What It Really Takes to Build a Medspa Empire From Scratch

Bill Walker (00:00:10):
Welcome back to Aesthetic Appeal, the official podcast of Aesthetic Brokers. We have a very special episode for you today. We are on location studio 1A at the Derm FX studio with Erin Alonso, the founder of Derm FX. One of the cutting edge entrepreneurs in the aesthetic space is a thrill to get to interview Erin in her home studio, in her home court, undefeated record.

Erin Alonso (00:00:40):
Well, welcome. Welcome in. Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:00:42):
Thank you for having us.

Erin Alonso (00:00:43):
Glad to have you guys here. All right. Well, yeah, I've never had anybody in the business besides, I guess, my people around. So welcome. Yeah. It's like having my first real guest, I feel like kind of different.

Bill Walker (00:00:58):
This is not true. This is incredible. What a creation. Could you just talk a little bit about for those who are watching this and more importantly for those who are listening, kind of describe the scale of this operation, if you would.

Erin Alonso (00:01:13):
It's kind of huge, but I'm really lucky though, because my husband's in the movie industry. So I do have to say I have a little bit of an in. It's not the usual setup, I don't think. I mean, I've never been on anybody else's podcast except for a Zoom, so I don't really know what goes on in other ones. So you'll have to tell me, but I know that my husband's extra, so it has to be extra. If he's going to do it, he's going to go big.

Bill Walker (00:01:37):
There's a lot of awards in this family, both on the aesthetic side and in the cinematography side, that's for sure.

Erin Alonso (00:01:43):
Yes. He's very picky about how it looks and how it goes down and all the things. So yeah, a lot of big lights and a lot of stuff going on, but it's a pretty big studio. They do green screen here so you can kind of make it look however you want. If you wanted horses running behind us, they can do it. So it's kind of a cool place. Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:02:02):
If I were going to pick a backdrop, I would probably go for some sort of tactical aircraft in the backdrop.

Erin Alonso (00:02:08):
That'd be cool.

Bill Walker (00:02:08):
We could be flying together so I'm like, I could be your co-captain in the back. Right. There you go.

(00:02:15):
One's on guns and the other ones-

Erin Alonso (00:02:17):
Can I have a pink hat? We can absolutely make a pink hat for your-

Bill Walker (00:02:21):
Helmet. I guess it's not a hat. It's a helmet, right? Yeah. They call it a helmet.

(00:02:24):
You have your heads up display slewing around looking for targets to inject?

Erin Alonso (00:02:28):
Yes. All right. Well, that sounds like fun.

Bill Walker (00:02:30):
Okay. So speaking of phenomenal creations, if you would, take me back to the creation of Derm FX to the early years. How did the idea come about? Because you are really one of the pioneers in the aesthetic space. It's incredible. If you would kind of talk to the people who don't know about the story of Derm FX and how you came about.

Erin Alonso (00:02:53):
Well, I was a really burned out nurse as nurses become and I became a nurse practitioner and I just thought I wanted to do anything where people don't die. I thought that was dermatology. So I thought, all right, well, good enough. Well, you can't go from doing ... I was doing traumas to dermatology. That's like way too boring. I was kind of like. Once I got there, I was like, "Oh, well this isn't great, but it just wasn't what I thought it was. " And then I read an article about Botox and I was like, "Whoa, this stuff is insane. Every chick on the planet would want this".

Bill Walker (00:03:26):
And what year was this?

Erin Alonso (00:03:28):
That was, I want to say maybe in 1998.

Bill Walker (00:03:35):
Okay. Yes.

Erin Alonso (00:03:36):
Yeah. So I was kind of like, maybe 97 even, but I was kind of like, "Wow, this stuff is nuts." And I tried talking to my boss about it during, "Oh, what? Absolutely not. No way. No, no, no, no. Get your brain out of the gutter. This is about medicine and life and death." And I was just kind of like, "No, it's not. "

Bill Walker (00:04:01):
By the way, how I ended up in aesthetics too is kind of a similar path where I was doing the Marine Corps and you're like, "Man, is there anything other than life and death, right?" Can I make people feel great about themselves?

Erin Alonso (00:04:13):
There you go. So I was like, yeah, what's the opposite of that? Making people feel great. So I was like, oh, it was an easy way for me to slide in and feel like, wow, this is really cool because I'd been on the life and death part and then I'd been on the part that was just the everyday mundane, just sitting in there sewing skin all day basically is what I did. He would make these monster gashes from Mohs surgeries and I would sew them up and it was just, that's boring. How long can you sit there?

Bill Walker (00:04:38):
And now you heal skin.

Erin Alonso (00:04:40):
I want to heel skin all day long. And actually I was all-

Bill Walker (00:04:42):
And you're really great at it.

Erin Alonso (00:04:43):
I was always traumatized too by how he would gouge people too. I guess looking back too, it was a perfect fit for me because I've always been like a foofy girl. I always wanted to have a new lipstick or a new perfume.

Bill Walker (00:04:55):
What's your favorite color, Erin?

Erin Alonso (00:04:56):
Purple pink. Actually, a funny story is I begged my parents my whole life to change my name to Pinky Rosie. So that doesn't just sum it all up. I don't know what else to say, but yeah, that was going to be my name. Pinky Rosie.

Bill Walker (00:05:09):
I want matching his and her bowling jackets.

Erin Alonso (00:05:11):
There you go.

Bill Walker (00:05:12):
In pink that says Derm FX. That would be so cool. We can write in script Pinky Alonso.

Erin Alonso (00:05:17):
I love it. That would be really cool. So anyway, I talked his wife into letting me buy a bottle and back then Botox was still 350 bucks a bottle and it said it was only good for one person and for four hours. So I was like, "What do you do? This is like so. " But I decided to, I wanted to experiment. I was like, "I want that stuff. I want to see what it's about. " Well, I quickly found out that there was nobody to teach me how or what or when or where. There was no protocol.

Bill Walker (00:05:49):
But I mean, I'm sure you just went to the local university to ... No.

Erin Alonso (00:05:55):
You think anybody at a university knew? They didn't even know what the word Botox was.

Bill Walker (00:05:59):
The local hospital then, I'm sure.

Erin Alonso (00:06:01):
No. Nobody had any ... This was not a household name. I mean, nobody knew what this gobbledygook was. If I would've showed up with that, everybody would've been like, "Get out of here." Look at gold. No one knew what it was. No one, no one, no one. It was not a known thing. And then on top of it, it's botulinum toxin.

Bill Walker (00:06:22):
Yeah, it doesn't really sound okay.

Erin Alonso (00:06:23):
So thank God when you're young, you're just dumb and ready to roll, right? Because I think, man, if I would know now what ... I'm so glad I didn't know it because I don't think I would've had the guts to do it. I was like, "Man, what was I thinking?" So I talk people into letting me experiment on them with Botulinum Toxin.

Bill Walker (00:06:39):
A lot of headaches. People had a lot of headaches that they needed help with.

Erin Alonso (00:06:42):
Well, there was nobody to ask. I literally, back in the day, I mean, if anybody anywhere would let me inject them or not let me inject them, but if I could find anybody anywhere that even injected Botox, because I couldn't even find anybody that injected it, period. No doctors, no plastic surgeons, very few. If I called up, people weren't like, "Oh yeah, we injected all day long."That was not a thing. And then on top of it, if a plastic surgeon did do it, it was like on a Wednesday from three to six, but of course he's not going to let me watch him. He was like, "No, you can't come watch." So little by little, I literally just started taking notes and experimenting on people, believe it or not. I think back about it too, I'm like, "Man, I never gave anybody a droopy eye or a wonky, not too bad at least, not to where it was like, " but I think back on that and going, oh my gosh. Well, let me back up a little bit. I had a professor who was a nurse anesthetist and a lawyer. I had talked to her about it and I said, "I want to inject this stuff in people, what do I do? " So she set me up as a home health nurse. I opened up as a home health agency kind of a thing, but all I did was Botox initially and then I did bovine collagen and then I got a laser eventually.

