331 | Persistence Powers Long-Term Growth | with Celeste Hilling

Celeste Hilling

However much you think it's going to cost, it's going to cost twice as much. And however easy you think it's going to be, it's going to be three times as hard. So I think, and that's not negative. It's just being prepared.  

Chase Clymer

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game. 

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating  real results. 

I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.

Let's get on with the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm welcoming the show Celeste Hilling, the CEO and founder of Skin Authority. Celeste, welcome to the show. 

Celeste Hilling

Oh, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.  

Chase Clymer

I am excited to chat. For those that are unaware, what are the types of products you're bringing to market over there at Skin Authority? 

Celeste Hilling

Well, we're a skin health technology company. So yes, we do make skincare. But what we're really all about is really exploring and patenting technologies that are about making you more well through your skin health, focused especially on building your immune resilience. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Because I love Shark Tank, I know how important patents are to building a healthy and thriving business.

Celeste Hilling

It's really interesting, though, when you think about particularly skin care, because you know, skin care over the years has really been considered a real fluff market, something where it's all on the surface and it's about a lot of hydration and plumping you up and vampire facials and all this good stuff and all that exists. 

But I think the reality is that what we've learned over the last 10 years in science and in research is all about you being well and being able to have prevention through the role of skin and gut play in your house. So I'm excited to see that we can bring some real necessity to taking care of your skin besides just being considered a vanity. 

Chase Clymer

I love the conversation so far. Already off track, which is the sign of a great interview. Now, all of that learning that you're making through the research and working with all these extremely smart partners, I'm assuming that just plays into the marketing message and how you communicate with your potential consumers at the end of the day.

Celeste Hilling

Absolutely. I mean a big part I used to say that my title CEO was really Chief Evangelist Officer, because I think so much of our messaging as a brand is really how important it is to really protect, you know, one of the most important organs in your body. So education, consumer education is a big part of what we do. 

But as you shared, making it fun and engaging and little sound bites that really inspire you to want to be an ambassador for your own skin health. So as a brand, we really are all about just helping you live an amazing, your best life  through loving what you see in the mirror, but also knowing that what you see in the mirror that improves is making you better at the same time. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now, take me back in time. Where did the idea for starting this business come from?

Celeste Hilling

Well, the funny part is if you'd asked me, I know how people have this story like, oh, when I was three, I knew I wanted to start a skincare company. That was not me. I have a research and technology background, as you'll find, because I am definitely the geek in the room. But sometimes life opens a door for you that you walk through that you didn't know where you should be and you land there. And I think for me, my parents, my family had a cancer episode going on and even though all three family members had different forms of cancer, they all three were vitamin D deficient.  

And it turns out that vitamin D deficiency occurs in over 98.8% of all people with cancer, 97.1% of everyone who passed away from COVID. If you have anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eczema, psoriasis, all of those things are related to vitamin D deficiency.

And what was funny is I thought you just go in the sun and you make more D, right? That's what we're told. Well, the truth is D is not a vitamin, it's a hormone. And on that journey, as we looked at how to get people I love more sufficient, it turns out that eight out of 10 of us in the United States are walking around without the hormone in our skin, which is what D is, that's necessary when light hits it to make D. So you can run around naked all day in the sun, but if you don't have that hormone, you're not going to make D.

So supplements weren't an answer because supplements are, you excrete out which you don't use. So they really never make their way to the skin. So your skin never gets what it needs from supplements to make more D when you're in the sun naturally. And natural D is more targeted at all of these benefits of the body, knowing how to be preventative and repair that you don't get through supplementation. So, you know, I became really obsessed with working with the immunologist that was working with us for treatment.

Why can't we just get the skin to make more? What's necessary? Why has no one figured this out? It can't be rocket science. Well, it turns out it is rocket science. It is really hard. But the first product we patented was a topical vitamin D that you could put on your skin that really helped your skin have D when you were in light. It's not a supplement, but it helps your skin make D when you are in light naturally. 

