Cathy Uecker, owner of Simply the Best Aesthetics in Grand Rapids, Mich., joins Lynne for a discussion about building a better skin care business through relationships and a strong anatomical knowledge. What began as a youth account for her child blossomed into a personal and business relationship that has grown in strength over the years. Listen today!

Click here to visit Simply the Best Aesthetics!

 

 

Transcript

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00:06 Lynne Jarman Johnson: Money I’m home. Welcome on in, I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. From Finance to Fitness, that’s what we talk about on this podcast every week. And every once in a great while, I have the opportunity to talk with a dear friend, and today is one of those days. So, let’s close our eyes for a moment, and sitting across from me is Cathy Uecker, and she owns the most beautiful Med spa. And I want to tell you something, when I met her, we were both running around like chickens with our heads cut off, with little toddlers. How many years ago?

 

00:45 Cathy Uecker: Oh, 20.

 

00:46 LJJ: 20 something. Dah.

 

00:48 CU: Jack just turned 21.

 

[laughter]

 

00:51 LJJ: And I’ll tell you what, there has been so much joy to watch you bloom into a business owner. And today we’re going to talk about that success and the journey that you’ve been on. Cathy, thanks for being with us today.

 

01:05 CU: Oh, thanks for coming today.

 

01:07 LJJ: So, we are in your beautiful offices of Simply The Best. You’re also a training center. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about what you do, but I really want to back up a little bit and get; where did you start and how did you get involved in the med spa world?

 

01:26 CU: Well, I grew up in Kansas City, and the practice that I worked for there for 15 years, we were a teaching facility. And so, where I taught residence for 15 years in all maxillofacial facial plastic practice, and all kinds of procedures. And during that time, we also started… Well, one of the very first dermal fillers that came out was collagen, and that would have been 1985, I’m going to really date myself here. So, I started injecting collagen, we opened up a skin care center in our facility, and I started injecting collagen in 1985. It didn’t stick around very long just because it doesn’t last very long, so it kind of went by the wayside. And so, at that time, we did a lot of face lifts and deep chemical peels, because there weren’t superficial non-surgical things available at that time. Fast forward, met Bill, my husband, and got married, moved to Michigan, November of 1994. And he’s in medical sales, and so he started his own company with medical sales in aesthetic equipment, and so we co-owned a Med spa in East Lansing from 1999 ’til 2002.

 

02:47 LJJ: What’s a Med spa?

 

02:49 CU: Well, really non-surgical procedures in the med spa arena really came into play right about 2000, and that was because Botox was kind of on the horizon, which gained FDA approval in 2003. But in ’99 to 2000, 2001-ish, microdermabrasion and laser hair removal, those were the main stay of med spa facilities. And because I had already done those procedures, and not laser hair removal, but done the chemical peels in Kansas City, one of the plastic surgeons, he was new and he was opening his practice, and Bill said, “I encourage you to put in a skin care room and a laser room.” He said, “Because you’re going to want to do these procedures.” And so then now it’s grown from that to injectables.

 

03:41 LJJ: So, you really… I mean, what’s your education then? How do you learn? Because truly, I’ve spoken to you, and I’m always amazed at how much you know about not just the products but literally the background of your facial structure, and what’s good and bad and…

 

04:02 CU: That foundation started when I was in surgery in Kansas City. So the practice I worked for there, we were doing orthognathic surgery, which is breaking the bones of the face, and moving jaws for the occlusion biting surface, but then I learned… What changed my career path was after I started working corporate… I’ll back up for a second. When we co-owned the practice, one of the products that came out was one of the first dermal fillers, was called Radiesse, and Bill was representing that product as a salesperson. And it was one of the first dermal fillers after collagen that was really no longer being used. And so, when the product came out, I started training physicians in our practice on how to use it because I had already been doing dermal filler injections in Kansas City. The CEO of the company asked if I would leave the practice that I was in, if I would be interested in starting their clinical group for the company that sold Radiesse. I said yes, because I was ready to not drive to back and forth North Lansing any longer. And so, I worked corporate for 10 years as a clinical trainer. During that time, a lot of new fillers came on the market, which means that a lot of injections, more injections are being done, more people are doing them, and more adverse events were occurring.

 

05:23 LJJ: And you’re right in the mix of all of this.

