This is Dr. Aquino-Reyes’s story.
How to sell a med spa at the right time, to the right buyer, for the right price is the question Dr. Maricel Aquino-Reyes had been turning over for almost two years before she opened the form on her phone late one Sunday evening. When the right time came, she called CGK Business Sales. Maricel ran a $3.4M revenue, $1.4M EBITDA aesthetic medicine practice in Prospect, Kentucky, the affluent Oldham County suburb east of Louisville, with the office sitting on US-42 near the Norton Brownsboro Hospital corridor. Sixteen W-2 employees moved through the building each week: Maricel as the solo owner-physician (MD, board-licensed in Kentucky), four registered-nurse aesthetic injectors, six medical aestheticians running laser, body sculpting, and skin-treatment rooms, two patient coordinators, and three administrative and billing staff. The practice ran 35 percent on Botox and Dysport injection appointments cycling on three-to-four-month repeat windows, 25 percent on dermal filler treatments (Juvederm, Restylane, and Voluma) on roughly annual cycles, 15 percent on laser hair removal sold as recurring six-treatment packages, 15 percent on body-sculpting services across CoolSculpting Elite, Emsculpt Neo, and EmFace, and 10 percent on IV therapy and supplemental wellness services. Roughly 2,800 active members were on the practice’s recurring patient roster, with 65 percent enrolled in the Maricel Aesthetics Membership program at $189 per month base or $329 per month premium. Maricel was 47, founded the practice in 2017 in the post-COVID med-spa boom, and over nine years had grown it into a 4.9-star Google-rated aesthetic medicine practice with 380 reviews, an Allergan and AbbVie Brilliant Distinctions provider partnership, a Galderma rewards partnership, top 5 percent national Allē rewards enrollment, CoolSculpting Elite certification, Emsculpt Neo certification, and EmFace early-adopter status. Her husband Carlos, a Norton Healthcare hospitalist physician, and Maricel decided in 2025 to step back so one of them could be home for their three children Sofia 14, Mateo 11, and Luna 9 through their adolescence. Maricel did not want full retirement at 47 but she did want her evenings and weekends back. She came to us in early 2026 because she did not know who else to talk to about how to sell a med spa at this size, with this recurring-membership economics, this Allē top-5 percent rewards depth, and this multi-modality treatment mix, in a market where the buyer pool is dominated by aesthetic platform consolidators that did not exist a decade ago. This page is what happened next, and what could happen for you. Maricel is a composite, not a single real CGK seller, but the patterns and details are pulled from real aesthetic-practice engagements.
The Sunday night before Maricel called us.
Most owners who decide to sell a med spa have been sitting with the question quietly for one to two years before they reach for the phone. Maricel was no different. She was 47. For nine years she had been the solo physician of record, the MD whose Kentucky license anchored every single injection protocol, every laser-and-light treatment supervision sign-off, every controlled-substance order to the Allergan and AbbVie pipeline, and every quarterly Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure compliance audit the practice prepared. The practice ran $3.4 million in annual revenue, $1.4 million in EBITDA at the unusually high 41 percent margin profile that aesthetic medicine commands when the Botox-filler-laser-body sculpting service mix is balanced and the recurring-membership base is healthy, and sixteen W-2 employees including four RN aesthetic injectors (Lainey Boyd RN, Crystal Ho RN, Andrea Nicolescu RN, and Becca Wilkerson RN), six medical aestheticians, two patient coordinators, and three admin and billing staff. The practice had 2,800 active members on the recurring patient roster, with 65 percent enrolled in the Maricel Aesthetics Membership program at the $189 monthly base tier or the $329 premium tier with quarterly Botox plus four-times-annual filler plus two-times-annual body sculpting included. The practice ran on Aesthetics Pro practice management software, was a top 5 percent national enrollee in the Allergan Aesthetics Allē rewards program, was a CoolSculpting Elite-certified provider, was an Emsculpt Neo-certified provider, and had been an EmFace early adopter when that platform launched. Maricel held current memberships through the American Med Spa Association (AmSpa) and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, both of which framed her continuing-education hours and her staff-training rhythm. The practice’s 4.9-star Google rating across 380-plus reviews was a structural moat in an aesthetic medicine market where review volume and review quality are first-pass diligence variables for any patient choosing a provider.
