If you would have asked me 6 years ago
if I would be where I am now, I would have thought that was a really crazy story and I wouldn't have believed it. The last year our revenue grew like by 78% in one year which most med spas were staying the same or declining. Hello, welcome to Illumine podcast. This is my very first episode. Uh, my name is Kim Peters. I live in Kansas City. I have two med spas in the Kansas City area and I am wanting to talk about how I got to where I am and share that experience with everyone. Illumine uh is a word that I when I first discovered it, I hadn't even heard of it before and I had to look up the description of it. And what it means is to it's very close to illuminate. So, it means to shed light or to enlighten someone. And I feel like in my life, that is really my goal um for my patients and for others who are in the same boat as me, whether they're women in business um while they're trying to improve their health, uh look better, feel better, their leadership roles, I want to help bring everything that I've learned along the way and share that with them so that they can in essence step on the head of a giant, right? instead of trying to figure it out over and over, what have I learned that I can provide for those so that they can also be successful. My journey um to where I am today, if I mean, if you would have asked me six years ago if I would be where I am now, I would have thought that was a crazy really crazy story and I wouldn't have believed it. Um, I was working as a nurse practitioner in um, orthopedics for a while and then I was in internal medicine and I would round on patients in nursing homes and I did the classic very typical nurse practitioner role of working in medicine, working for a hospital, being paid hourly. Um, and in my mind that was just kind of where I would start and end my career. And it wasn't until much later in my life that I realized that I was actually more of an entrepreneur. And looking back, I can see little um tidbits or crumbles of things that I've done through my journey of life that have led to me being an entrepreneur. The the entrepreneur that I am now. Back in 2017 2018, um I was working four jobs at one time. One of them was a business that my husband and I had built and we went through some marital struggles. Um, and that led to a point where we were no longer a good fit for each other. And I'll just probably just leave it at that. Um, and he left and I had two kids, a business that we built together as well as the three other jobs that I was working and I was left with all the bills and it was a stressful time. Um, I did not like that feeling. I really think that that's what drove me was the feeling of un instability. And so I needed to find something that would provide me additional income um to give me that security back that I was going to be okay, but it needed to be flexible so that I could still take care of my kids. I had this idea um that I would do mobile orthopedics. I would provide um care for patients in long-term care facilities that had a hard time getting out to the doctor's office. And it was a great idea as far as like being financially lucrative or beneficial. It ended up not being quite that. However, I was traveling to I made my own business. I got my own business. I got a medical director. I was traveling to about 25 different facilities in Kansas City and it worked really well because I was able to make my own schedule and make that little extra income. Then um a friend of mine approached me. He was the rep for Galerma and he said, "Um, you should get into aesthetics." Like, I'm not that's crazy. Why would I do that? That's I I didn't even do anything in aesthetics. I'd never done Botox. I probably used Clean and Clear, which is like a brand of facial cleanser that most people don't use anymore. And he kept hounding me and he said, "I think you'd be really great at this. You should give it a try." I really just thought he was being a sales rep. But long story short, I ended up thinking, well, maybe I could do this on the side. I could do it for friends and family for my neighbors. So, I went ahead and went through the training, got the product, started injecting. I trained a little bit. I injected um my neighbors. I gave them 50% off. I got some before and afters. Well, then they started telling their friends about it and they had a great result. And most people in my community had not been doing that as well. So, this was like a new thing for Fast forward, um, I had gotten to a point where that just got busier and I needed to have a place to go and see patients that was a little bit more formal than my living room couch and um cuz I had dogs so I had dog hair and I have kids and I'm I wouldn't say I say I'm organized but I'm not the cleanest person in the world. So I was tired of trying to get it all cleaned up all the time. So, I rented out a room from a um for $500 a month and I started seeing patients there. Um I'm going to go back a little bit and talk about kind of where this desire came from. Um so, when I was working in internal medicine, I would have a lot of women coming to me their weight and how they felt and they felt tired. Um they felt like their hair was changing. They felt like their skin was changing. um they were gaining weight and they were doing everything the things that all the things that they have been doing before. So they're exercising, they're trying to diet, they're almost starving themselves and they're making no progress in the direction of feeling good about themselves. And so as a working in internal medicine and not being really appropriately trained on hormones or even weight management, I didn't have many answers for them. And so I went and got some training on this and I came back and I started applying what I my knowledge of weight management to these and it just became so rewarding because they would come like if I could get them just to lose a little bit of weight the next time that they would come into my office they're standing taller, they're smiling, they're um wearing clothes that are a little bit more form fitting. And so this reward of seeing them come back over and over again feeling better and better and better about themselves really fueled me. That was that was my gratitude or that was my my drug of choice was to see my patients get better and feel better. It was genuinely rewarding to me. So fast forward now we're back to um to our aesthetics. So that bleeds into that as well, right? So if somebody gets Botox for the first time, they have wrinkles on their face that make them feel old. they get Botox. Um, those wrinkles smooth out, they feel younger, they feel fresher, then they start to feel better about themselves. So then I start to realize that this this area of weight loss and then this area of aesthetics, I was combining those two and I was really changing how people felt about themselves and it just unfolded. Um, I feel very fortunate. It just kind of unfolded naturally on its on itself. I those people that I saw told their friends and then those friends told their friends and it just grew and grew and grew and finally I had reached a point where I needed to make a decision about do I stay in this space that I'm at where I work full-time and I have that, you know, very reliable job that gives me health insurance that I'm going to get paid the same no matter what. It's a salary. Um that even if we slow down on patients, I'm still going to get paid. Like I don't there's a lot I don't have to worry about