Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast episode #62: The Natural Ups and Downs of Business and Building a Skincare Brand with Tori Paide and Marla Peoples

Today I’m talking with acupuncturists Tori Paide and Marla Peoples, who co-founded the clean skincare brand, TOMA Skin Therapies.

They’ve opened multiple practice locations and currently run the Stillpoint, a wellness center that offers acupuncture, massage, and skincare.

And they teach fellow acupuncturists how to do facial gua sha and microneedling, both online and in-person. These classes are usually free and worth several NCCAOM PDA credits each, by the way. Check them out here.

As you’ll hear in the interview, I discovered Tori and Marla by taking their free microneedling class last year and have since integrated it into my practice, and I use their skincare line as well because I’m always searching for products with clean ingredients without hormone disruptors, fair labor practices, sustainable packaging, etc.

We dig in and talk about everything. I think you’ll enjoy this one!

In this episode we talk about:

  • How both Tori and Marla left corporate careers to become acupuncturists
  • The struggle behind their decision to add skincare services into their acupuncture clinics
  • The reason they felt compelled to create their own clean skincare brand
  • Their transition to teaching skincare PDA classes to other acupuncturists online, and why they love it so much
  • What Kenny Rogers has to teach us about entrepreneurship
  • Why closing a practice isn’t a failure
  • Success as satisfaction
  • And so much more

🎙️ Listen to Episode #62: The Natural Ups and Downs of Business and Building a Skincare Brand with Acupuncturists Tori Paide and Marla Peoples

Show Notes:

Thank you to our new sponsor, Jane!

Jane offers online booking, charting, scheduling, secure video and invoicing on one secure, beautifully designed system.

I use Jane in my practice and I love it! 💙

Check out Jane here.

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Transcript:

[MICHELLE GRASEK] (00:04)

Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grasek, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community, take marketing action with confidence and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives. So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.

[JANE.APP] (00:34)

Before we get into our episode of Acupuncture Marketing School today, I’d like to take a moment to introduce our sponsor, Jane. Yes, this is the first time I’ve ever had a sponsor here on the podcast. I’m thrilled to be a Jane ambassador. Jane is an all-in-one practice management software designed to help you streamline your acupuncture practice. I recently switched my EHR to Jane, and I’m very excited to share that process with you. If you’ve been following along with me for a while, I loved my previous EHR, but there were a few features I was looking for that really motivated me to make the switch. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing a full episode about the transition and why I decided to make the change.

(01:14)

With helpful features like online booking, electronic chatting, insurance, billing, and much more, Jane works hard to keep up with your busy practice, and if you need a helping hand, you have access to unlimited phone, email, and chat support included in all Jane subscriptions. Their team was really wonderful when I went through the process of moving my patients and my appointment calendar seamlessly into Jane. If you’re interested in learning more, head to jane.app/acupuncture-us. Or you can use the ACUSCHOOL1MO, that’s all one word, at sign up to get one month free of Jane. I will include both the code and the link in the show notes just to make it really easy for you if you want to check it out.

 [MICHELLE] (01:56)

Alright, let’s get into this episode. Hello there. Welcome back. Today I’m talking with acupuncturists Tory Paide and Marla Peoples, who co-founded the clean skincare brand, TOMA Skin Therapies. They also run the Stillpoint, a wellness center that offers acupuncture, massage, and skincare services, and they teach fellow acupuncturists how to do facial gua sha and microneedling both online and in-person. These classes are usually free and worth several NCCAOM PDA credits. As you’ll hear in the interview. I discovered them by taking their free microneedling class last year and have since integrated it into my practice. And I use their skincare line as well at my office because I am always searching for products with clean ingredients, without hormone disruptors, that follow fair labor practices and have sustainable packaging, et cetera, et cetera. We really dig in and talk about everything, what motivated them to create a skincare line, their path to success in building multiple practice locations, knowing when to close a location and how running a business really is filled with normal ups and downs. I think you’ll enjoy this one. Let’s dive in. Hello. Welcome. How are you both?