Why owners decide to sell a med spa
Maricel and her husband Carlos sat at the kitchen island in their Prospect home one Sunday night in late January 2026 and ran through the same conversation they had been having on and off for fourteen months. Carlos was a Norton Healthcare hospitalist physician working a typical inpatient-medicine schedule of seven on, seven off, twelve-hour shifts that rotated through days and nights. Maricel was running a single-location aesthetic practice that booked patients five-and-a-half days a week and ran late evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Their three children were Sofia at 14, Mateo at 11, and Luna at 9. Sofia was finishing eighth grade. Mateo was finishing fifth. Luna was finishing third. The math on the next four years became impossible to ignore over the prior twelve months: Carlos’s hospital-medicine schedule was incompatible with a household where Maricel ran a six-day-a-week med spa, and one of them needed to be home through the kids’ adolescence. Carlos’s schedule was harder to compress because hospitalists work in scheduled blocks that cannot be reshuffled around school pickup, and his fellowship-trained subspecialty meant his comp could not be replaced by another physician in their household. Maricel made the call: she would step back. Not to full retirement, because at 47 she still genuinely loved doing injection work and watching patients see themselves differently in the mirror after a Voluma cheek treatment or a Botox brow lift. The post-close vision was specific. One day a week of clinical injection work in the same chair she had been sitting in for nine years, working under the new owner’s banner, finishing by 3 p.m. so she could be in the school car-line. Carlos would keep his hospital schedule. They would have one parent home in the building when the kids got off the bus.
The bigger pressure was the buyer pool. Aesthetic medicine consolidation had been live for roughly six to eight years and had accelerated over the prior twenty-four months as PE-backed aesthetic platforms scaled their roll-up theses across regional Mid-South footprints. Maricel had been approached eleven times in the prior fourteen months: seven times by aesthetic platform consolidators in active platform-and-bolt-on growth phases, twice by larger top-tier consolidators with national footprints in the LaserAway and Skin Spirit and Beautify Group tier, and twice by smaller regional med-spa rollups operated by Louisville-area family-office capital. Two of those consolidators had sent a Letter of Interest with a placeholder valuation envelope through her Allē-affiliated platform partner pipeline, fourteen months before she actually engaged a broker, which surfaced a multiple range that surprised her on the high side and a deal-structure description that surprised her on the low side. Maricel did not know what her practice was actually worth at $3.4 million revenue, $1.4 million EBITDA, with the 65 percent recurring-membership economics, the Allē top 5 percent national enrollment, the 4.9-star rating across 380 reviews, the EmFace early-adopter status, and the four-RN-injector bench. She did not know whether the consolidators calling her were the right buyers for her four RN injectors or her six medical aestheticians or her broader sixteen-person team. She did not know whether her recurring-membership program, her Allē depth, or her CoolSculpting Elite and Emsculpt Neo certifications were value drivers or just table stakes inside a multi-billion-dollar national consolidation thesis. She did not have a single peer in her life who had ever sold a med spa at this size and recurring-revenue economics.
That is the night she found CGK and submitted the form. We called her back at 9:14 the next morning, while Maricel was at the Prospect office between her morning Botox appointments and her early-afternoon filler block.
The conversation we had on the first call.
The first call was 47 minutes. We did most of the listening.