Bill Walker (00:08:00):
Do you remember your first laser?

Erin Alonso (00:08:02):
Oh yeah, of course I do. I remember it. It was a little guy like this initially.

Bill Walker (00:08:08):
What was the procedure you were doing?

Erin Alonso (00:08:10):
It would just pop off any kind of like warts, moles. It was a 532 KTP, so it would just do any kind of little ... It was kind of like a cauterising laser. So if you had a veins or any kind of ... You know what a cherry angioma is? It's like a red mole like those. Any kind of mole, wart, anything like that, which of course I was trying to talk my boss into having ... Anyway, basically he told me I was a waste of an education and to get out and I was like-

Bill Walker (00:08:40):
So you're outcast?

Erin Alonso (00:08:41):
Well, he gave me the ultimatum, "If you talk about this or ever do it again, you're going to be out. " I was so excited too. I was bursting at the seams to bursting. So I was like, "Peace out, daddy, Syanara, I'm out. " And so yeah, I literally had had it with him. He was really sloppy too. Oh, just the way he cut people's faces. And I was like, "It's a woman's face." Back then I was even like ... And the wife always wanted me to cut too because they got more money. So they were like, "Cut, cut, cut." And I'd be doing these little baby shaves because I was like, "I didn't want to scar anyone." I was like, "Oof." And laser wasn't all over the place so you couldn't just go have somebody laser it and fix it. So these are people that are getting scarred and you're going to have this scar for life.

Bill Walker (00:09:28):
So now you make this decision a critical moment in your career. I mean, clearly you went to a med spa consultant and said, "Hey, I want to buy a blueprint to open up a med spa."

Erin Alonso (00:09:43):
You're funny. Well, the word med spa did not even exist. There is no med spa. There was no such thing as that. That did not exist. And so I wasn't even Derm FX back then actually. I went by my husband's name so that I could take credit cards because I didn't want to set up my whole ... Because I was mobile all over the place. I was literally going to houses, hotel rooms, you name it. I've still had tons of patients that I've been to their homes, met them at gas stations, whatever. Yeah, I'd put them in the front seat of my car. I'd recline them down on my lap and I would ... And I would do their Potox right then or there. So there was a lot of guest attendants that were like-

Bill Walker (00:10:24):
Seeing a needle pull.

Erin Alonso (00:10:25):
What in the world, putting the girl in the front seat and laid her back and I'm just back there ... I don't know what they thought, but yep, there I was doing my weird drug deals. So it kind of started like that. And then after that, that same attorney was like, "Ooh, Erin, the laws are changing in California. You really need to be in an organized healthcare facility and not do ... Nurses can't do this stuff at home anymore at people's homes and go around and do this. " And I was like-

Bill Walker (00:10:50):
So you had to get a sprinter van.

Erin Alonso (00:10:52):
Well, that's way later. That's coming. That's coming. Give me 20 minutes here. So I was kind of like, whoa, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Because I was literally driving from Encino to Laguna Beach doing people anywhere, everywhere, anytime of the day. I was just popping literally everywhere.

Bill Walker (00:11:11):
Popping bottles in the closet.

Erin Alonso (00:11:14):
Yeah, I was-

Bill Walker (00:11:14):
Popping bottles.

Erin Alonso (00:11:16):
Yes, popping bottles. I mean, it was easy back then too because I could literally tell everybody they needed Botox and it wasn't rude because no one knew what it was. And so my lines were, "You'll never need another European facial again because that's all there was back then or this is the new red lipstick. You're going to love this. This is like the new red lipstick. Trust me. " And so all these ladies are like, "Oh, what's going on? What's going on? " And everywhere I went, I handed somebody my card because I was so ... I'm still pumped about it. It changes people's perception of themself just boom. I mean, you can walk out of there and have lumps and bumps and bruises all over, but you're in your head going, "Yeah, yay, yeah."

Bill Walker (00:11:56):
Okay. For the audience, I want to inject no pun intended, inject a moment. When you meet Erin, one of the first things that I notice is that there is a distinct positive energy that it's hard to describe unless you are in person with you. And so clearly the passion that you have for the industry and for your people, which I want to get into in a minute, is undeniable. So if you are in the California, Nevada, Arizona within driving or flying distance on a direct, if anything, you need to find a reason to meet Aaron because it is real. It's incredible what you bring with energy and passion.

Erin Alonso (00:12:41):
I loved it. I mean, I just did. It's hard. Everyone says, "Find something you love and you'll never work another day in your life." I fell on this and I was like, "Wow, this is really, really cool." And going from people dying versus people who are depressed, even in dermatology, having to sit there with a scar on your face and that's your new look, that's going to be you for the rest of your life and there's nothing else we can do about it. Have a nice day. I was just like, "Oh my gosh, it shatters, scars, people don't realize. I love lasering scars because they're really hard. Scarring on people ruins their life. I mean, it's a real catastrophic event to have a big incision, like let's say off your face or to have the tip of your ear cut off or you don't realize how much that affects some people until I really started treating more and more people's insecurities and I realized like, "Man, these are debilitating." It literally can be the difference of somebody living their life completely under the rug versus slamming open that door going, "Woo, here I am, I'm ready to rock it out." It's literally that dramatic for some people.

Bill Walker (00:13:59):
When you talk about changing people's lives and building confidence, it reminds me of a friend who was a smile makeover expert and just the passion that's in your voice.

Erin Alonso (00:14:12):
Yeah, I'm sure it's the same thing.

Bill Walker (00:14:13):
The same thing is you giving people a new lease on life with confidence because-

Erin Alonso (00:14:18):
Because I mean, if you have bad teeth, I think people are like, "Ugh."

Bill Walker (00:14:21):
It changes your whole self-perception.

Erin Alonso (00:14:23):
It sure does. I mean,

Bill Walker (00:14:25):
Okay, so I want to dive into the first location, take me into the space. How did you select site location? What was the genesis behind the brand name and what was the motivation for that?

Erin Alonso (00:14:41):
Okay. So all of a sudden I was scared to death because I need to find a place and I was like, "Man, all these people are mobile, so if they're going to come to me, I don't know. I have no idea." And by this time, maybe half of the plastic surgeons did it on Wednesdays.That was kind of the vibe back then of how many people did it, but there was definitely-

Bill Walker (00:15:07):
Like a half a day, one day a week. Yeah,

Erin Alonso (00:15:09):
Yeah, yeah. Four hours on Wednesdays. And if we don't have five people or more, we're not going to open a bottle because they go bad.

Bill Walker (00:15:15):
Oh yeah. Okay.

Erin Alonso (00:15:16):
It goes bad. So it was like, oh geez. So no one opened up just solo doing that. That was completely unheard of. There's like no way. So I was scared out of my mind. I didn't even own a home. I mean, I'm telling my husband like, "This is what we're going to do. Let's roll. Are you ready?" And I mean, he did, he trusted me, I have to say that I was really like ... I think I had the energy for it too, because when somebody has that much passion, they're going to drive it, right? You're going to drive hard. So many people, I cannot even tell you how many people told me I was nuts and you gave up that great job. What are you doing? Why would you do that? You just got out of nurse practitioner school and you quit your dermatology job.

(00:16:02):
And he did, he spent a lot of time one-on-one with me teaching me dermatology a lot of time. I mean, we met every single Saturday for six hours while he-

Bill Walker (00:16:14):
That's intense. ...

Erin Alonso (00:16:14):
Drilled me down with dermatology. So he spent some time with me, no doubt about it, but it wasn't my passion. So I couldn't put the energy into it that you need to really drive something. It's a difference of waking up in the morning going, "Oh no, I got to get up and go, " versus like, "Yes, let's roll." You can't force that upon yourself, right? It just is what it is. If you have to wake up and do something you don't like, which I think most of us, at least our generation has definitely felt that. I don't know about the new kids coming down, but there's a lot of things we had to just get up and do that we didn't want to do. It pays the bills, get up and do it. You have to do this. So taking that chance was definitely a make or break it situation where we didn't have the money to just take risks like that.