[MARLA PEOPLES] (03:15)

We are good. Doing well, thank you. How are you doing?

[MICHELLE] (03:19)

I’m doing well. Thank you so much for being here. I am really, really excited to talk with you about all of the different areas of expertise that you have in the acupuncture industry. I have been following you guys for a while. I have taken all of your free PDA classes, I ordered my microneedling kit from you, which is going well at my practice, and I felt like it was just a wonderful microneedling class. I was a little worried will I be able to see what’s happening and I absolutely could. So yeah, I’d love to talk to you about your practices, about your classes that you teach, other acupuncturists how you got into acupuncture, everything. I am really curious, how did you both decide to go to acupuncture school and when was that?

[MARLA PEOPLES] (04:03)

Yeah, do you want to start?

[TORI PAIDE] (04:03)

Yeah, I’ll start. I was a super stressed out 29-year-old in Washington DC and was getting a myriad of physical symptoms from that stress. I went to an acupuncturist and that evening I started researching acupuncture schools and making a decision that I was going to make a career change. It was amazing that this woman was making however many dollars, I did the math per hour, of course there’s so much more that goes into a business. I mean, it’s not just, there’s a lot of overhead you have to pay, but I was really, really excited about the experience I got in that time and I could absolutely imagine myself doing that for other people. So it was a major career shift from international development and government work, acupuncture.

[MARLA] (04:52)

In a similar sense, I was in a corporate environment. I worked in a technology company. I had gone to grad school for psychology, but moved into human resources and moved into executive recruiting, training and development. At the time, the technology company that I worked for was really skyrocketing and we were starting to move some of our resources out of the country. I was actually about to go to India with the company, but that whole time I was super stressed. I was getting acupuncture, I had suffered from migraines, and the only thing that worked for me was acupuncture and right before I was moving to India, 9/11 happened. My company went through this massive, like six rounds of layoffs and I just thought, this is not for me, this isn’t healthy, this isn’t fun anymore. I went to get back to working with people, helping people, partnering with them for their wellness journey. I walked into the acupuncture school. At the time I was seeing Diane Connolly, got on the table and she put her hands on my head and she said, “you’re home,” and I registered that day.

 [MICHELLE] (05:56)

I love it. So you went to acupuncture school at the same time and you own a practice together, but was that immediate? Did you graduate and then open a practice? What did that progression look like?

[MARLA] (06:09)

We graduated together, we met in acupuncture school, had various little businesses during that journey. I actually have had a separate practice in the beginning, and then I can let you talk about your part, so I had my own practice that I was doing locally. At the time Tori lived closer to DC and I was in closer to the Baltimore area.

[TORI] (06:29)

Yes, so we started off apart, I mean, separate. I started in one little room like many acupuncturists do. I rented my space, it was $800 a month, I remember, I was seeing like three patients so I couldn’t afford … so I was referring my patients out to other practitioners, other holistic healers and then I thought, well, wait a second, why don’t we all just come under one roof because we’re all paying rent and we’re all not maximizing it. Then I rented that little space out to other people. This is, before it was called the Stillpoint. I can’t even remember what that business was called, but I was looking across the street, and this is in Tacoma Park, which is an adorable, charming little historic district outside of DC and there was a building that looked like it was being renovated. Six weeks later I was in there and we had four rooms and we were all basically sharing the rent, is how the Stillpoint started. It’s the name of the wellness spot, it’s called the Stillpoint.

[MARLA] (07:27)

What’s funny is I was picking, so at the time I was overseeing, I was about to take on a project of overseeing a space for rental where I would be practicing and then there would be multiple treatment rooms. I had dinner with Tori and I said, “What are your thoughts?” We were talking about business. I had grown, which I was happy, I had success, I had successfully grown my practice, but now wanted to do something more challenging and that night at dinner we’re like, why are we not doing this ourselves? So like literally we said, if we find a building that’s freestanding where we live, we’re doing it and I think like within the week we found the building and then, it was less than a year, we were open and we had a full renovation of this building and we opened the Stillpoint locally.