So it was really one of the first times where people understood the topical application of something could have a benefit beyond a cosmetic benefit. It could really be something that could trigger a response in the body that made you better. And so that's really where I saw no one talking, and I did, I went to everybody. I went and talked to the business doctor. So I won't say all of them, but everyone has a skincare brand and said, hey, I don't know how to do this. I really want you guys to do it. There's millions of people who could benefit.

And everybody just kind of rolled their eyes and said, ah, nobody cares about that. You just care about lines and wrinkles. They don't care about their wellness. And so I just said, well, I think people like me do. So, you know, I went in with those immunologists who I still work with today  and started a company really focused on not only making great technology that helps your body and your immune system through your skin health gear up, but also the education necessary. 

So, you know, why do you want to do this every day? And what are you going to benefit? And more importantly, now that people have been out there using it, we have millions of people experiencing it. You know, it's just cool every day for people to say, I not only love what I see, but more importantly, I feel happy. Like, because when your D levels are up, you're happy. So  it's wild to just see how you change people's lives. And for me personally, on my journey, if we can help people prevent getting to a place where my family members were. Then I think that's really the goal. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Do you remember what year it was that you started exploring this seriously to where you were looking for not the product itself, but for something like that in the market. And then when did you decide to take it on and do it yourself? 

Celeste Hilling

Yeah. So in the early 2000s, like 2005, 2006, I really started just looking around the market to see what was there. And I did work with a lot of existing companies out there and started really working directly through some great relationships I had in the medical community because I was co-chair of an advisory board of a major hospital here in San Diego. So I was able to reach out to that community and start working with cancer patients,  really looking at how we can improve their scenario initially. And so obviously, we're kind of cobbling together things from different companies.

But nothing really worked. Could be, nothing, everything was synthetic and on the surface. Nothing was really working down at that health level. And that's really when we decided if it is to be, I've got to go make it happen. We basically started really testing and we were really lucky to have people who believed in us, who gave us access to their patients and worked with us on that to really begin to trial a lot of these things. 

But what was great is that, you know, through that journey, you just keep as you keep plugging away, and I think that this is a message for everyone is, whatever you think it, however long you think it's going to take, it's going to take twice as long, however much you think it's going to cost, it's going to cost twice as much. And however easy you think it's going to be, it's going to be three times as hard. So I think that's not negative, it's just being prepared, you know.

And I think one of the things that we really found is that, you know, when you're doing something new and something innovative and something sort of revolutionary, it's a lonely road because,  you know, people don't often understand the concept. There's not someone who came before you. So I think in that way, I wasn't kidding about evangelizing. You know, you kind of have to believe in yourself enough to know you're on the right course and just plug away. 

Eventually, and over the next five years which is really what it took us not only to evolve our first commercial product, but also to really get the support and truly the endorsements and things we needed to really get out there. Once that started happening, it became this incredible ride, you know. But I think just making sure you take the time to really think about what it costs to do this and do you really have the capital to do to really stay the course in case things don't go the way you plan? 

And do you have access and network with people who believe in you enough that when you hit a roadblock, you can ask them to help, you know, and I think that was the big lesson for me too is like, because I'm totally type A and driven and all that good stuff is and females always feel like I have to prove everything to everyone. And I think learning to ask for help from those people that really want to help you. And they believe in you. And it's not a sign of weakness. And those people have been core to our success. 

Chase Clymer

Do you remember what year it was when the business really started to take shape? 

Celeste Hilling

Yeah. So really, I'd say 2011, 2012 were really the first year. So over 10, 15 years ago. So definitely, it took a while to get there. But that's really when we started to embrace and what happened in those years is that some of the top wellness resorts and destinations around the country where you go and you stay for four days or five days and you get a house and you learn about your health and wellness started embracing not only our products but our treatment therapies and bringing us in and exposed us to a world of consumers that were like, wow,  not only did I not know all of this  but I'm gonna take this home with me and really change my lifestyle in a positive way.