Owners who think about how to sell a med spa in their late-forties, like Maricel, usually carry the same handful of pressures into the first call. Maricel talked about her four RN injectors and the way each one had built a different patient book under her physician supervision protocols (Lainey had been with the practice seven years and ran the largest Botox book by patient volume, Crystal had joined five years ago and ran most of the lip-and-perioral filler appointments, Andrea had joined three years ago after building a following at a competing practice and brought her own patients with her, and Becca was the most recent addition, hired in 2024 specifically to run the Emsculpt Neo and EmFace body-sculpting rotations). She talked about her six medical aestheticians and the laser, hair removal, body sculpting, and skin treatment rooms they ran. She talked about the recurring-membership economics: 65 percent of active patients were on the Maricel Aesthetics Membership at $189 base or $329 premium, which translated into a predictable monthly revenue floor and an unusually high lifetime patient value relative to transactional med spas in the same revenue band. She talked about the Allē rewards program depth and the way Allergan’s loyalty-program enrollment volume was a leading indicator both Allergan and the consolidator buyer pool watched closely as a measure of patient stickiness. She talked about the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure compliance and her physician-supervision protocols for the four RN injectors, which were structured to satisfy the Kentucky Nursing Board cosmetic-injection rules that allow RNs to inject under physician supervision, which is what makes a multi-injector aesthetic practice scalable in Kentucky in the first place. She talked about Carlos’s hospitalist schedule and the family math that had brought her to the call. She talked about her thirteen-year-tenured filler patient who had introduced two daughters to the practice as they turned 21. We asked about the practice the way you would ask if you were trying to understand it, not the way you would ask if you were trying to win the engagement. What we were listening for was not just the financials. We were listening for whether Maricel was actually ready to sell, what she was working toward, and whether her expectations on price were grounded in what the aesthetic-platform consolidator market would actually support.
At the end of that call, we set up a working session: an in-person conversation where one of our Managing Directors would walk Maricel through our valuation model and tell her honestly what her practice was likely to command. We did not promise her a written report. Written valuations involve substantially more work, and we charge for those when a seller actually needs one for estate planning, a partner buyout, a divorce, or another documentary purpose. The walkthrough was free because Maricel was clearly thinking seriously about how to sell a med spa, the way someone thinks about it before they actually do it. Whether that ends up being in a year, five years, or longer, we make the same call.
The valuation session was the following Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. at the Prospect office, before the daily 9:00 a.m. patient block and after Maricel had run through the morning huddle with the four RN injectors and the patient coordinators.
Maricel was not ready to sell a med spa yet. She went home and waited six months.
The valuation session showed Maricel that her practice was worth meaningfully more than she had been hoping in some areas and meaningfully less in others, which is how these conversations usually go. The 65 percent recurring-membership economics, the Allē top 5 percent national enrollment, the 4.9-star Google rating across 380-plus reviews, the four-injector RN bench, the multi-modality treatment mix that spread risk across Botox, fillers, laser, body sculpting, and IV therapy rather than concentrating it in any single service line, the EmFace early-adopter status that put her ahead of competing practices on the platform’s clinical learning curve, and the clean Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance documentation were all premium-multiple drivers a sophisticated aesthetic platform consolidator would pay up for. Two issues were dragging the number down. The first was that the practice had not been packaging the membership economics the way an aesthetic-platform consolidator’s deal team would want to underwrite them. Aesthetic platform buyers underwrite recurring-membership revenue specifically: monthly recurring revenue per active member, member retention by tenure cohort, member churn by acquisition channel, average treatments-per-member-per-year, average lifetime value per member by tenure cohort, base-tier-versus-premium-tier conversion rates, and the cost-of-acquisition per new member sourced from Google Ads, Allē program leads, referral leads, and walk-ins. None of that was packaged in a buyer-grade reporting layer. The second was the physician-supervision documentation for the four RN injectors. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure rules and the Kentucky Nursing Board cosmetic-injection rules were satisfied operationally, but the documentation trail (written supervision protocols, periodic chart-review records, RN credentialing files, scope-of-practice attestations) had been kept the way a solo physician keeps records rather than the way an aesthetic platform buyer’s compliance team wants them organized for a multi-state diligence review.
We told Maricel honestly: she could go to market now and accept the discount, or she could spend six to nine months packaging the recurring-membership economics into a diligence-grade reporting layer (monthly recurring revenue per member, retention by tenure cohort, churn by acquisition channel, treatments-per-member-per-year, lifetime value by cohort, base-versus-premium conversion rates, cost-of-acquisition by lead source), formalizing the physician-supervision documentation for the four RN injectors (written protocols, periodic chart-review records, RN credentialing files, scope-of-practice attestations) the way an aesthetic platform buyer’s compliance counsel will want it, packaging the Allē rewards depth (national enrollment percentile, member-engagement frequency, redemption velocity) into a clean buyer narrative, and tightening the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance trail so the Kentucky-specific cosmetic-injection rule set could be inspected on a single afternoon by a buyer’s diligence team. We said the second path would likely command a meaningfully better number from a wider range of buyers, especially the patient-capital aesthetic platforms and the top-tier national consolidators that pay premium multiples for diligence-clean med spas with documented recurring-membership economics, deep Allē rewards integration, and clean state-board compliance.