 [MICHELLE] (08:09)

Is that your first location? Have you had multiple locations since then?

[TORI] (08:13)

Yeah, so the Stillpoint in Tacoma Park was the first, and it’s still open. We’re celebrating 16 years this summer. Then we, Marla and I came together, that location closer to us was called, was in Clarksville, Maryland, so between DC and Baltimore. Then we opened a third location in Columbia, Maryland, a beautiful location below a whole foods big, huge visibility on a gorgeous lake. That business closed. We had some just issues with partners and business, and I know we’re going to be talking a little bit about business, so that’s why I’m bringing it up. It has not been an easy linear route to success over the 16 years. So as for the Stillpoint wellness spa, we have one location, and that’s in Tacoma Park, Maryland.

 [MICHELLE] (08:58)

Got you. Yes, I feel like it’s never a linear route to success like we think it will be.

[MARLA] (09:05)

Exactly.

 [MICHELLE] (09:06)

I know that you run the practice as a spa, and that’s a very, has a distinct meaning for you, and there’s a specific way that you’re running it. So if you could share a little bit about that, I think that would be really helpful for everyone.

[TORI] (09:20)

Sure. I was so hesitant. I still am hesitant in calling it a spa. Actually, we’ve dropped the tagline, a wellness spa mainly because we don’t need to identify that anymore. We have a very, very strong presence in the community and everyone knows who the Stillpoint is. But spa to me was a place, and this is how we got into skincare too, spa to me, was a place where you go on your birthday or it’s a special occasion and it’s just sort of fluffy treatments where you’re not getting like a real healing, treatment or something that goes deeper than just a massage or a facial. Until few years into the Stillpoint, I came across an esthetician, so someone who does facials and skincare, and she said, “Well, why aren’t you adding facials in here? Like this totally would go.”

(10:06)

We were doing, we had a shamanic healer, we were doing massage therapy, we were doing acupuncture, of course, reiki, really in the healing arts. So when she suggested facials, I was like, no, no, no, we are not a facial place. like that that is just going to make me not seem as authentic as an acupuncturist. I really had an issue with that. But we made it fit and made it fit really well. I think we blend classic spa, day spa even a little bit of luxury with acupuncture and alternative medicine. It took a little stop and go, again, not linear, like learning from our mistakes and cutting things out. I mean, we did nails at one point and then just really learning and understanding our identity I think is what landed us where we are today, which is a beautiful blend of day spa and wellness center, sort of healing heart center.

 [MICHELLE] (11:05)

You do have a clean skincare line. I’m so curious, how did you decide to create your own skincare line? I feel like plenty of people have an interest in that, but no idea where to begin or really how to scale.

[MARLA] (11:21)

Well, the idea actually came when we were pregnant at the same time when we were in acupuncture school. For me, I actually was on bedrest midway through my pregnancy, and Tori would come over regularly and the midwife and the functional medicine doctor, all the people I was working with talked about endocrine disruptors because at the time, if think about the early 2000s, soy was a big thing, soy pasta, soy this, soy that. I had no idea what I was doing to my body. So I learned so much about food and the beauty industry and that these products include or incorporate endocrine disruptors, which for me, I think was really having the influence on what was happening in my body. So at the time I was actually getting my products from England and it was being sent over. We had talked about it and as Tori mentioned for the spa, she had been talking about with to an aesthetician about bringing in clean skincare and it just seemed a natural progression of the business once it started. Because we talked to people about stress management, we talked to people about taking care of themselves, water intake, what are you doing for balance, and yet no one’s talking about what you’re putting on your body that can be absorbed into your bloodstream that can be, have a cumulative effect on your health. So, yeah, we did a lot of training. I don’t know if you want to add anything before we talk about the training.