(00:17:05):
I didn't have parents that were wealthy or I didn't have some financier person. I didn't have a bank, which in pops my first business lesson is my next attorney.

Bill Walker (00:17:18):
You're lead turning my next question. Please proceed.

Erin Alonso (00:17:21):
All right. Well, then there we go.

Bill Walker (00:17:22):
Proceed, counselor.

Erin Alonso (00:17:23):
So across the street from this, it was like a facial place called Mary Ruth's that I used to go to in Seal Beach on Main Street, but right across the street from that was this little tiny upstairs. Some aesthetician had built it out. It had four little rooms in there and it had been vacant for like 18 months. So an attorney that was across the street from it owned it. So I go pop it in there to go, "Oh, I want to rent this place." And he doesn't even completely turn around and look at me. He gives me the side eye and he's like-

Bill Walker (00:17:54):
eyeBombastic side.

Erin Alonso (00:17:56):
Yeah, he was definitely not my biggest fan, but he was like, "Do you have corporate credit?" And I was like, "What's corporate credit?" I'm a nurse in my 20s, right? I'm going, "Corporate credit?" Oh, I was like, "No, I don't." And he's like, "Get out of here." So I was like, "Whoa, okay." So I mean, I literally, every single time I went to this day spa, Mary Ruth's, I would just pop in there and pop in and I kept ... Anyway, eventually years later he admits to me that he likes me because I had Moxie because he was definitely-

Bill Walker (00:18:35):
Moxie's a great old school word. Yes. I love Moxie.

Erin Alonso (00:18:39):
So that's what he said. He goes, wow, I've never met a young girl like you that has this much moxie because he was mean, but I didn't take it as mean. I just thought, well, I'm just uneducated and he doesn't have the time to teach me. But he was pretty rude because I mean, eventually he ends up helping me and even ... Well, I'll tell you that in a minute. But anyway, it takes me forever to even grind this guy down because I'm like, "Look, I'll even rent it hour to hour. I only need one chair and this little box and I'll be out of there within an hour if you tell me to get out. " And I was like, "You haven't rented it forever." So finally I wrote a whole ROI about how long it had been because I had to go to the library, by the way. Anybody remembers the library? And find out about-

Bill Walker (00:19:30):
That's $1.35, you have a spent.

Erin Alonso (00:19:32):
So I was like, oh, you're losing money every single day. Just let me go in there day to day or week to week, whatever you want. So I eventually talk him into it and he lets me go up there and started out just me, myself and I. It was really funny. And I hired my first person, Terry, who's still with me today.

Bill Walker (00:19:52):
She's still with you.

Erin Alonso (00:19:54):
She is still with me. My first front desk person-

Bill Walker (00:19:56):
What year was this?

Erin Alonso (00:19:57):
That was like, I want to say by now it's maybe 2002.

Bill Walker (00:20:04):
If we were in the cockpit, I would be like, mark tape right now. I just heard that.

Erin Alonso (00:20:09):
Right. So even my skills being ... I just really liked her, but of course-

Bill Walker (00:20:16):
I mean, apparently she's still around.

Erin Alonso (00:20:18):
Yeah. But I didn't really ask her anything about what she'd ever done in her life or anything and she had never had a job before except for working at ... I think she worked at Wendy's or Dairy Queen or something.

Bill Walker (00:20:29):
What was the most important trait that stood out to her?

Erin Alonso (00:20:31):
Oh, she was loving and caring.

Bill Walker (00:20:33):
Loving and caring.

Erin Alonso (00:20:34):
Yeah. And she paid attention when I talked. And I didn't know it now, but that's the most essential trait for everybody that works at Derm FX still today.

Bill Walker (00:20:47):
That's what you hire for.

Erin Alonso (00:20:49):
That's what I want.

Bill Walker (00:20:49):
Pays attention, loving and caring.

Erin Alonso (00:20:51):
That's right. I mean, that's how I teach our customer service. It's like one sentence. It's all I want you to do is turn the situation around and I want you to do for them whatever you would want done to yourself. And that's how we do customer service, period. Turn it around. What would you want? What is fair to you to be done? And that's it. And you have carte blanche to do that. I mean, of course, assuming that they're not completely being crazy and some people are definitely scammers. We get plenty of scammers in there, but if it's like a serious situation and something happened that we're not going to ... That's not what they want. They didn't want to pay to look worse, right?

Bill Walker (00:21:32):
Just do the right thing.

Erin Alonso (00:21:33):
Just do the right thing, period. And so she fit that mold and still does to this day.

Bill Walker (00:21:41):
So Annie Oakley gets her gun, goes off into the upstairs, which I would have advised you not to go to the second floor, be on the ground floor, but-

Erin Alonso (00:21:52):
It was a terrible location.

Bill Walker (00:21:52):
But that being said, apparently somehow you still made it work.

Erin Alonso (00:21:56):
I had the magic juice. It didn't matter.

Bill Walker (00:21:57):
You had the magic juice. Yeah,

Erin Alonso (00:21:58):
Nobody else really had it around. So I was telling everybody ... So back then, I thought it was going to be you either came to me or you went to a plastic surgeon. It was like either plastic surgery or this. I mean, in my wildest dreams, I had no idea that it would be this gigantic or that even doctors would eventually want to even do it because I'm thinking, "Well, you don't need to be an astronaut to drive a taxi cab. Why did all you guys want into this all of a sudden?"

Bill Walker (00:22:21):
So this is the first location. What's the first Big Girl location? Which one is that?

Erin Alonso (00:22:27):
Well, I will tell you. So the same lawyer starts watching my business.

Bill Walker (00:22:31):
And by the way, I'm picturing the guy who is the boss of Aaron Brockovich that was also Daddy Warbucks in the Little Orfan Annie. He was sitting in the corner being like, "Brocovich, leave me alone."

Erin Alonso (00:22:45):
Yeah, yeah. He's kind of like that,

Bill Walker (00:22:46):
Right?

Erin Alonso (00:22:46):
TSo ten he tells me, "You need to buy a building."

Bill Walker (00:22:50):
Buy a building.

Erin Alonso (00:22:51):
Yeah. And I'm like, "I don't even own a home." And I'm like, I think I-

Bill Walker (00:22:53):
In Coastal, Southern California. Yeah.

Erin Alonso (00:22:55):
And I'm like, "I think I have 4,000 bucks in my checking account or something." I was like, "Oh, buy a building." I was like, "What?" And so he told me to write a business plan and it was like a business loan. I'm a nurse. I've never taken one business class in my entire life, like a business plan.

Bill Walker (00:23:15):
Back to the library?

Erin Alonso (00:23:16):
Back to the library, I roll, right? So I remember writing out my first plan for him and he literally threw it on the floor and never threw around.

Bill Walker (00:23:25):
It sounds like investment banker training is like- This is garbage.

Erin Alonso (00:23:28):
Yeah. I was just like, okay. So he would just all over it, turn around and not even say a word back on his computer. And I was like, okay. But again, it didn't get under my skin. I didn't really think of it as he hates my guts. I just thought, all right, I'm going to do it right. I'm going to go back. Well, it only took me 50 throws on the floor to finally get it to where he would even look at it, but I never quit. I was like, "All right, if this guy's going to help me, I'm going to do whatever he says. I don't know what I'm doing. And this guy at least is giving me one second of every day so I'll take it. " And so eventually I couldn't believe it either. So you need a business plan to get an SBA loan basically.

(00:24:12):
And so we applied for an SBA loan and I could still remember my husband and I popping a bottle of champagne because we could not believe that it came back for a million dollars. $1 million. Both of us were like, "What? What?" It was insane.

Bill Walker (00:24:30):
Popping different bottles now.

Erin Alonso (00:24:31):
Right. It was like unbelievable $1 million. I mean, we were in shock. And so there was this place literally down the street, which is now the mothership of DermFX. I can't remember, I think it was like $1.8 million that the realtor wanted me to go ... And I go, "I don't like to window shop. Just find me something that's a million dollars. I don't want to look at a building." He's like, "Just come look at it. " And I was like, "I don't want to look at a building that's ... I hate looking at things I can't afford. I don't want to look at it at all. " Anyway, he talks me into it. We go look at it. I'm like, "Yeah, great. Okay. All right. See you later." And it's a total dump. I mean, it is a dump of a building, but this lady had some weird things that had happened.

