I love 15% of sales of retail. Sign me up for that. Those are great margins.

Ben Wolber (10:46):
Oh yeah.

Bill Walker (10:47):
What's it cost to get into Illume for a client and what do they typically see on a return on that investment?

Ben Wolber (10:53):
So if you're a small practice, and what I mean by that is a practice with less than five locations, we have two tiers. So the first one's $150 and that comes with two integrations. And then the next tier is $350 per month and it comes with five integrations. So we don't bill by location for small practices. Anyone with more than six, it ends up being custom pricing, but for our standard off the shelf pricing, it's two tiers.

Bill Walker (11:19):
Got it. And so roughly less than $4,000 a year, if I go that route, what do you typically see clients see a return on that?

Ben Wolber (11:29):
Yeah. I mean, even from hours saved, that's where they make their money back. And then there's other aspects of our platform where it's like revenue opportunities. So for a single location in Cincinnati, we flag $209,000 of revenue opportunity.

Bill Walker (11:46):
$209,000 in a single location.

Ben Wolber (11:47):
Yes. And it's like they're at 350 a month. It's like you hit a percent of that list, you make the money back there. So again, pointing owners in the right direction, that's our whole goal here. And we have an inside hub where when you plug in an EMR, AI is constantly analyzing that and then pushing strategic recommendations at you as the owner. So again, we're just trying to put guardrails up for these owners and it give them a better sense of direction, if that makes sense.

Bill Walker (12:17):
Ben's being humble on this because he just told me off camera maybe an hour or two ago that there's another group that you helped save, what, over a half a million? You identified, you flagged -

Ben Wolber (12:30):
Yeah, we flagged over $600,000 in revenue opportunity for 2026.

Bill Walker (12:37):
For one group?

Ben Wolber (12:38):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (12:39):
I mean, that's impressive.

Ben Wolber (12:41):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (12:42):
Award winner, very, very smart man, is doing good work in the aesthetic space. What's one piece of advice as you've been on this journey that kind of organically came about of maybe this should be a thing that we solve for? What's one piece of advice that you give other founders in this space?

Ben Wolber (13:03):
Take it day by day. It's definitely a roller coaster. Again, I'm a first time founder, so there's highs and lows in everything, but definitely live in the moment. It's been fun. It's been fun building an ecosystem for Illume. We have a ton of amazing partners, a ton of channel partners. It's just been fun getting to know industry experts, even Jessica and yourself over the last year. And we turn a year old next week, so it's fun.

Bill Walker (13:28):
Happy birthday to Illume.

Ben Wolber (13:29):
It's early birthday. So no, that's been fun, but really just take it day by day. There's always going to be ups and downs, but keep going ahead.

Bill Walker (13:37):
What should we be on the lookout for in 2027 for Illume?

Ben Wolber (13:41):
In terms of 2027, we're just really leaning into, I guess, some of the coaching stuff that we're doing. So obviously a lot of our practices are using our platform for coaching exercises. Leaning into that has been fun. And we have some fun stuff in the works that we're going to release closer to the end of this year, which I think will

Bill Walker (14:01):
We'll get sneak peaks at the end of the year.

Ben Wolber (14:02):
Yeah, you can get sneak peaks. It'll be fun. Again, just trying to add continuous value to providers. That's our whole goal here. So always exploring ways to do that. And again, as we onboard more clients, we're learning from them and then taking that feedback and building it into the tool.

Bill Walker (14:19):
They're shedding light on dark corners of your practices that you're leaking money opportunities. They're Illume and they're going to be one to watch. So keep an eye out. They're doing great things in the aesthetic space. Ben, thank you so much.

Ben Wolber (14:33):
Thank you for having me.

Bill Walker (14:35):
If you like that episode of the Aesthetic Appeal Podcast, click, sign in, tune in, and we'll get you more content like this with Ben and Illume with Aesthetic Brokers. I'm Bill Walker, CEO of Aesthetic Brokers, signing on. Thanks.