This is the part most brokers skip. Most brokers would have signed Maricel that day, taken her to market, and made the commission whether or not the deal was the best one for her. We told her to wait, even though it meant we did not get paid for six months and might never get paid at all if she changed her mind.
Maricel went home and waited. She spent the next six months packaging the recurring-membership economics into a diligence-grade report with monthly recurring revenue per active member, retention by tenure cohort, churn by acquisition channel, treatments-per-member-per-year, and lifetime-value by tenure cohort, formalizing the physician-supervision documentation for the four RN injectors, organizing the Allē rewards program depth narrative, and tightening the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance trail. She read up on aesthetic medicine consolidation through resources from AmSpa and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery while she watched aesthetic platform transaction news through the trade press. She called us back in late summer 2026 and said she was ready to sell a med spa that was finally in the shape it needed to be in.
What we did when Maricel came back.
What it takes to sell a med spa properly
When an owner is ready to sell a med spa with CGK, the speed of the on-ramp surprises them. We took Maricel’s practice to market in just under four weeks once she got us her updated financials, the diligence-grade recurring-membership economics report (monthly recurring revenue per active member, retention by tenure cohort, churn by acquisition channel, treatments-per-member-per-year, lifetime value by tenure cohort, base-versus-premium tier conversion rates, cost-of-acquisition by lead source), the physician-supervision documentation for the four RN injectors, the Aesthetics Pro practice management exports with five years of trailing patient and revenue data, the Allergan and AbbVie Brilliant Distinctions provider-volume reports, the Galderma rewards reports, the Allē rewards program enrollment and engagement data, the CoolSculpting Elite and Emsculpt Neo and EmFace certification documentation, the lease terms and equipment depreciation schedule for the US-42 Prospect facility, the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance trail, and the full P&L breakouts across Botox-and-Dysport, dermal fillers, laser hair removal, body sculpting, and IV therapy. The blind teaser went out to 32 buyers we had pre-qualified, a concentrated funnel because the aesthetic platform buyer pool is narrow at this revenue band (fewer than 15 active aesthetic-platform consolidators in the US that can write a check at this size) and the highest-quality buyers are well-known names that actively shop the aesthetic medicine space. Buyers fell across five buckets we routinely use to think about how to sell a med spa: PE-backed aesthetic platform consolidators in the platform-and-bolt-on phase (the most active band of consolidators on practices in the $2M to $10M revenue range, expanding regional Mid-South and Sun Belt footprints), top-tier national aesthetic platforms with strategic theses (LaserAway, Skin Spirit, Ideal Image, Beautify Group, and adjacent platforms with 50-plus location national footprints), regional med-spa rollups under family-office or operator-physician capital with no PE backing, individual physician-buyers using SBA-leveraged or personal capital (less common at this revenue band but active at the lower end), and a small set of strategic acquirers from adjacent verticals (dermatology platform groups internalizing aesthetic-medicine capacity, plastic surgery practices integrating non-surgical cosmetic medicine into their referral funnels). Each bucket prices the same practice differently, and the most active members of the consolidator buyer pool are routinely engaged with industry organizations like the International Business Brokers Association and the M&A Source, both of which CGK actively participates in.
Twenty-two of those buyers signed NDAs and received the full Confidential Information Memorandum. Thirteen submitted Indications of Interest after data-room review. Seven advanced to Letters of Intent. We narrowed to four for management presentations. Three re-submitted refined LOIs after the management meetings. Two went into a final-final negotiation cycle.