(00:25:11):
She has this thing we call it the Feng Shui Tower. There's this little tower on the top that she built illegally and she refused to close it off because of Fengshui, literally. And she was like a widow. She was getting rid of every property that she owned and this was the last one. It had fallen out of escrow like three times. And long story short, because it was backed by the SBA, she took the deal.

Bill Walker (00:25:38):
She said yes.

Erin Alonso (00:25:39):
And I mean, it was incredible.

Bill Walker (00:25:42):
And what town is this in?

Erin Alonso (00:25:43):
This is in Sunset Beach.

Bill Walker (00:25:44):
So Sunset Beach is the original mothership.

Erin Alonso (00:25:46):
That's the original mothership that is still there today. And if you've driven in Sunset Beach, you 100% know that building because Sunset Beach is only one mile long. So there it is and it says Botox all over it and you know the building for sure. So it's right across the street from a Starbucks. If you're driving through Starbucks, there I am. So yeah, we just opened up and just took off running and I started training nurses. Then by then I was like, wow, I need help because-

Bill Walker (00:26:19):
And this is what year?

Erin Alonso (00:26:22):
So actually I must have had the wrong year before because that building we got in 2003.

Bill Walker (00:26:28):
Okay. So that's in 03-ish.

Erin Alonso (00:26:30):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:26:31):
So Sunset 03.

Erin Alonso (00:26:34):
Sunset is 03.

Bill Walker (00:26:36):
Then you're like, what's better than more is more?

Erin Alonso (00:26:40):
Well, no, it took a little while because then I popped out three kids. So I want to say the space between number one and number two is probably the longest because-

Bill Walker (00:26:49):
Mommy made time for family.

Erin Alonso (00:26:50):
Well, and I used to just take all my kids went to work. All my patients held my kids on their lap while I Botoxed them. I mean, that's just sort of how it went. I was like, it was great. I mean, even just being a mobile business, I can't even tell you how many little grandmas would feed my son and I breakfast. I used to try to starve the night before because I was like, oh man, I got to have eight breakfasts tomorrow because they all wanted to hold my baby. And it was like social hour for older ladies that just loved when we came by and I was a little baby and gave them some collagen and some Botox. It was like a great morning and it was great for me. I didn't have to ever leave any of my kids with any sort of babysitters or daycare or anything like that. So perfect mom job, right? I was like, "This is insane." So I worked there for a while training nurses and then we're so busy that we open seven days a week. So I've been open seven days a week probably from opening up there, like maybe within three months we had to open seven days a week.

Bill Walker (00:27:50):
Wow.

Erin Alonso (00:27:50):
So every place is open seven days a week and it's just been like that. So from that time forward it was just-

Bill Walker (00:27:59):
And then you jumped from, okay, so sunset making time to have babies and then you go to seven days a week to the Redondo Beach.

Erin Alonso (00:28:11):
Back to Redondo Beach because I lived in Hermosa Beach at the time when I first first started. I was living in Hermosa Beach. So I had a big clientele there. So I thought it makes sense because everybody was complaining to drive from Redondo Beach to Sunset Beach because it's about an hour. So I go back to where I was and well, I didn't even know what I ... I've never had a seriously strategic plan, which I'm sure you business guys are going to look at me and go, I'm literally driving there to get my hair done. I see this really weird billboard this building had, it was a little tiny old beach house that was on a triangle where it kind of like almost looks like it's going to come out at you on PCH and this weird sign this guy's putting up saying like immediate sale, husband dying, no insurance. It was something like, it's the weirdest sign that you'd ever see. No one would put that. It was like an SOS sign almost, right?

(00:29:03):
So I was like, so I pull over and I call my husband and I was like, "Hey, there's this building for sale and it's this little ... It's perfect. It's like it darts out at you right on PCH."

Bill Walker (00:29:16):
If you're sitting in traffic going to this location and you're like two stoplights out, you see it forever and ever. It's seared into your memory when you see the Derm FX on it.

Erin Alonso (00:29:28):
It's there for sure. Well, the best thing I loved about it is that location, which we're not at anymore by the way, I don't think you've seen this one, but this one used to have a-

Bill Walker (00:29:37):
Oh, I'm thinking of, which is the one that we went upstairs to and there's like treatment rooms upstairs.

Erin Alonso (00:29:42):
Oh that's Sunset Beach.

Bill Walker (00:29:43):
That's Sunset Beach. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

Erin Alonso (00:29:45):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:29:46):
Thank you.

Erin Alonso (00:29:47):
But the Redondo Beach that ... Well, you've never been to any of the Redondo beaches.

Bill Walker (00:29:49):
I haven't been to the Redondo.

Erin Alonso (00:29:50):
Okay. But the first Redondo Beach, because we grew out of it, we had to move. But the first one, I pull over, I call my husband, I'm like, "Oh my God, there's this building and the husband's dying at the time, so it was like a building for half a million dollars, which was probably 200,000 under market. So I was like, it's a half a million dollar building. We got to get this one too. But no plan. I wasn't planning to do it. I was just sort of like, oh hey, there's a-

Bill Walker (00:30:19):
And what year is this?

Erin Alonso (00:30:21):
Oh geez, this one I can't remember. I would totally be guessing. I'm not going to guess right.

Bill Walker (00:30:28):
That's okay.

Erin Alonso (00:30:29):
But anyway, so we buy it.

Bill Walker (00:30:31):
You buy it?

Erin Alonso (00:30:32):
We buy it.

Bill Walker (00:30:32):
You fix it.

Erin Alonso (00:30:33):
And another one, we got to fix it up. Boom. Yes. I'm lucky my husband is super duper, duper handy. And in fact, he has a contracting license but doesn't use it because it's just for the build out of this kind of crazy stuff. So that comes in real handy real quick where I'm like, tag your it. So I've been tagging urine to him actually to this day, but he's definitely trying to shimmy out of here because he's like enough of Derm FX.

Bill Walker (00:30:59):
No, wait, so take me to the third. What's the third?

Erin Alonso (00:31:02):
Okay. So then I decide, okay, I don't have a clientele anywhere else. So I decide I'm going to rent a ... Another moxie story. All right? You ready for this one?

Bill Walker (00:31:12):
I'm ready.

Erin Alonso (00:31:12):
I rent a place in Newport Beach and catty corner across the street from it all day and all night the girls that still work for me are all like, oh, her with that building. I was out there all the time. I want that building. I need that building. Look at that building. Look at that building. I would just go stand on PCH and be staring at this building. Well, so anyway, I find the owner weirdest story. He wants to turn it into selling fish food. This whole building is completely filled with monster bags of fish food and he wants to dump them into little bags so that you can go and feed Koifish and that his idea was to have these for sale at different koifish places to make money. So same kind of thing with him. I did this whole, that I learned from the other guy.

(00:32:00):
I was like, "Oh, let me show you how much money you're missing by not selling this. Oh, and by the way too, I became a real estate agent so I could start snooping around." I forgot about that part. So I can look up like, "Oh, what this guy paid for it. " I'm like, "What is he doing with this property that you're never going to make any money selling fish food?" And he was living in San Diego and he was like 84.

(00:32:26):
So I call him, of course, he's like, "Nope, I'm not selling it. Nope, nope, nope, nope." Then I finally call him one day and he's like, "Oh, I'm selling it to a restaurant chain too bad." And I was like, "What? No, no, no, no, no, no." He's like, "Nope, it's already an escrow. I already sold it. " And I was like, "I can't believe you wouldn't call me. I've been calling you forever." Anyway, so I end up calling the realtor and telling the realtor like, "No, no, no, no. I need this building. I need this building. I need this building." And he's like, "Oh, I don't know what to tell you. It's an escrow. It's going to be a restaurant. We sold it. " I was like, "Okay, whatever. I guess that's not meant to be. " So I was just super bummed because I was just, I mean, I had all these, my visions of grandeur looking at that building going, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." It also had a little billboard sign in the front too, which I was like, "Oh, I love those little billboards that are grandfathered in. I was like, "Yes." Anyway-

Bill Walker (00:33:20):
So Erin's staying there with a book of matches and a-

Erin Alonso (00:33:23):
I was thinking Oh boy. Anyway, I can still remember where I was standing. My husband and I and all our kids were on vacation in Hawaii about to go down this really, what's that called, that thing?