 

05:25 CU: I was right in the mix of it, correct. And so, I had the very good fortune of attending a meeting, and Joel Passa who is a plastic surgeon, facial anatomist at UT Southwestern, in Dallas, was giving a presentation on anatomy saying that it’s not the dermal filler that’s causing the adverse events, it’s anatomy-related. And he had discovered some new facial anatomy. And as I’m watching the presentation, I’m thinking, “That’s exactly what’s happening. It’s getting trapped in, so on and so forth.” Ended up emailing him, not thinking I would ever get a return email from him, and I did. And multiple conversations, he said, “Call me on Saturday.” He said, “You’re absolutely right on your assessment, [muffled] explain this, call me on Saturday.” Several phone conversations later, he said, “Cathy Uecker, you just need to come down here and see the anatomy, I can show you in just a short period of time, when we’re having this conversation stuff.” Fast forward, I’ve worked with him several times now over the years and it completely changed my career path. Because I could no longer train in the way that we were showing injectors how to inject product, it was bordering on not safe.

 

06:36 LJJ: Wow!

 

06:37 CU: And he continues to mentor me to this. I mean, he’s a dear friend.

 

06:40 LJJ: Well, you’re also now a published author.

 

06:42 CU: Yes, I am.

 

06:44 LJJ: In a really important chemical book.

 

06:48 CU: Yeah, Chemical Peels. That’s it. Yeah. And once again that comes from my years in the practice I was in, I call the practice I grew up in.

 

06:57 LJJ: So you know what is interesting to me, is that there was a lot of time that women and men would not talk about what they would consider… “Look, I’m not going to tell anybody I’d like to do this or fix this wrinkle,” or whatever it might be, they just didn’t want to talk about it. And that’s changing.

 

07:20 CU: It is changing. And we have that discussion amongst patients that I see and all the time. They say, and certainly the younger ones they say, “Oh my parents would have never talked about this.” Well, guess what, your parents are talking about this. [chuckle] But it has. It’s kind of come full circle now.

 

07:36 LJJ: The one thing that my friends always say to me is, “But I don’t want to look like X.” And it might be a Hollywood star whose lips look like they’re blown up, and that’s the fear.

 

07:47 CU: That is the fear. Yeah. Well, and once again, I will credit Joel Passa for it, he really truly showed me how to work with the anatomy, and where to inject where not to inject. Where when you actually see what the anatomy really looks like, you can give a much more natural result with a lot less product.

 

08:05 LJJ: So, tell me about this business, and how you started and when you began. And we’d like to say thank you, you’re a partner with consumers credit union, a great business partner, which we love. How did you start?

 

08:20 CU: Well, after leaving corporate in 2012, I started my own company, and because of the territory, it was so vast that I was covering when I was working corporate, I made a lot of relationships a lot of good connections. And so those offices would still contact me to come teach them facial anatomy, because they knew who I was working with and what I was learning. When our youngest, Jack, who just turned 21, left for school, actually, this was probably his junior year in high school. Bill, my husband, said, “We should open our own practice again.” And I said, “You know what, if we could find some place between our house and the highway,” I said, “I would maybe consider it.” Because I was traveling a lot with my own business, and we did. Look long and hard, it took a long time, and we finally found this location which ended up being perfect. And so I just decided, “You know what, I’m just going to grow slow and organically.” But at the same time the offices I had already been doing trainings with, I had a facility for them to come to versus me going to them.

 

09:30 LJJ: So, it’s not just that you’re open for anyone to come in and find out about your services and the products that you have. You’re a training facility.

 

09:39 CU: Correct.

 

09:40 LJJ: What does that mean?

 

09:41 CU: And thank you for asking that, because I will often get emails or phone calls to see if I would teach aestheticians on. And I say, “No, you really go through a program first and we can kind of help you beyond that.” But primarily, the training that I do is for advanced injecting, which is for physicians and nurse practitioners, and nurses that are learning to… They’ve already gone through some basic training, already have their own practice and they’re looking to learn more.

 

10:09 LJJ: And you bring that anatomy focus in?

 

10:11 CU: Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

 

10:13 LJJ: It’s different, isn’t it?

 

10:14 CU: It is different.

 

10:15 LJJ: Than what others do. So, what do you have here?