[TORI] (12:46)

Yes, I mean it was not like, oh, wake up one morning, let’s start a skincare brand. I mean, there’s so much that goes into it. Finding a lab with the integrity and traceability and everything that was important to us, and then formulating products. So it was really, there were a, at the time when we started skincare, I knew that this was going to be a whole inventory issue, all these things that we needed to bring in. I also looked at the opportunity for retail for really passive income looking at how can I just like not be working so hard with patients or in the treatment room, but other passive ways of making money. So it was definitely looking for skincare brands that were going to sell and that we’re going to be really good for the patients that we were putting what we’re putting on their bodies.

(13:30)

So that was a whole going from selling other people’s products where we buy them at wholesale, sell them for retail to formulating. I mean, this is a three-, four-year journey and then there’s been iterations. We’ve expanded the line, we’ve cut down on the line, done lots and lots of different things and now I think we’re really, where we’re seeing the brand really come alive is in the treatment rooms of acupuncturists and holistic doctors and healers, looking at what they can do to add something else to their menu really have this opportunity to bring a service into the treatment room that per minute makes them more money. It’s just not so hands-on. I mean, it is hands-on, but the timing of the microneedling treatment, for example, is very, very short compared to how much time you spend with the patient.

(14:21)

So getting people really comfortable with doing the services and knowing that they can sell these products to their patients either immediately or through our affiliate program or something has really worked out brilliantly. That’s really where I think we do have a direct-to-consumer piece of the line. So anyone can come and buy products from TOMA, but where we’re seeing things really expand is through our acupuncture partners. We’re just thrilled to be teaching them, being in front of the camera, coming alive, teaching everyone. It’s not just about the service itself or even the TOMA products, but really how to market yourself, how to start something new, how to have the courage to step into something like skincare, which may feel like, oh, I’m not a healer anymore. That’s really been fun to work with acupuncturists.

[MARLA] (15:12)

Well, and if you think about it, like, so we started with facial rejuvenation. That was how we first started incorporating any type of cosmetic acupuncture protocol into our practices and over time it’s just evolved. But what we never had until we started doing it at the spa with skin cares, we never had something to talk to people about what to put on their skin that we trusted. So when we created TOMA, our entire team, everyone was trained on the healing properties of essential oils for medicinal benefits. We brought in from last year, a clinical aromatherapist, we had our lab, which follows Eco Cert, which are European standards. So there was so much involved, but the team at the time was trained from beginning to end with us.

 [MICHELLE] (15:58)

I really appreciate that you have this clean skincare line because I’ve been advocating for my patients to use clean skincare for years. I feel like still people have no idea what it is. I’m always like, visit the EWG website and look for the Skindeep database and put your panting shampoo in there. It’s going to be a seven or an eight out of 10, and you want a zero. Like that’s your goal. When I have patients finally listen to me and put all of their products in there, first of all, they’re crushed, which I understand, because I feel like everything that you can buy at Walmart is not great. I have to do an enormous amount of research before I bring anything into my practice because I’m looking for things that are like between a zero and a two on their skin deep EWG scale and those products are expensive. They can be hard to get. I order things from Korea.

(16:53)

And then I finally watched your class with the microneedling and all of your products are clean products. I just want to emphasize for anyone who’s not familiar with microneedling, that you’re creating all of these tiny little microtraumas in the skin and then anything that you put on is going to be absorbed at a much higher rate. So you want to, like, you must have clean skincare to put on the skin during microneedling and after. So for me, it just fit in with my cosmetic practice so well, and also just makes my life much easier because now I am not like scouring the internet for skincare that’s super clean because I know where to look. So I appreciate that very much. I also appreciate, I can’t even imagine the amount of research and trial and error that you had to do to create these products in an ethical way, like ethical sourcing and then also have them be clean skincare. It’s so many steps.

[MARLA] (17:50)

Well, and to be honest, and thank you for that because we’re, it’s nice to know that you appreciate, that you do the research and that you’re looking for products. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that skincare, beauty, product industry, it’s not regulated, organic or natural. So we were determined to shift the way people think about skincare.