And that began a momentum, you know, to be honest, if you look at what's so unique about Skin Authority, we don't do any paid social advertising at all. None. We don't have a PR agency. Our PR agency, our partners, our customers who tell everyone about us. And now we're, you know, all across North America and Europe. So I don't advise everyone that you do that. But what I am saying is that word of mouth and belief and your ability to deliver a product that really is authentic and has integrity. It's crazy how much your rabid customers will tell everyone else about it. 

Chase Clymer

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Chase Clymer

Now, that the growth strategy at the beginning was to find these wellness centers and events and basically, if we're going to distill it down for every man or woman's business, just finding partnered events to be at and get exposure to the products?

Celeste Hilling

Yeah, and I think for me, what was really important is, I'm in an industry, you'll get skin care. You know, you have the Unilevers of the worlds and the Estee Lauders that have, you know, billion dollar advertising budgets. You know, that's not what we had. We were shoestring. My credit card was our advertising budget, you know. So I think in lots of ways, what we wanted to do was really find, but we didn't do it just going out and spray and pray. 

You know, it was really about, look, where are the likely partnerships and collaborations where we find the person, the consumer, who would be ideal for us, who would be interested in their health, their wellness, their appearance, and more importantly, really invest in that. And so we started looking at where those places were. And that was really when it started knocking on doors and saying, look, this is who I am. Here's what we can do. I think that we can help grow your business. 

And I think the way we can help grow your business is out of dimension that's a lot deeper than what's on the surface. And more importantly, you don't focus on skin because you don't think it matters in wellness, but it does. So what and by the way, everybody's buying beauty products. So why aren't you in that game if it also ties to health? So I think, you know, it was one of those things where out of the 100 people locations we talked to three were like, Yeah, let's do it. 

Chase Clymer

That's the magic number of outreach. 3% are going to probably give you time a day.

Celeste Hilling

It's so true. I think that's where I was sharing the perseverance and just believing in yourself and not, just knowing that what's funny is no was just not yet because all those people were in 80% of those places now that told us no in the beginning. So FOMO is real. You know, when competitors start doing it, they're like, oh crap, we should have probably, you know. 

So I think  it's been really good, but it's also not just that. I mean, we had a process and we had a way to ensure and I think that's the biggest learning lesson is you can't not have an infrastructure. Like you have to have it. 

You can't just have a great idea. You can't just have great relationships because when they bless you with, yeah, I want to do business with you, then you better execute because the shelf life of that yes is like six months to like what numbers are we producing? Where are we? How many people are booking because of this? Are they rebooking because of this?  

So I think, you know, that continuing to invest in making sure that we had a really thorough, know, the right information systems in the back end and ability to measure what our business was doing. We ship products, Ecommerce, Shopify, Klaviyo, you know, in the world of everything you need to support Ecommerce as well as to support your in-person in store brick and mortar. Just really understanding how to connect all those dots and building a team that will work really hard at that. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. And great segue because my next question was about when did Ecommerce become more not necessarily important, but more of a part of the business and growth strategy. 

Celeste Hilling

From day one. And I'll say this because even though it was tougher 15 years ago than now because the tools weren't as advanced. Shopify makes it so easy. I'm just using that as an example. 

Chase Clymer

I'm a Shopify fanboy and stockholder and all the work we do at the agency is Shopify. So I agree. Shopify does make things great. 

Celeste Hilling

It makes it a lot easier than like NetSuite. Because we have Oracle, we have all that stuff because there's a lot of sophisticated stuff we do on the back end with manufacturing, logistics and stuff. So we need the power of any RP like Oracle and all that. 

But I think the thing that I'd share is what's unique. And this is why to your audience, always say, you know, think about your strengths, but also think about where something, a need isn't being met, because that might be your best opportunity. And in our world, there was no connection. 

Like if you go see a doctor, right, you go to a dermatologist, you go to a wellness clinic, you go anywhere, you go to a spa vacation somewhere and you learn all these cool things, experience all these cool treatments, and then you go home and you kind of follow up a clip because there's no arms reaching out from your doctor's office or from that wellness destination or they may give you some things to take home and read, but they're not following you to your home and reaching out and saying, okay, it's day 42. 