Bill Walker (00:33:37):
Zip line?

Erin Alonso (00:33:38):
Zip lining. And we're zip lining and the realtor calls me and tells me it falls out of escrow. I was like. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So we are speeding through trying to figure out how to buy this building and to try to get another SBA loan. So I was like ... They only said I could get a million dollars. Are they going to let me get any more money? And they did. And so boom, here comes number three. We were like-

Bill Walker (00:34:05):
Number three.

Erin Alonso (00:34:06):
Yes. All right. Newport Beach. Here we are. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:34:09):
Now I want to pause on something because now we're at three locations and what it makes me think about is how do you think about protecting your brand? Because now you have a brand. How do you think about protecting brand and standardizing culture without it feeling like it's something that's standardized?

Erin Alonso (00:34:30):
Right. Well, I think-

Bill Walker (00:34:31):
Because you're scaling.

Erin Alonso (00:34:32):
Yes, but I didn't even realize, I didn't even know that word until, I don't know, three years ago. And even brand, I didn't know these terms or this jargon is like, you have to remember that I'm a nurse, right? The business world was not my world, but it just instinctively I just knew what to do. And I think the biggest thing is that I really try to know my staff. I don't just throw people in there and I still do a ton of training and a lot of hands-on. I mean, I'm always going around and talking and knowing. I mean, I want to know my staff personally because I want to know who's touching my patients and I want to know what is your heart? What are you about? What do you do? What do you like to try to figure out, are you going to touch people the way I want you to touch them?

(00:35:24):
And so I didn't realize I was doing that, but that's what I was doing when I looked back.

Bill Walker (00:35:31):
I feel like it's like getting taught to throw a curve ball by Sandy Kofax or something. If somebody comes in as a nurse in your clinic, to me it's like getting taught by basically one of the creators of techniques, because You guys are doing that stuff. So do you put them through an internal syllabus? Is it a heat check with you?

Erin Alonso (00:35:59):
Well, now, okay, there's two components, right? There's definitely the social cultural part. Are they going to fit?

Bill Walker (00:36:06):
The culture.

Erin Alonso (00:36:07):
And then there's also, there's a lot of things that have to fit. There's the science part, right? Because we need to make sure you don't hurt anybody. You can't mame people or think like, I don't want some cowgirl in there that's like, woo-hoo, last one with this laser wand. Yeah. So it's like they have to fit in a bunch of different ways. So you definitely just don't write off by yourself. I mean, now there's formal training, but back then it was never formal. It was me and you working together side by side and then if you thought you were strong ... I need to make sure that they know me well enough, you understand how we're going to treat people. Because that's the other thing. A lot of these nurses, well, back then, I have to say they were very grateful for this job because I also wanted to ... I told people, I want this to be the last job you ever look for. I never want you to go anywhere. So once I'm with you, I'm with you.

(00:37:02):
I am a faithful probably as anybody working for me will know because there's been some doozies that I didn't let go that I definitely should have.

Bill Walker (00:37:10):
I believe in that 100% what you just said there.

Erin Alonso (00:37:13):
You're like family to me once you're in. You're in, it's a strong in. And so once that part was done and then clinically nurses usually are much more nervous. They can do it before they'll say they can do it because nurses are very afraid usually to hurt anybody. They're like, "Ah." I mean, some of them I've definitely been like, "Go girl, you can do this girl. You can do this. Come on. " I mean, actually I just had my daughter laser me for the first time and she was screaming the whole time, but I was like, "First of all, relax, calm it down." And she's like, "Ah, I can't get down by hand eye coordination. Oh my God. Oh my God." So it's like just first off, relax. And so usually if they said they got it and I see clinically that they've ... I mean, I can tell we watch them do a lot of procedures and just watch their interaction and just watch and see how they do it.

Bill Walker (00:38:11):
So even to this day, you're very hands on with the training for your staff.

Erin Alonso (00:38:16):
Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, if you say I can't do it, I'm never going to say, Get in there and do it.

Bill Walker (00:38:20):
Yeah.

Erin Alonso (00:38:21):
Or some people that just hire you because you have a license and you've got experience like, Ah, to me, no.

Bill Walker (00:38:28):
This whole time you're expressing to your new teammates the brand it sounds like because they're around you so much, they know what-

Erin Alonso (00:38:38):
They definitely know.

Bill Walker (00:38:38):
They know what the brand is. They know what we stand for and who we are and what we do. Now I want to touch on some stuff because this is something that one I think would be impactful for founders to hear and two, most of the people in the world that are the rare creatures that do these kinds of things are not the kind of people that are going to bring it up on their own, but there's some things that you do for your girls that I think is incredible when I hear stories, please share with everybody on this, talk a couple of the stories of their lives, how you've been a part of their personal lives, the journey that you take with them because I think it's incredible and it speaks to the longevity of just how loyal they really are with you.

Erin Alonso (00:39:32):
I mean, usually if you're going to quit Derm FX you're going to quit a relationship. It's more than just a job.You're going to have to get divorced from a friend. So it goes more into it than just like, I hate my boss because everybody that works there will tell you that I'll meet with you one-on-one. I will fix things for you myself. Everybody has my cell phone number. If you feel like it's not getting handled and this isn't your dream job, I want to hear from you. I want to hear from you. I think when you have good people, you need to do whatever it is that you can do to retain them because people want to feel appreciated. And I think that as a nurse, no nurses have ever been appreciated. I'll tell you that right now. I mean, for anybody to just say thank you to a nurse, you're going like, "Well, we're used to just get it done because it's your job." It's like that as a nurse, there's nobody saying thank you to a nurse.

(00:40:35):
It's a very thankless job. So I just always wanted to make sure that they felt included and loved. Some little things that I do, I write every single person and there's 130 something girls now. I write every single person a handwritten thank you card twice a year.

Bill Walker (00:40:54):
This is the stuff that I want to talk. Yes, keep going, because I know these stories. So if you don't start talking about them, I'm going to make them come out.

Erin Alonso (00:41:01):
Okay. Well, I hope I remember things.

Bill Walker (00:41:02):
Babies. Talk to me about babies.

Erin Alonso (00:41:04):
Oh, if you want to have children, I want you to have children too. And we do anything and everything to support in vitro and covering shifts, even schooling. I can't tell you how many girls that we've sat through through school. We're going to help you navigate to become a medical assistant, to become a nurse, to become a nurse practitioner. I am there to help you navigate what school are you going to? How are you going to pay for it? These are conversations that I have with people that, because I really do care about my girls. I mean, I care about them. Any friendship that I would have, I care. I really do care about every single one of these girls and their lives. I'm super invested into that. And I mean, many, many of them have found their lifetime best friends at Derm FX. And that to me is so heartwarming to me when you're with all your besties and they all are Derm FX girls.

Bill Walker (00:42:01):
Tell me upward mobility within the organization. Give me an example.

Erin Alonso (00:42:06):
Hey, we support it. I mean, my best one ever, which is probably Shannon, I got her right out of the soup plantation at 18 years old and I realized immediately, this girl is smart. I'm like, "Oh, come to mama. I love this girl." And I love Shannon with all my heart and more, she's literally like a daughter to me. Anyway, she was going to school to become an engineer and the whole time I was like, "Wa, wa, wa, wa, no, no, no, no, no. You need to be a nurse. You need to be a nurse." Anyway, she went and worked, I think, as an engineer for three weeks when she graduated, quit and came back.