Maricel decided between two of the top LOIs. They were materially different. One was a higher headline price from a top-tier national aesthetic platform that wanted to absorb Maricel’s practice into a broader national network of acquired med spas with a conventional escrow structure, a five-year RN-injector retention earnout that hinged on Botox-volume thresholds and filler-volume thresholds (a structure Maricel found uncomfortable because injector-volume targets are not fully within her control once she scales back to one day a week of clinical work), an inventory-and-protocol-harmonization mandate that would have shifted the practice off its existing Aesthetics Pro practice management software and onto the platform’s national vendor stack, and a fund-cycle long-hold horizon. The other was a slightly lower headline price from a top-tier aesthetic platform consolidator with a long-hold patient-capital thesis, no five-year fund-cycle pressure, a willingness to operate the practice under its existing brand identity (preserving the Maricel Aesthetics Membership program brand and the existing Aesthetics Pro practice management software stack), a thesis around preserving local-physician trust through a “powered by” platform branding model that kept the founding physician’s name on the door, and a willingness to integrate Lainey, Crystal, Andrea, Becca, and the broader sixteen-person bench along with the existing Allē rewards depth without rerouting anything through a national playbook. We walked Maricel through what each LOI would actually deliver under realistic and pessimistic scenarios, including what the cultural continuity would look like for her four RN injectors, her six medical aestheticians, her two patient coordinators, and her three admin and billing staff under each owner. The patient-capital aesthetic platform deal was the better one for Maricel. The cash position day one was meaningfully stronger when normalized for the absence of the injector-volume earnout, the brand-and-protocol preservation was structurally cleaner than a forced harmonization, and the cultural fit with a long-hold platform that valued preserving local-physician trust over fund-cycle exits mattered to Maricel deeply because the Maricel Aesthetics name was, in a meaningful sense, what 2,800 active members had bought into. She took it.
Through the whole process, the same CGK Managing Director who had taken Maricel’s first call six months earlier was the person walking her through every conversation.
What the deal actually looked like.
How the deal looks when you sell a med spa with CGK
This is the part of how to sell a med spa that gets the least attention in the trade press and the most attention from owners who have actually closed a deal: the structure of the consideration package matters more than the headline number. Maricel’s deal closed roughly five months after we restarted the engagement. The buyer was a top-tier PE-backed aesthetic platform consolidator with roughly $420 million in pre-acquisition revenue across 90-plus acquired med spa locations, expanding their Mid-South footprint with Maricel’s Prospect practice as the Kentucky anchor and the regional base for further Louisville-Lexington-Cincinnati roll-up activity. The platform was structured on a long-hold patient-capital thesis (8-plus years), positioned for an eventual second-bite or strategic exit to a larger consolidator or strategic acquirer in the late-2030s window, and operated acquired practices under a “powered by” branding model that kept the founding physician’s name on the door while signaling the platform affiliation in subsidiary placement. They acquired the practice as an asset purchase wrapped inside a stock-purchase wrapper, with the practice operating as a discrete branch under the platform’s regional operating structure, retaining its existing Maricel Aesthetics brand identity, its existing Aesthetics Pro practice management software, its existing Allē rewards program enrollment depth, its CoolSculpting Elite and Emsculpt Neo and EmFace certifications, its Allergan and AbbVie Brilliant Distinctions provider partnership, and its Galderma rewards partnership, and integrating into the platform’s broader regional operations infrastructure over the first year on central admin, billing, inventory, and HR.
The headline price was approximately $9.8 million, roughly seven times trailing EBITDA, which is a premium med spa multiple driven by the 65 percent recurring-membership economics, the Allē top 5 percent national enrollment, the 4.9-star Google rating across 380-plus reviews, the four-injector RN bench, the multi-modality treatment mix, and the EmFace early-adopter status. About 70 percent of the consideration came as cash at closing, funded by the platform’s PE sponsor capital plus the senior credit facility the platform draws on for acquisitions. About 10 percent was held back in escrow for 18 months to cover indemnification claims, a working-capital adjustment, and small carve-outs for Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance continuity through the transition window. About 20 percent was a rollover equity stake into the platform’s holding company, structured at the holding-company level (not the practice-level operating entity), giving Maricel upside exposure to the platform’s eventual long-hold exit. The rollover percentage runs higher in med spa deals than in many other industries (typically 15 to 25 percent versus 5 to 12 percent in many other verticals) because aesthetic platform consolidators specifically tie part of the sale value to the founding physician’s continued part-time clinical involvement. That structure aligned with Maricel’s own goal: she wanted to keep doing one day a week of clinical injection work anyway, so the rollover gave her upside exposure on the equity she was effectively staying invested in. Wire hit on a Friday afternoon at 3:42 p.m. while Maricel was at the Prospect office finishing a Voluma cheek treatment with a thirteen-year filler patient.