 

10:19 CU: My main stay of the practice are injectables, so they’re the wrinkle relaxers, the Botox. There’s now newtox, there’s the zyderm fillers the Juvederms, Restylanes, Radiesse, Bellafill, and so that’s the main stay. And then, I have an aesthetician, Deidra, who does facials and does micro-needling and does microdermabrasion. And Julie, who does eyelashes, and permanent makeup, and we just do general skin rejuvenation as well.

 

10:50 LJJ: How do you coordinate the training with your everyday business?

 

10:56 CU: Well, when I decided that, because it is a small business, and I really did want to own the business and not have the business own me. I said my posted hours, if you will, are Tuesdays through Thursdays I see patients, Mondays and Fridays I do by request, because on Mondays and Fridays, those are the days I hold open for trainings.

 

11:15 LJJ: Tell us about your partnership with Consumers, how has it been?

 

11:18 CU: It has been wonderful. I could tell a lot of stories about how I like Consumers so much, they really are like family to do business with. And that is no joke, I walked in there and they call you by your first name. A dear friend, when one of our sons was graduating from high school, gave him $100 gift certificate, not a gift certificate but a check to open an account at consumers. So, I said, “Gosh, that’s brilliant.” So, we took his check and we went to consumers and he opened an account, and I went with him, and put all of his graduation money in there, and after sitting there for the 20-30 minutes, talked with him. I said, “I’m opening an account here myself.” And so I did and thus began a relationship with consumers, and we decided when we opened the business, that was only one who we were going to do business with.

 

12:11 LJJ: You do then have a personal and a business account?

 

12:12 CU: Yes.

 

12:13 LJJ: And a lot of times people will say, “Oh a credit union, you know what, can they even help a business?” Has that been a pleasant surprise?

 

12:23 CU: It has been a very pleasant surprise, and they’ve been very helpful. Stefani, who is our direct contact person, is that she really does, we call her, email her, and she’s there at the drop of a pin and literally bends over backwards to help us.

 

12:39 LJJ: So, since you’ve opened, what’s your greatest pride?

 

12:44 CU: That we’re still open and loving it two years later. [chuckle]

 

12:48 LJJ: It’s not a bad thing.

 

12:49 CU: Yeah, it’s not a bad thing.

 

12:50 LJJ: You laugh about this, but you’re in business with your husband.

 

12:53 CU: Yes.

 

12:53 LJJ: Sometimes that can get a little bit dicey.

 

12:55 CU: It sure can.

 

12:56 LJJ: But it sounds to me like you guys have it all worked out.

 

13:00 CU: Yeah.

 

13:00 LJJ: So, what are the top three questions that you get from someone who says, “Hey, I am interested in these fillers. I’m interested in trying to look better, feel better, healthier, but I’m scared.”

 

13:15 CU: The first appointment someone has here is for an hour-long sit-down consultation. And I have them look in a mirror, and I hand them a white pencil, and I leave the room for a moment. And I say, “Just look in that mirror, and whatever it is, wherever your eye goes, make a mark, and however many marks you put or as few as you may… Because it’s all about you. Let’s focus on the areas that bother you.”

 

13:39 LJJ: What happens in the transformation? Do you see people who just go, “You’ve gotta be kidding me, why didn’t I do this earlier?”

 

13:46 CU: Yes. Absolutely. And I say less is more. Just kind of dip your toe in the water, start with some basic skin care, you can truly see some changes by just being consistent with the skin care program. And it’s about gaining trust, it really truly is about gaining someone’s trust, and having a couple of sit-down visits with them before you do anything.

 

14:04 LJJ: Well, I can tell you that I have now been on the facial serum for almost a year. Literally people stop me and they ask me what I’ve done. What have you done? And it’s truly a wonderful simple…

 

14:23 CU: Simple and effective.

 

14:23 LJJ: Simple and effective cleaning of your face. It’s not difficult. I can tell you that I’m a testimony for that walking every day.

 

14:31 CU: Right. It’s simply the best is keeping it simple.

 

14:32 LJJ: And it is simply the best.

 

14:33 CU: You don’t need… It is simply the best.

 

14:35 LJJ: Cathy Uecker, Simply The Best aesthetics, is a Consumer’s partner, business partner of ours, and also Cathy, a very dear friend. Thank you so much for letting us into your office and your life today, we sure appreciate it.

 

14:48 LJJ: Money, I’m home. Finance to fitness. Thank you, Jake Esselink, our producer. And we will talk to you next week.

 

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