Bill Walker (00:42:46):
Am I correct? You've had people that worked on set with you and then actually became in leadership. I think someone was in marketing even, right?

Erin Alonso (00:42:58):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Bill Walker (00:42:59):
Right?

Erin Alonso (00:42:59):
So Megan was, I wanted a girl that could kind of look like multiple ethnicities, even though she's just a white girl, but I felt like she didn't look super white, white, white. I picked her off of model mayhem and she went from being my model for five years to now she's my head of marketing and she's been with me for 15 years. Shannon, after becoming an engineer, went back to school and had three kids and became, while she was in nursing school, had three kids. So there's a lot of-

Bill Walker (00:43:31):
She reminds me of very much of like a kid sister too, by the way.

Erin Alonso (00:43:34):
A hundred percent.

Bill Walker (00:43:36):
It's the tomboy jock, who I will joke with you about she would be the kid' sister that sneaks Miller Lite out of dad's cooler in his pickup truck because Big Brother asked her to go sneak them for him and his buddies.

Erin Alonso (00:43:49):
That's her. Yes.

Bill Walker (00:43:50):
And she just wants to hang out with the crowd and is just like positive energy.

Erin Alonso (00:43:57):
She is. She is absolutely great. She is such a good ... I mean, that's just such a good egg. She does not even have one bad trait. I mean, not even one. So having her, I feel so blessed that, wow, thank you, God. I mean, that actually is a huge prayer constantly. Oh my God, please bring me all the good ones and take all the cancers out. Please, God, bring me all the good ones and take the cancers out.

Bill Walker (00:44:20):
Let me ask, because this is really uncommon in the space and I love uncommon, right? It's a great word.

Erin Alonso (00:44:28):
I like that word. Yep.

Bill Walker (00:44:29):
You have several injectors that are superb performers. How do you maintain such a special relationship with a team of all stars that is like putting together the USA basketball team every four years for the Olympics when everybody on the team is a starter?

Erin Alonso (00:44:54):
I mean, I think first and foremost I run it like we're all equals and we're also looking for other little younger nurses to bring and to guide and to teach

Bill Walker (00:45:08):
And to move. We do it consistently, right? I see it. I know. I look at it and it's really incredible. You'll bring up people that are only been with you a couple of years that are exceptional at what they do.

Erin Alonso (00:45:22):
I mean, like I said, I really try to spend a lot of time with them. I spend a lot, a lot of money training them. So I think that they realize the investment on my part is a lot. I mean, to get all these trainings going on, I mean, it's probably hundreds of thousands of dollars every year that I spend on them. I'm constantly paying into them to be the best constantly, constantly, constantly. I mean, it makes sense because if you want to be the biggest and the best, you have to invest in them and then for them to be invested in, then they're invested in you. I don't know. It just makes sense. I mean, if someone's invested in you, you're invested in them usually, right?

Bill Walker (00:46:04):
I want to go back to Newport and now there's a fourth location.

Erin Alonso (00:46:10):
Okay. wait, I think that's my third location.

(00:46:13):
Yeah.

Bill Walker (00:46:13):
And now we go to a fourth location and then the fourth location is?

Erin Alonso (00:46:16):
Orange.

Bill Walker (00:46:17):
Orange.

Erin Alonso (00:46:17):
So what I wanted to see with my fourth location was kind of like an experiment because I wanted to see like, okay, I'm on PCH, Newport Beach, Sunset Beach and Redondo Beach all on PCH.

Bill Walker (00:46:28):
Literally, like pretty woman style. I have all the PCH. I have all the PCH.

Erin Alonso (00:46:32):
That was my goal.

Bill Walker (00:46:33):
Just move along.

Erin Alonso (00:46:33):
Just keep running down PCH.

Bill Walker (00:46:35):
You own the PCH.

Erin Alonso (00:46:36):
Yes. And so I thought, could this work inland? And because really I'm after the middle class. I am not after the Beverly Hills Housewife or the Newport Beach Housewife. And I really, really, really want to make this affordable for everybody. I really do. I realize that on

Bill Walker (00:46:57):
I love the brand name too, by the way. I've said that multiple times.

Erin Alonso (00:47:00):
Big level though, it changes people's lives. So I want to do it on a big level, not on just ones that can afford it, right?

Bill Walker (00:47:06):
Yes.

Erin Alonso (00:47:06):
I want to do it so everybody can be the best part of themselves and go, "I can do it. " So I was like, "I don't care if you're a bus driver, an In-N-Out burger clerk or a CEO of something like there's a spot for you in Derm FX."

Bill Walker (00:47:21):
Burgers and Botox.

Erin Alonso (00:47:22):
Whatever. Yes. Burgers and Botox, it is. So we moved to Little Orange. That's not the Orange we've been to though. It's a smaller version.

Bill Walker (00:47:29):
So you have Baby Orange?

Erin Alonso (00:47:31):
Up pops

Bill Walker (00:47:31):
A clementine.

Erin Alonso (00:47:32):
Yes. Up pops another building where I was like, "Hi." So I'm thinking, "Oh, this is great."

Bill Walker (00:47:38):
Some woman loved jewelry. Erin loves real estate.

Erin Alonso (00:47:42):
I do love ... I wanted to be McDonald's. When I saw that McDonald's movie, what is that one called?

Bill Walker (00:47:47):
Yeah, the Ray Kroc movie, I know you're talking about.

Erin Alonso (00:47:49):
I love that movie. I was like, "Oh, real estate is my jam." I just know a Derm FX building when I see one. So when somebody's like, "Oh, project the cities and blah, blah, blah." And I'm like,

Bill Walker (00:48:03):
You sent me some links of preferred future Derm FX locations and one of them I will say is like the Taj Mahal of Derm FX.

Erin Alonso (00:48:14):
I was stretching it a bit. I was going, "Well, all right, all right, maybe."

Bill Walker (00:48:18):
I couldn't throw a football inside of that building and hit the other wall. That's how far it is.

Erin Alonso (00:48:23):
Yeah. I'm just a big thinker. Come on. If you don't think big, it's never going to happen though, right?

Bill Walker (00:48:27):
Yeah.

Erin Alonso (00:48:28):
So anyway, I want to see if it'll work. Same kind of deal. It's a guy that's dying. It's kind of like get rid of this building as fast as we can before he is going into assisted living, whatever. And so we get another building. So with that building, that one and Newport, I want to say we're maybe a thousand square feet each, they were pretty small. So just making sure, because I don't have, again, no clientele in Orange, or I don't know if I do or not, but is this going to work inland? I don't know.

Bill Walker (00:49:03):
And your numbers, you guys are so incredible at utilization. I won't dive into too much detail on that, but whatever space you take over and you make Derm FX, you do such a great job of the utilization. How do you think about that?

Erin Alonso (00:49:20):
I don't know that I do. I don't know. It's just a thing of where I'm like, I just know everybody everywhere is going to love this. And so it sells itself. I don't need to sell people. Do you want to do better in your life?

Bill Walker (00:49:39):
Yes.

Erin Alonso (00:49:40):
Okay. You need to know me, period. You need to come to DermaFX, period. It's just like that easy. I just literally believe that. I believe that Derma FX will change your life. I believe that you'll perform better if you know DermaFX, 100% of people. So with that, you get everybody else thinking kind of the same way and it trickles down. We start just reaching out to different salons and spas and just different people in the area of like, "Hey, we always get to know all of our neighbors everywhere. We go out and pass out coupons and all kinds of stuff to come get to know us. We have tons. We have probably too many open houses. I don't know. We have a lot of parties.

Bill Walker (00:50:28):
You're great at throwing a party.

Erin Alonso (00:50:30):
We throw parties, boy.

Bill Walker (00:50:31):
I mean- An aesthetic party with Erin is an event. It's fun. And it's fun.

Erin Alonso (00:50:38):
Events, events, and some more events.

Bill Walker (00:50:39):
And people show up.

Erin Alonso (00:50:40):
A lot. We have a lot. Yeah, I think that that's the expectation though. We started throwing events, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago and it's like, well, everyone needs to be better than the last, right?