Maricel stayed on as the founding physician of record and clinical mentor for the platform’s combined Mid-South aesthetic operations for fourteen months after closing, dropping to one day a week of clinical injection work (Wednesdays, focused on her highest-tenure filler and Botox patients and the EmFace appointments she had personally trained the practice to run) so she could personally introduce her four RN injectors, her six medical aestheticians, her two patient coordinators, and her three admin and billing staff to the new ownership, walk through every major patient-family relationship in the Aesthetics Pro patient roster, lead the integration of one tuck-in Lexington-area practice the platform completed in the twelve months post-close, and shape the regional clinical mentorship strategy across the platform’s broader Mid-South footprint. After fourteen months, Maricel held that one-day-a-week clinical role indefinitely and reduced the mentorship work to a quarterly clinical-advisor cadence that gave her room to be in the school car-line for Sofia, Mateo, and Luna every single afternoon they wanted her there.
What happened to Maricel’s people and her patients.
The people-side of how to sell a med spa usually weighs heavier on the principal than the financial-side, even when the financial-side is what triggers the call to a broker in the first place. Maricel cared most about her four RN injectors Lainey, Crystal, Andrea, and Becca, the six medical aestheticians who had on average six years of laser-and-body-sculpting case experience under her supervision protocols, the two patient coordinators who knew most of the 2,800 active members by face and by treatment history, the three administrative and billing staff who had built the Allē rewards integration and the Aesthetics Pro patient-roster hygiene that made the recurring-membership program work, and the patient population itself: 2,800 active members, plus another 1,400 on the inactive-but-recoverable roster, who had built the kind of multi-year provider relationships that are the institutional knowledge of an aesthetic medicine practice. The patient-capital aesthetic platform was a long-hold operator who would actually run the practice under the existing Maricel Aesthetics brand identity through the “powered by” platform branding model, rather than parachute in regional operations consultants from a fund-cycle integration playbook. That made the people part substantially cleaner than it would have been under the higher-headline-price national consolidator that wanted to harmonize the inventory stack against a national vendor list and absorb the practice into a single national identity.
The buyer kept all sixteen W-2 employees, honored the existing pay structure across RN injectors, medical aestheticians, patient coordinators, and admin and billing staff, and committed to keeping Lainey, Crystal, Andrea, and Becca in their roles with expanded scope including a pathway to junior-equity participation in the regional aesthetic operations. The Aesthetics Pro practice management software was retained as the system of record, with the platform’s national reporting layer pulling clean exports from Aesthetics Pro rather than migrating off it. The Allē rewards program enrollment was retained at the practice level, which protected the patient-loyalty engine that anchored 65 percent of the recurring-membership base. The Maricel Aesthetics Membership program brand was retained, with the platform offering members the option to upgrade to a national member-portability tier at no extra cost (which appealed to roughly 22 percent of the active member roster within the first six months post-close). The CoolSculpting Elite and Emsculpt Neo and EmFace certifications transferred cleanly under the new ownership, and the platform committed to refreshing the equipment depreciation schedule in years three and four post-close. The Allergan and AbbVie Brilliant Distinctions provider partnership and the Galderma rewards partnership transferred cleanly. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure and Kentucky Nursing Board compliance trail (built around Maricel’s MD license and the four RN injectors’ physician-supervision protocols) was preserved with Maricel staying on as the supervising physician of record one day a week and a second supervising physician credentialed by the platform on file for the days Maricel was not clinically on-site. The 4.9-star Google review pattern continued, with the platform committing not to migrate the Google Business Profile away from the existing review history.