Are you really taking what we gave you? Are you really using it? If you're not, what issues are you having? How do we help you? So we've done that from day one called Skincare Coaching, but we've done that

And we even built our own two-way video platform before Zoom was a thing. We were doing like we're doing right now, looking at people's skin, talking to them, building that relationship on behalf of our partners. So we were direct to the consumer via our partner. So we were doing home delivery, all of those things. So you needed an Ecommerce backend in order to put people on subscription and to be able to do all of those things. 

So we've been doing that for 15 years, even though you can say it's newer in the space over the last five to 10 years. I think what's newer is just the ease at which you can change, the ease at which you can be responsive to market changes because you don't have to have 20 programmers, you know, to do it or whatever. And how many amazing tools you can plug in now. 

But I think, you know, the answer to your question is really, you know, for us, it's always been vital because we want to be where our consumer wants to shop and how they want to shop and how they want to acquire things. And if that's at home, great. If it's at a destination, great. If it's down the street at Equinox when they're working out because we're in locations like that too. We want to be able to be where they are and meet them where they are and deliver to that. And Ecommerce is a huge part of supporting that. 

Chase Clymer

Now the name of the show is Honest Ecommerce. So looking back on the history of the brand, are there any mistakes? That comes to mind or just learnings that you want our listeners to know. Be like, hey, maybe don't do this. 

Celeste Hilling

Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. And yes. Yes. I would say that I wish I had the truck bed with all the dollars that I spent on things that didn't work. But I think you're not growing and you're not evolving if you're not trying things that fail. 

Because the truth is, if everything's working and nothing's a challenge, then you're pretty much just staying status quo. And that's what I say, if you're comfortable in your brand, you might want to look around because there's always someone new nipping at your heels. There's always customers that want something new and beautiful. You can't just sit there. So I think the three things I would say is, one, I know when you're self-funded, sometimes you think, wow, can I really invest in this?

But the most important thing you can invest in are great people to be on your team with you and invest in those people. Don't be afraid to pay them to be there because and fill your team with things you are really bad at. Because if you bring people great, I'm not talking about 100 people.  One amazing, two amazing team members that fill a gap that you don't know well are so worth their money in your success.

So spend on that. second part, because you will get an ROI on that. The second part is really looking at, you know, marketing is expensive and things that you need to do. But a piece of gold under a leaf is just that it's under the leaf. No one knows it's there. So, you know, you do have to build your brand, but you can be really creative. And collaborations today are pretty much a standard.

So reaching out to someone bigger, better, stronger than you and saying, hey, I'd love to collaborate. Here's what I bring. I bring something fresh, something new, maybe some new eyeballs that aren't your traditional person, but this is what we can do together. And here's what I bring to the party. That's amazing because you can leverage a halo effect of their brand and your association with that brand. it doesn't cost you what it might cost doing it on your own.  

And the last part is you might have to extend yourself sometimes. And that means taking risks and doing things that aren't. So my message is I wish I would have invested earlier in really building our brand awareness through the collaborations that we did, because I wasn't sure. To be honest, I didn't have the confidence that I could get the attention of those brands. And so I didn't even approach them sometimes. And shame on me, because now I know, and I approach them every day now.

The second part is, you know, I have surrounded myself with great people and that is something I will never regret investing in because they've lifted this ship up in a way that I would not have been able to do alone and actually helped me persevere and also gain a lot of knowledge that I didn't have, which I love. You know, our advisors, I've invited people to be our advisors who are so smart and so experienced and I don't pay them to do that.

But I do give them credit for everything they do with us and the visibility of that. And I reward them in other ways for sure, products and all kinds of things, but invisibility and engagement with our partners and open doors too for them in reverse. But really having good brains around you and I wish I would have done all that sooner. And the last, but I'm glad I did it, but just looking back. And the last thing I'd share mistakes, those are sort of what I call mistakes by waiting.