Bill Walker (00:50:52):
So wait, so when we go to Baby Orange, we go to Baby Orange.

Erin Alonso (00:50:55):
We go to Baby Orange and Baby Orange is boom and all the girls are like, " There's not enough space. We're bumping into each other every which way. "Well, first actually, no. Before that though, I find another building, Dana Point, boom.

Bill Walker (00:51:11):
So you've got Baby Orange, but then you're like, " Oh wait, I need to go back to the PCH because it was too humid inland?

Erin Alonso (00:51:20):
No. Again, there's not really this plan, but I have all these little pings and I just see this building and I'm like-

Bill Walker (00:51:28):
This is it.

Erin Alonso (00:51:28):
Oh, right on the corner of PCH and Goldenrod because that's the street that goes down to- Oh, I'm sorry, Golden Lantern. That's a street that goes down to where all the boats are. It's like the main drag to the boats. So I was like- Ahh.

Bill Walker (00:51:44):
Eagle eye. Here it comes.

Erin Alonso (00:51:46):
Yeah, let's get this going on in Dana Point. So boom. I didn't sit there and say it had to be in this city. It was kind of like I have all these cities picked and then if something for sale pops up that looks like a Derm FX building, there I am. Boom.

Bill Walker (00:52:06):
So you open up Dana Point.

Erin Alonso (00:52:07):
We open up Dana Point.

Bill Walker (00:52:08):
And now boom, you're at-

Erin Alonso (00:52:10):
Boom, we're in.

Bill Walker (00:52:11):
Five.

Erin Alonso (00:52:12):
Five.

Bill Walker (00:52:13):
Let me ask this because then I want to come back to the big orange crush But before I go into that, we're talking your five locations at this point. When you open up at De Novo, a new location, you open up a De Novo because you've done it so successful and I've seen how well they're run, what's so critical that you think from your experience in the first 90 days if somebody has one or two locations and they're thinking of getting to their second or their third location and it's a de novo location, what are things that are really important that stand out to you in the first 90 days?

Erin Alonso (00:52:52):
I will tell you this right now, you've got to send an A team in there. You don't open up with somebody that doesn't know your business, doesn't know your culture and hasn't lived and breathed with you long enough to have that vision go on because I did make that mistake when I opened up in Redondo Beach. I hired a manager that was very capable of managing, no doubt about it, but it wasn't Derm FX, right? How could it be? She doesn't know Derm FX. She never worked in Sunset Beach. So it was like, "Wait, what are you doing?" And she was like, "What do you mean what am I doing?" So all of a sudden I was like, "Ah, ah, ah." So I was only going there like one day a week and so people have to know by the feeling of it that it's Derm FX.

(00:53:41):
It has to look the same. Things have to be the same. You can't-

Bill Walker (00:53:44):
So you're sending your strongest soldiers-

Erin Alonso (00:53:46):
Absolutely.

Bill Walker (00:53:46):
... away from the nest.

Erin Alonso (00:53:47):
Yes.

Bill Walker (00:53:48):
This is such a Marine Corps leadership tenant. All the things that you do, I just kind of giggle in my heart sometimes because there are so many exceptional massive organizations that you embody the fundamental core leadership principles without even, I feel like realizing that you do it when you're doing it.

Erin Alonso (00:54:10):
Yeah. I didn't even have to join the Marine Corps to know that.

Bill Walker (00:54:12):
Because when you said you're strongest away and you keep the less experienced the junior-

Erin Alonso (00:54:15):
Yeah, the hens are with me.

Bill Walker (00:54:16):
Yeah. The hens are with you. And that is a signal of a strong leader.

Erin Alonso (00:54:21):
Yep.

Bill Walker (00:54:21):
That's an incredible leader.

Erin Alonso (00:54:22):
So I am constantly building up nurses that are with me right now to be my next year going out.

Bill Walker (00:54:30):
And that's the next 90 day crop is like, you know you have complete trust in conference from the boss lady because you're getting to go to the new location.

Erin Alonso (00:54:40):
That's right. I picked you.

Bill Walker (00:54:41):
I picked you. Okay. Thank you for that. That's valuable. It's a good tidbit. Take me back. We're at Little Creamcicle and now we're going to go to Big Creamcicle, Big Orange Crush.

Erin Alonso (00:54:50):
Okay. Well, that doesn't happen for ... Okay, yeah. So then everyone's bumping into each other at Orange, I want to move, I want to move, I want to move. And I find this beautiful giant place. Well, plus there's other complaints too. There's just not enough space to answer all the phones and all the things. So I was like, I want to get a call center and this and that. So we found a really big building for sale in Orange that was on the other side of Orange from what we were at. So that was a litle bit nerve wracking, but in Orange and it used to be a big old Wells Fargo bank

Bill Walker (00:55:24):
I love banks.

Erin Alonso (00:55:25):
Oh, I love the banks.

Bill Walker (00:55:26):
I love banks.

Erin Alonso (00:55:27):
I'm into the banks now. I realize now all of a sudden like, wait a minute, people don't bank anymore like they used to. You don't need to go into the bank and have a monstrosity bank with a huge safe anymore.

Bill Walker (00:55:37):
You got your vault.

Erin Alonso (00:55:38):
That doesn't even happen, right? Yeah. So this place has a vault, which I was super pumped to make a whole man bar in there except there's no oxygen. So I was like, oh.

Bill Walker (00:55:48):
It's overrated. We can hold our breath.

Erin Alonso (00:55:50):
Right? So I was like, darn it. I thought, oh, we could just bring

Bill Walker (00:55:53):
This out for the man. Bros in banks and Botox.

Erin Alonso (00:55:55):
Yeah, we have a whole keg in there or a cigar bar or something. I don't know. I was like, "Oh, let's have it for the men."

Bill Walker (00:56:00):
This is so great. I love this.

Erin Alonso (00:56:02):
Anyway, it ended up being storage. Wah, wah.. So we end up getting a call center and going from a thousand square feet to 7,800 square feet.

Bill Walker (00:56:11):
It is a massive facility.

Erin Alonso (00:56:12):
It's monstrous, right? And believe it or not, we are packed to the ceiling in there too.

Bill Walker (00:56:17):
You can go in the center of the bank and you go into Orange and you have it actually really at a lot of your locations that I've seen and noticed, but you can shop. Why can you shop at some of your spas?

Erin Alonso (00:56:35):
Well, I'm huge on giving back. I mean, I'm so grateful. I'm so blessed that I know that giving back to me is really, really important. It's a huge part of what we do. And so we run a foundation for orphans out of there where 100% of that money goes directly to orphans, where I think rarely are you going to find a place where-

Bill Walker (00:56:57):
And where is this at?

Erin Alonso (00:56:58):
In every location you go.

Bill Walker (00:57:00):
Every location.

Erin Alonso (00:57:01):
You can shop. There's all kinds of everything from clothes to candles to dog collars to jewelry, lip gloss, you name it, and you can shop.

Bill Walker (00:57:12):
How did you get the inspiration for giving back to orphans?

Erin Alonso (00:57:17):
Oh, that's a whole huge another 20 minutes, but if you want to go down that road, I'll go down it with you. But I had gone on a medical missions trip with a church that I went to and they were saying goodbye to all these people when the first trip I ever went on and I said, "Oh, what's going on here?" And the guy's like, "Well, we're not going to come anymore. I'm moving to Seattle. We've been telling them for over a year that we're not coming anymore." And I was like, "Oh, okay. Well, who's going to come?" And they were like, "There's nobody else to come. And I don't know what they're going to do, but we've been telling them this is literally, we are moving and I won't be back." And I was like, "Oh, wow. It's so dramatic, right?" Because there was 50, 60 kids and probably 10 workers there that this is just going to go away, dissolve, be done, like nothing else.