 [MICHELLE] (18:17)

Yes, it takes quite a commitment. I always tell my patients that there’s like a thousand ingredients that are banned in the European Union that they just use over here in the US. It’s like a, it’s the wild west. It’s a free for all.

[MARLA] (18:30)

Absolutely.

 [MICHELLE] (18:31)

Let’s talk about your classes a little bit. I feel like it is a big shift to go from building and scaling practices and having a skincare line to say, now we’re going to teach other acupuncturists online and be an NCCAOM PDA provider. What made you decide to take that leap?

[TORI] (18:51)

I think we all have CEUs we’re required to take. Over time we’ve had these conversations that we took this class, but what are we going to do with it now? How are we going to incorporate it into our practice? Like, what are the steps? Do we take a class and then we leave it? It’s on us. So through the spas, we have always been training and teaching and just evolving protocols and procedures. When we started talking about acupuncturists and how can we merge with the TOMA line, we just saw this opportunity because of this growing beauty industry and this holistic skincare industry. We just saw an opportunity to do what we love, which is helping acupuncturists being successful, loving what they do. So it just evolved and it’s just been, it’s so much fun because it’s not scripted. We know what we’re going to talk about because we have this training, but you get us authentically and we talk about the protocols and the history. But it doesn’t end when you end the class. You get our support and we have people email how do I create a package or what’s this? Then we teach product knowledge training. So it’s this ongoing relationship which we love to have too.

 [MICHELLE] (19:59)

And I do feel like in watching the progression of all of your classes over the past, at least a year that I’ve been watching, and you may have been doing it before then I can tell that there is so much more business support. Do you know what I mean? Like, people are realizing that they can ask you for help in like, how would I structure my own practice to be like what you have done. I think that’s amazing because I think there just are not enough successful acupuncturists who are willing to share sort of the nitty gritty behind-the-scenes and give advice and say, “This is how we do it. Maybe this would make sense for you.” When you guys are on your classes, I know that you stay and you spend a lot of time answering people’s questions and you really care to be helpful in building people’s acupuncture practices along with them. So that is amazing.

[TORI] (20:50)

Yes, and I mean, we don’t require you buy our equipment or our products. Of course, we’d like you to, but it really is a, I look at it also as sort of a give back to the community because to your point, I don’t think there is enough business advice out there, whether it’s for free or not. I think it’s just really important to help guide people on their journey of especially starting something new. I mean, we have a business class, we have two classes, we have our Acu Glow, which is a facial gua sha course, and our microneedling course. Those are probably the biggest and most popular. But we also have a business course, it’s one NCCAOM PDA, and that business course is about retail and packages and passive income.

(21:31)

It’s just been really great to talk with people who actually, a lot of acupuncturists, even though we’ve been in this world for 16 years, they don’t even know the difference between wholesale and retail because they’re not reselling products. It’s really basic, but it really gets people thinking about, okay, how can I maybe just add something, not even TOMA. I mean, we talk about other lines, we talk about other product lines that we have the utmost respect for, and we promote them. There’s no kickback or anything. We just want to see acupuncturists use retail as a tool to make more money. And it’s so, yes, making more money and making sure that they are selling something that they can stand behind products with integrity. That is probably the most important thing and the passive income is the second.

[MARLA] (22:18)

Well, if you think, a lot of acupuncturists will talk about journaling, sell a journal, because otherwise they’re going to walk out the door and buy the journal from somewhere else. So you’re giving them the tools that they need versus the client, the patient walking out the door saying, “Oh, I’ll get it,” and then they don’t get it. They can walk out and do that work as soon as they leave.