And then the last thing is sometimes you have to trust your gut when it comes to things like paid advertising, when it comes to things where you just want to follow what everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it.  And you don't trust yourself to be educated. So you invest in consulting that's going to tell you, oh, you know, we're going to give you one X ad spend. Well, one X ad spend. We guarantee one X. That just means you're just making back what you spent.

You're not growing. You're not generating revenue.  Knowing your brand, knowing your brand voice,  because those people can only be successful if you  never, guess the mistake is never delegate strategy. You can delegate anything else, but never the strategy of your brand because no one knows it better than you do.  And consumers know when it's not your voice. They know it.

And so I think making sure that whatever you're doing to advertise and market is speaking the language of the people that want to buy from you and isn't a copy of someone else. Because if it's just a copy of another brand, you copy everything they do. Who are you and who are you to them? So I think that's what I learned. I spent so much money doing that and ineffective advertising things just  because I just took the direction everyone else was taking. And so it's working for them, it must work for me. 

And I think what I learned is I pulled back on all of that, did a deep dive and analysis of where we were and just said, hey, who do we want to be? Who are we? And who are we not? Honest, you want honesty? It's who we're not. Because not everyone's your customer. And so I think  we quit trying to court someone that isn't our customer. And we put everything into the people that are. And that's when we became a rocket ship. 

Chase Clymer

Love the honesty there. Now, Celeste, you talked about how much passion you had for the products and how much thought and love went into building this business. If I'm listening to this, I'm curious about the products themselves. And I want to go check them out. Where should I go? What should I do? How can I find them?  

Celeste Hilling

Oh, you're so sweet. So skinauthority.com is the first place you can check us out. But you can also find us and you can go to our locator. But if there are beautiful wellness partners, Carillon Wellness in Miami to Canyon Ranch across the country and their different wellness resorts to  beautiful, independent, amazing skin professionals across the US. We have over 18,000 licensed professionals  using our products and treatments, selling our products to their clients. So you definitely can find us anywhere across the country, but you can also attend our master classes. 

You can sign up and get points for educating yourself knowing all about it. But really my favorite is two technologies that we've developed that I think every person needs. Obviously, I started this conversation with D because you need D to make D. So if you're not using a topical D3 plus from Skin Authority, then you need to be because that's my passion warrior of keeping you well and building up your immune resilience. And by the way, when you're D sufficient, 72 % of your thermos is collagen. So you're going to look like you had injections and super full and gorgeous, but you're also going to be healthy.

The second thing is something called a skin suit. So a skin suit is like a space suit for your skin because you and I right now,  all of us learned long ago the importance of wearing sunscreen, but only one out of four of us wear sunscreen on a daily basis. And if we do, it's on our face. And so skin cancer this year is more than the,  is experienced by more people than the top five cancers combined. 

And what's crazy about that statistic, is that it's the one cancer you can see. So none of your other cancers you can see. So this one is the one that should be the one we master. So we don't wear it. We don't like how it feels in most cases. So a skin suit, when you put it on, it just feels like you're wearing nothing. And it's a ReefSafe SPF 50. But it also blocks all the digital and wireless suns.

And we're bathing under those every day in the rays of blue light and infrared radiation and wireless technology, or 10 times the length of the sun ray. But we don't think about it that way because we don't see them. But if we could see them, we'd get out of them. So the reality is, it's not going to go away. I love technology just like you do. 

We use it extensively in what we do in development. But wearing a shield, a space suit to shield you so that environmental radiation does not affect your organs, it doesn't affect your health and damage how you look in a mirror are super important. So, skin suit for everybody. Daily dosage.  

Chase Clymer

Awesome. Celeste, thank you so much for coming on our show and sharing all those amazing insights. 

Celeste Hilling

Well, thank you for having me and good luck to everyone out there. Just remember, stay the course. It's important.  

Chase Clymer

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

You can subscribe to the newsletter at honestecommerce.co to get each episode delivered right to your inbox. 

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Lastly, if you're a store owner looking for an amazing partner to help get your Shopify store to the next level, reach out to Electric Eye at electriceye.io/connect.

Until next time!