Maricel was at the Prospect office on a Friday afternoon in late summer 2026 when the wire confirmation came through. She had just finished a Voluma cheek treatment with a thirteen-year filler patient. She walked the patient out to the parking lot, said goodbye, and then drove east through Prospect to pick up Sofia, Mateo, and Luna from the carpool line at school. She drove home and waited until Carlos got home from his twelve-hour hospital shift. They sat at the kitchen island eating lumpia her mother had brought over the day before. Maricel said in Tagalog: “Tapos na” (It is done). Carlos kissed her on the forehead. Sofia rolled her eyes. Luna asked if they could go to Disney World. Mateo asked what would happen to their dog Bisquick. Maricel laughed, told Mateo Bisquick was not going anywhere, and started reheating leftover pancit on the stove.
What Maricel told us afterward.
Why owners who sell a med spa with CGK keep coming back
Most owners who sell a med spa do not call the broker again in the first year. The ones who do call usually want to talk about the parts of the engagement that, in retrospect, mattered more than they realized at the time. About four months after closing, Maricel called the Managing Director who had run her engagement. She said two things that the Managing Director still tells new sellers about.
The first was about the six-month wait. She said: “Two of the platforms that had been calling me, including one whose LOI envelope I had already gotten through my Allē program partner pipeline, were ready to move in 60 days, and three different practice-transition consultants I talked to before you told me they could take me to market right then with the recurring-membership economics still sitting in raw Aesthetics Pro exports nobody had pulled into a buyer-grade view. The reason I sold with you is that you told me the truth about how my membership program and my Allē depth were actually being valued by aesthetic platform buyers, the truth about what packaging the recurring-membership reporting layer would buy me in LOI conversations five months later, and the truth about how the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure documentation needed to look before a sophisticated platform’s compliance counsel got into it. You told me what would happen to the price if I went out without fixing those things. I would have left more than $1.4 million on the table.”
The second was about who she sold to. She said: “I almost signed with the higher-headline-price national consolidator because the number on the top line was bigger and the brand was a name everyone in aesthetic medicine recognizes. The fact that you walked me through what each buyer would actually do with my four RN injectors, my Allē rewards depth, my Aesthetics Pro patient roster, my Maricel Aesthetics Membership brand, and the Kentucky Nursing Board cosmetic-injection compliance trail I had spent nine years building, what each buyer’s hold horizon would mean for my practice three and five years out, and how a long-hold patient-capital aesthetic platform with a ‘powered by’ brand-preservation model was structurally different from a fund-cycle consolidator that wanted to harmonize the inventory and re-brand to a national identity, is a conversation I never even thought to have until you raised it. I sold to a buyer who is going to keep this practice the practice that my members walk into and recognize.”
This is what we mean when we say we sit with you in the decision, not just the transaction. Maricel is one composite story, but the pattern is real. The owners we work with who decide to sell a med spa usually find their way to us through versions of Maricel’s situation, and the relationships start with a long listening session and a free walkthrough, not a pitch.
Ready to sell a med spa? Where are you in Maricel’s story?
If you are starting to think about how to sell a med spa, we should talk. There is no commitment and no pressure. The first conversation is free. The valuation walkthrough that follows is free when you are seriously thinking about selling, whether that is in a year, five years, or longer. We only charge for formal written valuations, and only when you actually need one for estate planning, a partner buyout, or another documentary purpose. Submit the form and a senior CGK Managing Director will reach out within one business day.
If you are Maricel at month 1: just exploring
You are not sure if you want to sell yet. The aesthetic-platform consolidator thesis keeps moving, your recurring-membership economics are stronger than you realize but you have not packaged them, your physician-supervision documentation for the RN injectors is operationally solid but has never been organized for an aesthetic-platform buyer’s compliance counsel, the family math is starting to tell you something, your spouse’s schedule is incompatible with running a six-day-a-week practice, your kids are entering adolescence and you want to be home for it, you are curious about how a buyer would value your Botox-versus-filler-versus-laser-versus-body-sculpting service mix, or maybe a PE-backed aesthetic platform or a top-tier national consolidator has been calling you for fourteen months. Most of our best engagements start here. Submit the form and we will schedule a working session. You walk away with a real number and a clear sense of what to do next, with no obligation to do anything.