 [MICHELLE] (22:37)

Yeah, I always feel like whenever I recommend something that I don’t sell absolutely, or if I’m like, well, you can look it up on Amazon, if I don’t give them the link, they’re not looking it up. Their intentions are so good. As a patient, I do the same thing to my acupuncturist. She’s like, “This would be really good for you. Here’s where you can find it.” I’m like, “Okay, next time.” I see her, I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t look it up. Can you just send me the link, like that baby feed me.” That is what people need.

[MARLA] (23:07)

Absolutely.

 [MICHELLE] (23:09)

You mentioned that the path for business success has not been linear, so I’m so curious if you feel like sharing, what are some of the challenges that you’ve run into with all of these different arms of your businesses?

[MARLA] (23:22)

I want to talk about being female owned too. So as female business, there’s just challenges in itself, when we were going to rent spaces and needed our husbands to sign. When it was our business and we had a proven track record, we were fortunate locally, especially for TOMA, to find a local county run fund actually that supports women and business growth and really put their faith in us. So it’s been interesting from that perspective. In terms of our own growth, and Tori mentioned that we had a couple of locations, so we have our first location in Clarksville, Maryland that was open for five years. We merged that into a larger retreat. The lesson on that was just honestly, we brought in an outside partner and we went into a very large, it was beautiful. It was a 27,000 square foot retreat. We had our spot within it. We had TOMA, we had TOMA facial services, body services. Our acupuncturists were trained in all things facial and cosmetic rejuvenation plus acupuncture treatments. Sometimes if it’s too good to be true. You just have to be mindful of that. I think we could talk about the journey in other ways, but it just, really trust your gut when making business decisions. Don’t be in a rush to grow too quickly. Know who you’re getting into a relationship with and really do your homework.

[TORI] (24:43)

I’d say too, I mean, the biggest thing that we are just understanding or whatever it’s finally clicked, is know where the money’s coming from. Start with a budget. I look back on that one room that I rented that I couldn’t afford when I got into Accu Acupuncture School. I was doing a lot of like law of attraction work, all sorts of things just to cross my fingers because I took that leap of faith. Well, in retrospect, I should have brought on a few people who would chip in on the rent in the beginning so that I wasn’t so completely on my own. I mean, no regrets, but know where the money’s coming from, know what the budget is. Don’t be afraid of looking at the budget. It can be very, very scary when there are negative numbers, but we just got to strap on our big girl pants and face the music. I think that was something that for years was hard to do.

(25:37)

We didn’t get ourselves into any big trouble or anything like that, but just tons of sleepless nights and worried about money. I think that’s just budget, budget, budget, so important. I know not jumping in and googling for someone who’s going to help you with Facebook advertising or Google advertising and not understanding the technology is a problem. I think like not knowing everyone calls themselves a marketer. Everyone says they’re going to help you build your practice. Okay. There are a lot of people who can help you build your practice, but you have to understand what their job is. You have to be able to manage them and get samples of their work because too many times and references on that road from, from other people who have done it well. I mean, we still, we just, no, not still. We just within the past nine months, found someone who we really trust and who was successfully doing are Facebook and Google ads.

[MARLA] (26:34)

I mean, we’ve gone through thousands and thousands of dollars with bad marketing. I mean, yeah, that’s just bad paid marketing. Even people who are setting up our email flows just not really. We had to get in, dig in and understand the software. So I know that that is overwhelming and scary, but baby steps to building something, establishing relationships with people that you trust. I know you have such a great resource for acupuncturists and how they can improve their business and you’re an acupuncturist. So there’s just something to be said about that. I’m not saying, and there are not a lot of acupuncturist marketers out there. Right. There are not a lot of acupuncturists. Right.

[MARLA] (27:17)

Company getting advice from, from someone who knows your business, I think is really important. Well, and that’s a really key point because so many times we would say, well, we don’t know how to do this. So we would outsource it, and we weren’t satisfied because it was never in our voice. Right. So then we would get frustrated, then we’d spend this money and say, so like Satori’s point, we really did need to understand and do need to understand the technology and what’s happening. We’re capable of doing it. Now, from a timing perspective, as we grow, that will shift. But it’s our voice for all the people who told us that TOMA or isn’t our voice. Like it is our voice. It’s who we are. We’re passionate about this brand. We created this brand for a reason. When we closed our last location in 2018, my son actually said to me like, why are you quitting?