that. But I wasn't happy in that space. Um, and I lacked control in that space about what I wanted to do for my patients and or do I make this leap and gra jump fully into aesthetics and wellness space? So, I did obviously um for those that know me have a few places that I run. It was one of the best decisions I made was to jump into that space and I quit my job. The last year our revenue grew like by 78% in one year which most med spas were staying the same or declining. Part of what I do now is I consult with other med spas and um wellness centers and other practitioners or professionals in the space and they ask what are you doing or what do you do different or why are you so successful and I don't know that I could tell you specifically because it's really hard to track that in my opinion. I think a lot med spa and wellness space because it is very it can be potentially very very lucrative and I when I started it I had no idea that it was lucrative. I truly and genuinely did it because I was I was seeking that reward of having somebody feel better about themselves. And I know that sounds sappy. That's generally where I started. And I think that that focus of getting people the results that they're looking for and doing it safely and effectively and doing it over and over over again and then layering things for people so that they continue to get that grat get that gratification of feeling better is really what got us to where we are now. And the the cool side is that it's very lucrative. So, I definitely um appreciate that part of it cuz you know, you got to you got to have a job and make money somehow. But when I think about all the years that I have put into this and all the time that I've put into it, um I've enjoyed the entire process, but I've learned so much about who I am, what kind of person I am, how I think, and how I work. Um I've learned a lot about people. I've learned about how they all function differently um and how they receive um appreciation differently and that they grow differently. And I've learned how to have greater boundaries for myself and I've learned how to grow and I've learned what not to do. I've learned a lot of what not to do because I've just kind of tried things and figured out it didn't work. One thing that I truly enjoy is um is also teaching and teaching other people how to do things. Um, I do that. Uh, I contract with I do some consulting on the side that's independent, but I also contract with a company um called InMode and train other med spa owners on how to use their devices, how to use them effectively. And I I believe that I've been successful with that because there is some skill that I've earned or learned is to be able to communicate things to others in a way that makes sense for them where the light bulb goes off. And that light bulb is also rewarding for me. If I can help somebody be successful with something that they've struggled with, it's very rewarding and fun. So, as I'm building my business and this podcast, really the intention is that I um further share those things with other people. and not only from my own experience, but I want to bring in other people that have had a similar but different um experience and different perspective and see how they can also contribute to sharing to others that are in the space that we are that are trying to grow and change and get better at what they're doing. We're going to talk about being a woman and and all that's surrounding that. Um we're going to talk about being which is like a mom. um fitness, wellness, health, being in business, being a career person, um being a leader. I want to talk about all those types of things as well as all the challenges that I've met, how I've grown from that and how I can share that to other people so that they can also grow. Um I and it's not just I it's not just the business aspect. I also want to talk about hormones, uh, weight loss, cortisol levels, um, aesthetics, injectables, um, different treatments so that we can all kind of understand and grow on the knowledge that I've earned over the past several years. What I want for those that are listening are to is is to find value in what I'm learn from my mistakes, but also my successes. Um, there's things that I have failed at. there's things that I've succeeded at and I would love to share that to make somebody else's journey to reaching their goals a little bit easier and a little bit more attainable. And also my goal is to make it very relatable. I've listened to a lot of speakers um and some of them are just kind of hard to listen to um and hard to grasp. Not that they don't have value in what they're communicating, but my hope is that I can communicate everything that I would like to share in a way that makes it sense to somebody and it's applicable to what um what their needs are. I think something else that I want to communicate is that um a lot of this stuff isn't quite as hard or as intimidating as it seems. For example, I wanted I recognized that managing people's hormones was going to be exponentially bene beneficial to my patients that I was doing them a disservice by not educating them on that and providing some sort of service to solve that problem. However, I wasn't educated or wellversed in it. And what I didn't want to do was go to I was very intimidated by the whole concept of hormone replacement therapy because I didn't want to hurt anybody. I wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I wanted to be an expert right away and I wanted to be effective in making people feel better. And so I probably spent a year and a half researching different um education tracks of how to become sex successful with this. And I did not like the idea of going to a weekend course and then coming back and treating people for hormones. There was in my mind there was no way that that was possible or reasonable way to start doing something so big as hormone replacement therapy. I mean, we're talking about people's health and how they feel. And I kept calling other nurse practitioners and colleagues and trying to find out what they did and how they were successful. What do they recommend? How do I do this? Do I can I shadow you? Um and it all everyone said the same thing. They told me that um you just have to start somewhere and so you start with that weekend seminar and then you you you execute that knowledge at a at a basic level and then you grow on that and you keep educating yourself and you just keep going to more conferences. So where I'm I'm using this as an analogy is that people look often at the big picture of doing something really grand and they of course that's going to come with problems and challenges and it's going to be intimidating but if it was simple everybody would do it but it I guess what my message is is that it is it's attainable and that um I hope that I can lead people in a way that if you take small steps and look and kind of break it down and cut it down into little slices and just chip away at it a little bit at a time. Those great things are very attainable and just about anybody can be successful with that. If you are relating to anything that I've talked about and you want to grow your business or you just really need some validation or some encouragement and want to hear from other women who have met similar challenges, have already conquered them and you hope to grow from that, then I strongly recommend that you follow Illumine podcast. Thank you for listening. This is Kim Peters. You guys
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