If you are Maricel at month 6: ready to go
You have done the work to clean up the practice. The financials are tight. Your recurring-membership economics are packaged in a buyer-ready report (monthly recurring revenue per active member, retention by tenure cohort, churn by acquisition channel, treatments-per-member-per-year, lifetime value by cohort, base-versus-premium tier conversion rates, cost-of-acquisition by lead source). Your physician-supervision documentation for the RN injectors is organized the way an aesthetic-platform compliance counsel will want it. Your Allē rewards depth narrative is packaged. Your Aesthetics Pro practice management exports are clean across five trailing years. Your facility lease and equipment schedules are mapped. Your Kentucky or other state board compliance trail is ready for inspection. Maybe a buyer is already in the conversation. You want to run a real process. Submit the form and we will be in touch within a business day to talk about timing, scope, and what your first 30 days as a CGK seller would look like.
If you are not sure where you are
Most owners are not sure. Submit the form and start with the conversation. We will figure out together where you are. We are equally happy to tell you to wait twelve months as we are to take you to market in three weeks.
Or call us directly at (888) 858-7191.
Start your own story
A senior CGK Managing Director will respond within one business day. Strictly confidential. For owners of med spas and aesthetic medicine practices doing $1.5M+ in annual revenue, including solo-physician aesthetic practices, multi-injector RN-and-physician practices, recurring-membership-heavy med spas, transactional service-mix med spas, single-location and multi-location practices, and practices with CoolSculpting Elite, Emsculpt Neo, EmFace, or other body-sculpting platform certifications. The first conversation and the valuation walkthrough that follows are free for any seller seriously thinking about selling, on any horizon.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK business broker, not a junior screener.
One of these eight people would lead your engagement.
When you decide to sell a med spa with CGK, one named senior Managing Director stays with you from the first call through the wire transfer, just like Maricel’s Managing Director stayed with her for six months and then for the engagement that followed. Our Managing Directors come from Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and operating-business leadership. Cornell MBA. U Chicago Booth MBA. CFA. CMT. Naval Academy. Goldman Sachs. Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank. AIG. T. Rowe Price.
What sellers say after they sell a med spa (and other businesses) with CGK
I could not be happier with the experience I had selling my business with CGK. Greg did a detailed analysis of my business and helped me price and position it right for the market. After receiving multiple offers at full asking price, the rest of the process went very smoothly, and we closed in less than two months.
Hanna M.Selling my business was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had Wes by my side throughout the process. He brought perspective, pushed when necessary, and always had my best interests in mind. His experience and strategic approach allowed me to maximize the sale price while minimizing long-term risk and obligations. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose him as my broker.
Adam NevilleDerik located multiple interested strategic buyers that produced more than one serious offer. The negotiations were tough but Greg and Derik’s experience helped us overcome. We got a great result for our employees and for the owners. We would recommend them without reservation.
Bob TaylorWe sold a business that was 47 years old and being run by second generation within a year of working with Wes. CGK has a system that attracts serious prospects to review opportunities. Wes was able to make the overwhelming feeling of selling easy and to a certain extent enjoyable. I never felt alone or in the dark throughout the entire process.
Jennifer WilliamsWe decided to sell our company in 2025. Talked to another M&A company in the Houston area. We felt very comfortable with Greg and Matthew at CGK. Could not have made a better choice. From day 1 till final closing and even after 30+ days, they have been here helping us with documents and support during the transition. Thanks can not be said enough.
Rickey ThomasInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
Maricel’s husband Carlos was the one who first sent her a clip of CGK on Bloomberg. He had been catching the segment on a Saturday morning between hospital shifts and recognized the firm name from a med spa trade article about how to sell a med spa he had clipped from an aesthetic medicine industry publication three months earlier and slid across the kitchen counter to her. He sent her the link with a note that read “Mari, this is the firm.” CGK Business Sales is featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation.
The CGK office Maricel called was the CGK Louisville office. Yours might be one of these.
When you sell a med spa with CGK, whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Maricel worked with a CGK Managing Director based out of the firm’s Louisville office, but her deal benefited from a buyer pool we sourced firm-wide, including the patient-capital top-tier aesthetic platform consolidator that ultimately won the engagement. Click any city to learn about our local presence and the named Managing Director leading that market.
Other Questions Maricel and Other Med Spa Sellers Ask Us
Practical answers to what comes up before, during, and after the kind of engagement Maricel went through, when you sell a med spa with CGK.