[MARLA] (28:05)

It was a conversation of it’s not quitting when you own a business, it’s shifting. Like, you have to evolve, you have to know if it’s healthy for you, if it feels right for you, if you are not thriving. It’s not something that’s, that is health. Like, again, I just use the word healthy. Like we were, we were in an unhealthy relationship and we ended that relationship, which required us to close a business. But closing that door opened the door for TOMA to grow even more with acupuncturists and to help other acupuncturists be successful, which is what we love to do anyway. So, yeah. I like to quote Kenny Rogers, “got to know when to hold ’em, got to know when to fold ’em, got to know when to walk away. Gotta know when to run.” I think that’s like the best business advice I could give anyone. Right.

 [MICHELLE] (28:52)

I was speaking to someone recently and we were talking about the idea of building a business with the goal of selling it someday or thinking about retirement and just the question of do you have to retire from a business after 40 years in order for it to be considered successful? If you are in the black and you make enough money to support yourself and your family for like a decade, and then something happens, the economic climate changed, or I’m not going to stay in this area. Like, why is that not a successful business? You were literally successful for 10 years, but you intended to retire there. Like, you can’t see the future. So, I don’t know, I think we should have more kindness for ourselves and remember like, wow, you built and maintained this amazing thing for a substantial amount of time. That feels like a success to me.

[MARLA] (29:42)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

 [MICHELLE] (29:45)

Do you have any advice for, I would, I mean, you just gave us a lot of really good advice. What about for new grads who are thinking about how they can set themselves up for success? What do you wish you had known when you graduated?

[MARLA] (30:00)

Well, I, for me, because I had been doing a little bit of business development in my previous career, it’s a little tricky. Although being an acupuncturist was a whole new world with a whole of audience. I was about relationship building. I did not have a website, and now I’m really grow by word of mouth for my solo practice. But I really pounded the pavement. I went to doctor’s offices and chiropractor offices and gyms. I, at the time, I think we’re about allowed with covid times we’re allowed to start going back into these places. But I would do these brown bag lunches where I would do, I would have like, I would do auricular and then I would educate them on acupuncture, and I would get a couple of clients from that. Then I would go to health fairs for businesses. So I really put myself out there.

[MARLA] (30:50)

It was for me to grow on how to talk about what I do. So I was really confident it. Then I just established relationships for referrals. So I was not afraid to ask doctors for referrals. OB-GYNs for referrals. And my patients, I tell them I grow by word of mouth. I, who, who do you know who needs acupuncture? So it just don’t be afraid to ask. People don’t know that you have room in your practice or that you’re them in your practice, or that you’re looking for clients. Ask them for it. So that’s what’s really worked for me. Then of course, like there’s the email marketing that you, that you do. It’s like, so all of that, like you get your clients, but how do you stay fresh in front of them so they keep coming back?

[MARLA] (31:28)

You know, and I think to answer the question about like, what do I wish I would’ve known, I wish I would’ve known and been okay with the absolute truth that there are seasons to every business and being five element acupuncturists, it’s cool we can it all comes full circle. But any business, every business goes through winter goes through wintertime. I mean, the Stillpoint shut down for March through August. I’m like, I can’t even tell you how many months that was. It was so traumatic. I thought I was losing the business during Covid, that was wintertime. during that time, we were able to come back with a bang. We were able to do what the trees do during wintertime, which is conserve the resources so they can have a fruitful spring. So I think that there’s winter in every business.