(00:58:10):
And he goes, "Well, I've told them, I've told a bunch of other churches, but nobody's really stepped up, stepped up." And I was really disturbed by this. I kept looking around at all the kids and all so much need. I mean, this place was, I mean, they had to pick the toilet up on a hole to go to the bathroom and the whole tires on the roof, just serious third world looking poor, poor Mexico. And so the guy asked me, he's like, "Do you happen to know any churches that would take this over?" And I was like ... And this is back, gosh, maybe even before Sunset Beach. I don't know. It was in between when I was renting from that lawyer in Sunset Beach kind of time and I was like, "I don't know any churches that I'll take this over. No." And so the guy was like, "Well, do you think you could go around and ask people since I'm not going to be local anymore?" And I was like, "I guess so. " I have no idea. I guess this is not my world. I'm just there for the first time. So I tell the guy, I'm like, "Yeah, I guess I could go ask a couple places. Sure." And so I give the guy, there's a lady and a man that run it and I gave him my email saying, "If you guys need anything, just email me.

(00:59:29):
Well, I want to say a month later my husband and I, well, I get this email and they were like, "We don't have any food." And I was like, "Wait, what? " And people don't really have cell ... They didn't have cell phones back then. So this guy has to go to a cafe to email me this, right?

Bill Walker (00:59:47):
He goes to an internet cafe to email you. We have no food.

Erin Alonso (00:59:49):
Yeah so I had to pick up the phone and call or whatever. So that was traumatic for me to think of all those little kids have no food. So man, we packed up. I told my husband husband and man, we packed up and we went and took those kids a whole bunch of food.

Bill Walker (01:00:05):
You drove?

Erin Alonso (01:00:06):
We drove.

Bill Walker (01:00:07):
You drove to Mexico?

Erin Alonso (01:00:08):
Yes. Many times. Many, many times.

Bill Walker (01:00:11):
Many times.

Erin Alonso (01:00:12):
Many times. Oh yeah.

Bill Walker (01:00:13):
Like food in the back of your car.

Erin Alonso (01:00:14):
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. I mean, what would anybody do if 50 kids don't have anything to eat? I would hope they would drive too. I would definitely drive. Anybody anywhere called and told me I don't have any food, I would go get them or I would ... Now it's much easier to get food to people and places and stuff. But I mean, I can't think of 50 kids going without food. And all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen? So I literally all of a sudden now I'm like, whoa, I got to find a church to take this place over. This is legit. These kids aren't going to eat. What's going to go on here? And so man, I went to all kinds of things and what a pain. I mean, you have to fill out this much paperwork.

(01:01:00):
They're like, "You don't go to church here? No. We do our finances in June, come back next June and ask." It just was all sorts of ways of saying no basically. And the next email comes, "We don't have any food." I couldn't believe it. I was like, "What is happening here?" And so I called the guy in Seattle. He's like, "Well, I'm in Seattle. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell them." I told them for over a year that they needed to find other help, that whatever. And anyway, it goes on and on, but long story short, I start just telling other people about it inside of Derm FX. And we have had miracles happen in there of people just bringing in money and things. I feel like I never signed up for this. It just sort of fell on me.

(01:01:53):
It was like, boom, here you go. You're going to take care of all these kids. And I could have never imagined that all 25 years later I would still be doing it, but-

Bill Walker (01:02:04):
A quarter century.

Erin Alonso (01:02:05):
Here I am.

Bill Walker (01:02:07):
I think it's incredible. When you think of being a founder, and I know you probably don't think of I was going to sit down on this path to be a founder, but there are a lot of people that can really, really benefit from your advice and it'll resonate on their ears when they hear this. What's a couple of non-negotiables that you would recommend for a founder to set for themself when they sit out on a track?

Erin Alonso (01:02:38):
I think the first one is never let go of your integrity. I mean, that's huge because when you get money stressed, it's easy to think like, "Oh, how could we cut a few ways here and there and the other thing?" Which is totally fine. I'm very frugal and that's great, but don't ever undercut the patient or love money more than that patient because that will find you out. That will find you out. I've never-

Bill Walker (01:03:10):
Never compromised the quality for your patient.

Erin Alonso (01:03:13):
No. They don't deserve fake whatever. Yeah, could I do that on a huge scale or do a little bit of real Allergan Botox with the rest all imported? Sure. I could and could I probably make millions more dollars a year doing it, but I just would never do that. I just don't compromise with that. It doesn't come into my mind. I love people more than I love money and you have to be true to that. And I think because that is ... I'm a nurse. I don't think of myself as a business person or whatever. You get into certain things because you care about people. I literally have gotten myself into some serious ... There's another four hour conversation we could have some serious issues with caring about people too much and where it can be like, "What are you doing?" But-

Bill Walker (01:04:11):
Not compromising the integrity.

Erin Alonso (01:04:13):
Don't compromise the integrity for sure. And the other thing is I think that don't listen to all the naysayers because people are always going to tell you what you can't do. I'm so glad that I never listened to everybody like, "Are you crazy to give up this job and that job and da, da, da?" And stuff like that. I'm so glad that I just loved it so much that I just put ... I couldn't hear anything anyone said. I could give two rats about what someone's opinion was and people throw their opinion whether you want it or not, here it comes. They're like ... And it's usually not to build you up, right? It's to tear you down. And so don't listen to that. If your gut knows, just tune that out and let that energy drive you to do what you want to do, but also make sure you love it because the patients will know that too. Love what you do. If you're in this for money, you're going to fold. I've watched so many of them fold. We're like, "Oh, we're just going to ... " It's a very expensive business to be in. If you think you're going to do it part-time and be a jack of all trades, good luck.

Bill Walker (01:05:25):
One saved round, final question You are by all respects, I would say the queen of aesthetics as I see so many practices and it's incredible the amount of energy and devotion that you put in your people. If you're going to look back at the princess of aesthetics and give yourself as an entrepreneur starting out one piece of advice, what is one piece of advice that the queen gives the princess as they're starting out as an entrepreneur?

Erin Alonso (01:05:57):
Trust your gut, trust yourself. There's all these people that come in as experts and have definitely driven me down wrong, wrong paths where I always ended up back on my own path because I would always be like, "Oh, they went to Harvard." They know. They know better. They know better, but there's some things you know better and then there's some things not. I knew what I knew is the thing and I compromised on the things I knew because I got thinking like this is a bigger brain or a bigger somebody and so they have to know it right. It's their right. And even when I was like, wait, this isn't the way I want to go, I still was listening to them because I got intimidated, I guess. So don't get intimidated if you know different. Stand up.

Bill Walker (01:06:49):
Trust yourself.

Erin Alonso (01:06:51):
I would tell myself also to not sweat the small stuff.You're going to get lawsuits, you're going to get bad Yelp reviews, you're going to get people that steal a whole bunch of your stuff and try to open up next door. You're going to have nurses that run parallel practices to you while they're stealing. Just put all that energy like that. These things are going to happen, but let them just be in the outskirts while you drive the train and that's it. Just know that bad things are going to happen, but that's not you. And if you stay true to it all, you're untouchable.

Bill Walker (01:07:28):
Erin, I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much for one hosting us on site.

Erin Alonso (01:07:34):
Of course. Yeah, it was fun and I'm glad to always have somebody come and chat it up and tell my story. So thanks for interviewing me and I hope somebody out there gets some pearls that if they need them that yeah, I mean, we all need a little help there and if I could help somebody that's smaller than me, I would and do. So I hope it helps someone.

Bill Walker (01:07:58):
For those of you that are listening, an incredible interview with founder and CEO of Derm FX, Erin Alonso, one of the true icons in the aesthetic industry for a couple decades of leading techniques and leading people in a space that is booming with popularity. If you're in the Orange County, Southern California coastal region, you've got to stop by Derm FX, it is quite a place to experience getting in touch with yourself and being a better person when you leave than when you came in the door.

Erin Alonso (01:08:34):
A hundred percent.

Bill Walker (01:08:36):
That's all for this episode of Aesthetic Appeal podcast. We are on site studio 1A at the Derm FX Studio as a guest host of their podcast today. If you like this episode, tune in for more just like it and if you're a founder like us and we'll get you dialed in with more founder information.

Erin Alonso (01:08:55):
Thank you guys.