[MARLA] (32:14)

There’s summer and there’s just drinking from a fire hose some days and like when is spring going to come? Then the letting go that has to happen during fall, “you got to know when to fold ’em,” and just to know that like, that is no matter where you’re, you’re directly out of school. Whether you’re 20 or you’re 40, whatever the age is, whatever experience you have, every business goes through seasons publicly traded, multi-billion-dollar companies go through seasons too. So just to know that there’s going to be great and there’s going to be scary and everything in between, and it’s all completely normal. We used to do this exercise, I don’t remember when we first started, people, the practitioners would start working with us. We would say, design what your week looks like. How many clients do you want to have on your book? And literally write, put that in. So if you’re working Monday and you have a six hour time block, how many people are you getting in there? And just put it out there as if it was going to happen. And like, I kid you not, it really happened because they were, they were putting that energy into it. They were, they were focused on their growth and their success. It was pretty remarkable.

 [MICHELLE] (33:26)

I feel like whenever I am working with marketing clients long-term, like we’ll have a couple different marketing avenues going at the same time. It’s, I feel like you never know where are the patients actually going to come from? It almost doesn’t matter. But they’ll say, oh, I’ve noticed since I’ve been posting regularly on Instagram and I have the Google ad and whatever the third method might be, that’s been going great, but I have been getting so many referrals, or I’ve been noticing patients are coming from this unexpected place. I always tell them, it’s about that energy that you’re putting into the universe with your, with all of your marketing that’s saying, yes, I’m here. I’m ready. I comfortable being visible. Even if you’re not totally comfortable at first, fake it till you make it and then you will be comfortable. But it’s such a strange and amazing thing that I’ve seen so many times is just tell the universe what you want and then no guarantee how it is going to arrive at your door. But it will, it’s pretty amazing.

[MARLA] (34:26)

Absolutely amazing.

 [MICHELLE] (34:27)

So I have one last question for you both, and I ask everyone this question, what is your definition of success?

[MARLA] (34:35)

That’s good. I don’t think anyone’s ever really asked me that, which is really interesting. I would say it has success I guess is a positive word, like positive versus negative word. But I think it’s more like satisfaction. It’s like, do I feel satisfied? Do I go to sleep? Feeling like things are either buttoned up or with a plan. It’s not necessarily a, there’s not a dollar amount on it. There’s not anything really to reach for. I mean, one thing I think is really, really critical is goal setting, just to backtrack that a little bit and successes, reaching those goals. But for me, I think it’s really, there’s this, there’s this sense of satisfaction. I think maybe it’s just as I get older in life, I see the ups and downs that people go through.

[MARLA] (35:24)

And neutral is actually a success to me. Being where I’m feeling good. Where there’s balance in my life. There’s time for my family time to grow the business doesn’t have to be on this hugely gigantic trajectory up. It just needs to feel, I need to feel satisfied. I’m similar to that for a while. I think in the businesses, I struggle with finding that balance. So having that balance and having that time with my family and friends and loved ones is really important. Success is really like, I feel like my soul is nourished. Like it’s fed. And honestly like when we end a class, an online class, and last week we had an in-person one. That feeling of knowing that we worked with people and we could make an impact and we could see others be successful. Like that’s success because then everything else comes from there. That’s just incredibly satisfying.

 [MICHELLE] (36:23)

Well, thank you so much both for being here. I know you’re super busy. I really, really appreciate it. I will include links for your p d a classes in the show notes Of course. But where can we find you online? Where can we follow you?

[MARLA] (36:37)

Yeah, so you can find us online at TOMA Skin Therapies. That’s plural therapies.com. And up at the top there is a button that says professional resources. If you click on that, you’ll go to our professional portal and you can sign up for classes there. You can apply to be a professional partner. We have no minimums. We don’t put you through like the ringer. If you want to open up a wholesale account with us you can buy one product if you want, at 50% off. So that’s a really unique, quick way that people can, can get in touch with us. Social media. The same at Thomas Skin Therapies.

 [MICHELLE] (37:12)

Perfect. Well thank you so much. Very nice to have you here today.

[MARLA] (37:16)

Thanks so much, Michelle. Thank you so much. We love what you’re doing.